Hello! Introducing Second Best

An interiors newsletter-come-love-letter to all things second-hand

Looks like a lot of people had ‘start a Substack’ on their list of goals for 2024. Well, guess what…

Introducing Second Best

A newsletter-come-love-letter to all things second-hand (mainly interiors related) and a space for me to dive a bit deeper into my preoccupation with 'finding nice old things'.

So what can you expect in your inbox? I’ll go into this in more detail at the bottom of this post but (depending on whether you’re a free or paid subscriber) you’ll get a mix of antique and vintage shopping tips, interiors inspiration centred around the use of second-hand objects and reclaimed materials, both from my own home and others I admire, the odd interview, a bit of renovation chat, plus monthly curated round-ups of delicious second-hand bits and pieces I’ve scoured the internet for.   

First things first, a quick (ok not that quick) introduction.

Hello, I'm Rachael. After graduating in 2014, I lived in London for six years, working in marketing and social media at pre-owned luxury fashion site Vestiaire Collective (which I loved) and Soho House (which I loved less). In 2020, following the first lockdown in London, my boyfriend and I made the impromptu and somewhat rogue decision to move out of the city and buy a small run-down red-brick Victorian house in Oxfordshire, in the town we grew up in. Fun fact, I'd been casually watching the house for over a year on Rightmove before we bought it. I'd gone over the listing so many times wondering why it hadn't sold, and my curiosity increased (as the price slowly decreased).

Undertaking a property rennovation was a long-time shared dream of ours and seeing as we couldn't afford to buy in London and with all the uncertainty of Covid, it felt like a good time to take a few years away from the city. Fortuitously, I was made redudant from Soho House in the same month that we got the keys and moved out of our shared London flat. A decent redundancy package meant I didn't need to jump straight back into work and allowed us to embrace full-time renovation work for a few months that winter (over the second lockdown) before moving into the house in March 2021.

I shared some of our renovation journey on my Instagram @rachael__cooney, including the unearthing of the original checkerboard quarry tile floor in what is now (and would originally have been) the kitchen, which attracted a fair amount of interest and is when I started to grow a small following. Alongside my own interiors, I tend to mostly share second-hand finds, those I have and haven't purchased, so if you follow me on insta, thank you, and hopefully this feels like a natural and more orderly extension of some of the things I chat about there. 

Fast forward two years, due to work commitments (and I won’t pretend, the fact we missed London), we decided to rent the house out and move back into shared accomodation with friends. Fast forward three years and I'm about to return to the UK after quitting my job at Daylesford Organic as Creative Content Manager and taking some time out to go travelling. It might seem a bit strange to have renovated a house, only to then leave it (even if temporarily) but I'm all in favour of doing life in a slightly random order, or rather leaning in to whatever works for you. I won't pretend it wasn't difficult to move out of the house and put everything in storage - I think it's fair to say our families thought we were a bit mad. But I'm also obviously incredibly grateful for both the freedom to travel and to have our foot on the property ladder at all. I'll be back in London at the end of March and attempting to navigate some sort of career transition from social media into the world of interiors... which I might also occasionally talk about here. Watch this space.

Aside from being a lifelong bookworm, my only other apparent hobby these days is channeling my magpie like tendancy for second-hand sourcing. If you do follow me on Instagram, you'll have probably realised that if I'm not deep scrolling Facebook Marketplace or eBay, I'm usually to be found nosing around in charity shops, perusing antique fairs or rummaging through salvage yards and car boot sales. The thrill of the hunt as they say. Or rather, the bargain hunt. 

But in all seriousness, I am truly, madly, deeply committed to buying whatever I can second-hand, be it furniture, clothes, books, art, fabric, kitchen utensils, jewellery. In a world of exhuasting, depressing over-consumption, I strongly believe in the value and importance of extending the life of older pieces and repurposing existing or reclaimed materials. Not only is it better for the environment, it's generally a lot kinder on the old purse strings too meaning it's a sustainable choice but also a practical and inclusive one too.

I would also argue that older pieces bring a depth of character and unique interest to interiors both old and new (though I acknowledge personal taste is a key factor here), and encourages an individualistic and arguably more timeless take on the way we decorate our homes, rather than trying to keep up with trends that will come and go.

I'll finish with saying that my biggest hope with Second Best is to encourage and inspire as many readers as possible to fall in love with the joy of buying second-hand. I hope this space becomes a really useful resource, and that it makes the idea of buying second-hand and pre-owned feel like an easy, accessible and most-importantly a desirable alternative.

The nitty gritty:

I'll be aiming to post on Substack/send a newsletter once a week and roughly a third of my content will remain free to all subscribers. Free subscribers will receive one newsletter a month, plus the odd extra. Paid subscribers will receive everything - that’s four newsletters a month, of various subject matter. Of those four, I'll have two regular formats:

1). A curated list of 8-12 second-hand pieces that have caught my eye going out at the start of each month (available to paid subscribers only).

2). A general reflection at the end of each month (this will be free and available to all subscribers) which will include a few various things but usually an interior I’ve loved and some pieces inspired by it, a purchase I might have made, and a recommendation or two.

Although I appreciate there's a lot of stiff competition on Substack these days, if you're able to become a paid subscriber and support me with a subscription of £5 a month, it will make a real difference to the amount of time and additional content I can write and produce. Please feel free to comment below with any requests or subjects you'd like me to cover, or share your thoughts (good and bad) on second-hand shopping, or perhaps just a recent gem you found. I'd love to hear from you.  

Last thing - I'd really appreciate any shares on Instagram (or whichever social platform you use) if you find my content useful or enjoyable, and would recommend to a friend.

Bye for now!