Old furniture is having a moment, and with it a lot of loose language. A piece can be called vintage in one shop and antique in the next, and both might mean "we found it somewhere". If you are furnishing a home in Mallorca and you want something with a past, it helps to know what you are actually being offered.
We restore and sell old pieces for a living, so we are not neutral. What follows is the way we would explain it to someone standing in front of a cabinet in our showroom, asking a fair question.
Vintage, Antique, Second-Hand, Restored: What the Words Actually Mean
Antique usually means the piece is around a century old or more. It is a claim about age, and a serious one — a genuine antique should come with some account of where it has been.
Vintage is looser. It tends to mean old enough to have a character of its own, but not old enough to be an antique. Most of what people mean by "vintage furniture in Mallorca" sits here: mid-century, colonial, rustic, pieces from workshops that no longer exist.
Second-hand says nothing about age at all. It says the piece has had one owner and now wants another. A wardrobe from 1998 is second-hand. So is a teak chest from 1920.
Restored is the only one of the four that describes work. A restored piece has been taken apart, treated, repaired and finished by hand: the woodworm dealt with, the joints tightened, the old varnish taken back, the patina kept. It is the difference between buying a project and buying a piece.
That distinction is the whole of our position. We call it reborn, not resold — and we wrote in more detail about what restoring a piece of furniture actually involves.
Where Old Furniture Comes From in Mallorca
Island Finds
Mallorca has its own supply of old furniture: house clearances, inland flea markets, the classifieds, the occasional antiques dealer in Palma or an inland town. Prices can be low and the hunt is genuinely enjoyable. What you take on is the condition — pieces come as they are, transport is usually yours, and woodworm does not show up in a photograph.
Pieces That Travelled
The other source is further away. Ours is India — mostly Jodhpur and the country around it, where the furniture is chosen by hand: reclaimed teak cabinets — almirahs, as they are called there — that stood in family homes, benches worn smooth by decades of use, hand-forged iron, doors that outlived the walls they hung in. They travelled here by container, and they were restored before they were offered to anyone. Alongside the Indian furniture we bring ceramics from Mallorca and Morocco.
Neither source is better. They are different bargains: one asks for your time, the other for the work to be already done.
What to Check Before You Buy an Old Piece
Whoever you buy from — us included — these are the questions worth asking:
- Woodworm. Look for small round holes and, more tellingly, fine powder underneath. Ask whether the piece has been treated, and when.
- Solid wood or veneer. Check an edge or the underside. Solid wood can be repaired again and again; thin veneer usually cannot.
- The joints. Push gently. A piece that wobbles now will wobble more in a Mallorca summer, when humidity swings.
- What has been replaced. Handles, hinges, a back panel, a mirror plate. None of it is a problem — hiding it is.
- The story. Where it came from, roughly when, and what kind of life it had. Not every repair on a hundred-year-old piece is documented — ours included — but a seller who has looked closely can tell you where a piece has been.
We don't hide the marks: we point them out. When a piece has been given a second life, we'll tell you about the first one.
The Pieces People Look For
Cabinets and Wardrobes
The heart of what we do. Reclaimed teak and mango wardrobes, kitchen cabinets and glass-fronted display cabinets — tall, heavy, built to hold a household. Layers of old paint left visible where they are worth keeping. Cabinets and wardrobes start from €215 and run to around €3,375 for large, fully restored pieces.
Mirrors
The easiest way to live with an old object without rearranging a room. Carved wood, aged glass, iron frames. Mirrors start from €30.
Benches, Chairs and Tables
Seating carries its history most visibly — the shine on an armrest, the dip in a seat. Benches, chairs and stools start from €120; tables, from €120 up to €1,900 for large reclaimed tops.
Objects and Lamps
The pieces that finish a room rather than furnish it: pots, wooden vessels, ceramics, iron figures. Objects and accessories from €40, lamps and shades from €155.
Every piece is one of a kind. When one finds a home, it does not come back.
One thing we should be straight about: our hand-knotted Moroccan rugs — no two alike, from €950 — are an online-only collection. They are not on the showroom floor.
What Restored Furniture Costs in Mallorca
There is no single price for old furniture, because there is no single amount of work behind it. Roughly:
- A flea-market find is cheapest and honest about it. The work has not been done yet, and it may cost more than the piece.
- A restored piece costs more than the raw find and usually less than new furniture of comparable solid-wood quality. The ranges above are ours today, and they move as pieces sell.
- A genuine antique with provenance is its own market and is priced accordingly.
We publish our ranges because vagueness helps nobody. What we will not do is pretend an old piece is cheap because it is old — it is worth what the wood and the work are worth.
Living With an Old Piece
Old solid wood has already survived decades of humidity, which is a quiet argument for age over veneer on an island like this. Keep it out of direct sun, wax it once or twice a year, and let the surface keep changing — the marks it gathers with you are the next chapter, not damage.
We are not looking for perfect. We are looking for alive.
Come and Look at the Wood
Photographs flatten old furniture. Grain, weight, the softness of an edge worn by a hundred years of hands — these only exist in person.
The INDOON showroom is in Palmanyola, a short drive from Palma, open Thursday to Saturday, 10:30–15:30, and by appointment outside those hours — a WhatsApp message is enough. Come and walk among pieces that have already lived one life, and might be right for yours.