On a ten-acre plot of rolling green grass between Round Top and La Grange, Amy and Brian Kleinwachter, the owners of Old World Antieks, and their two children are barbecuing in the salvaged silo kitchen in the backyard of their dream home. The Kleinwachters, who own Old World Antieks, built their home almost entirely out of architectural antiques and salvaged materials from around the world.

The Kleinwachters both inherited what Brian calls “the old antique bug.” After a childhood spent exploring his mom’s three antique stores, he made a career of dealing at antique shows around Colorado, where he met Amy. “We met at one of the shows,” Brian says. ”She was a customer, I was selling, and the sparks flew.”

After moving to Round Top, the Kleinwachters bought a 1920s two-bedroom barn house and opened up Old World Antieks in La Grange, which has grown into a 40,000 square-foot maze of hand-picked treasures from thirteen countries.

Now that the Kleinwachters know the potential of salvaged materials, they’re already thinking about their next project. “Our goal someday is to build another house like this in the area,” Brian says. “Maybe we will do that once a year and make every house unique and different, using all these great-reclaimed materials like the ones we have in our house.”

After many years in the antique business, Brian and Amy have learned how to repurpose almost any salvaged piece. The “Pride of the Farm” stamped drum above the Egyptian chandelier in the dining room, for instance, is the former top of an old pig feeder. “Amy came up with the genius idea to use it as a focal piece around the chandelier so we made a fixture out of it,” Brian says. The chandelier gives off warm yellow hues, but not without the help of fifteen Edison bulbs that they lined around the inside of the ring.
Photography by Ryann Ford
The Kleinwachters began looking for a special sign when they started stockpiling materials and antiques for their home. Amy watched a dealer unload “The Famous Blue Haven” sign off his truck in Warrington one day and told Brian she’d found the one. Originally from a 1940s Supper Club in upstate New York, it was miraculously still in perfect working condition.
Photography by Ryann Ford
Gathered over the years on trips to Europe, Amy’s collection of pocket Bibles and house crosses speak to her faith. They're on display in a peanut dispenser from 1910, sitting on a wooden table in her dining room alongside an antique curio box from Park Hill Collection antiques in Little Rock, Arkansas, filled with old family photographs.
Photography by Ryann Ford
Inspired by the tower atop an old house in the movie "Secondhand Lions," the Kleinwachters decided to incorporate a 19th-century church steeple as a focal point on the exterior of the house.
Photography by Ryann Ford
The raised bar in the kitchen is one of many structures that Brian built in their home. He used an original store counter from Europe for the island and attached a long piece of reclaimed wood with old plumping pipes to create an elevated and industrial-style space. Like the chandelier and pig feeder light fixture in the dining room, the rusted pulley lights in the center of the kitchen are one of the Kleinwachter’s Old World Antieks creations. “Our passion is architecture lighting. Whenever we see a unique piece, we will rewire it and make a light out of it. That is something I personally love,” Brian says.
Photography by Ryann Ford
Max, one of the Kleinwachters’ three dogs, lounges in the natural lighting streaming through the two salvaged living room doors. The Kleinwachters were adamant about using all reclaimed doors in the house, even though they are one of the more tricky things to install and often requiring straightening to fit properly. The door with etched glass windows leading to the master bedroom is one of the most unique: originally a front door on a Victorian house in New York, it still bears the original address markers.
Photography by Ryann Ford
The Kleinwachters placed a confession plaque from an old church and an antique “No Beer or Wine Sold to Minors” sign at their son Blake’s bedroom door for a little family humor.
Photography by Ryann Ford
Oakley (pictured) peers out from his salvaged doghouse, which Brian built out of reclaimed materials from Europe, Egypt and the U.S. After making Oakley’s home, the Kleinwachters and their Old World Antieks team started making similar one-of-a-kind doghouses to sell in the store.
Photography by Ryann Ford
Blake swings from the main beam in the kitchen on an antique wooden swing, with a seat engraving that reads, “I think to myself, what a wonderful life.” Amy found the swing years ago and convinced Brian to let her put it in the kitchen. “I was questioning it, but now it's like the coolest thing in the house,” he says.
Photography by Ryann Ford
The Petersburg First Baptist Church registry is one of many old church pieces that the Kleinwachters have incorporated into their home.
Photography by Ryann Ford
The “Violin Maker and Repairer” sign was a perfect addition to Amy’s collection of old violins.
Photography by Ryann Ford
Brian planned to make a simple platform treehouse for the kids, but as he started building, he added more and more details. “It became kind of the inspiration to the house, because I finished it first," he says. "People were going nuts for it, and we started to figure out how we could use reclaimed wood for our house structure."
Photography by Ryann Ford
Amy has been collecting old violins for years. After storing them in a number of different baskets and displays, she decided to put only a few on display in an old wooden box, originally from Hoffmann’s Starch Factory in Salzuflen, Germany.
Photography by Ryann Ford
In the kitchen, an old church register hangs on the wall. Bought by Amy’s mother on one of their mother-daughter antiquing trips a year before she passed away, it holds special memories for Amy, who has shared her love for antiques with her mom since she was a child.
Photography by Ryann Ford
Two years before building the home, the couple began collecting pieces from local antique shows and trips to Europe, as well as salvaged wood from barn demolitions in Iowa and Illinois for the home they’d both been envisioning. “If we saw something really special we would put it away and always say, ‘this will be for our house someday,’” Brian says.
Photography by Ryann Ford