Chris and Harold Woody love the thrill of the hunt. Since they were married twenty-five years ago, the couple have scoured auctions, flea markets, salvage shops, and antique stores in search of antiquated treasures. In August 2001 the Tidewater, Va., natives moved into a circa-1928 two-story stucco frame house in Annapolis, serendipitously located across the street from the cramped bungalow where they had lived for the previous seventeen years. “We were thrilled when it came on the market,” says Harold, a burly, soft-spoken fortysomething with salt-and-pepper hair and beard. “It was the Hope Diamond in the rough. We loved the layout of the house—the glassed-in porch, the columns in the living room—it had so much character. It just needed some TLC.”

After five months of light cosmetic work to the house, the Woodys, along with their three dogs, moved in and began arranging their collections. “This is the house that we were always waiting to fill,” says the ever upbeat Chris, a former flight attendant, from her perch on a cushioned chrome kitchen barstool. “The interior design is based around our collections. The style is eclectic, and I definitely knew I wanted the kitchen to be done in a 1950s decor.”

Chris used two of her favorite pieces around which to plan the room’s décor: a Fifties Tappan stove that a collectibles-dealer friend found for them, and her parents’ vintage percolating coffeepot, which she swears could out-brew a Krups any day. She traces her affection for that era to her first two apartments, in which both kitchens had old-fashioned drainboard sinks. To her delight, while cleaning out the basement in their new home, Chris discovered the kitchen’s original drainboard sink. “As much as I loved the house, I was most excited about the sink,” says Chris with a laugh. “How shallow is that?

Before the Woodys began decorating, they gutted the kitchen, leaving only the original built-in china hutch with wainscoting doors, which now holds their extensive jadeite tableware collection. They hired Annapolis custom cabinetmaker Kerry O’Neill to design two glass-front cabinets, accented with art deco chrome handles, for extra storage space. The last steps were to the paint the walls white, tear out the linoleum floor, and install a heart pine floor, giving the space a clean, classic look. O’Neill also designed the focal point of the room, an island covered with an art deco enamel tabletop found at Dixon’s Furniture in Crumpton, Md. Taking advantage of every inch of available space, they mounted a mini-bar on the wall next to the hutch using an enamel table leaf. It’s become Chris’s favorite place to read the mail.

Adorning the room’s wall racks are 1950s floral napkins and tablecloths in bold primary colors: red, orange, blue, yellow. On a corner shelf near the sink sits tin canisters and vintage splash bowls by Fire-King. Crocheted potholders discovered at yard sales hang from wall hooks, alongside a framed display of antique seed packets, a reflection of Chris’s love of gardening.

The dining room is packed with collections, including custard cups, McCoy pottery, and hanging wall vases. Harold, a structural engineer for a major railroad, found a rectangular conference table and a wooden filing cabinet while surveying the old Camden Yards warehouse before its transformation into a baseball stadium. The conference table became a dining room table, and the filing cabinet an unusual storage space for linens and flatware. Recalls Harold, “I just happened to see that they were throwing out these pieces, and I rescued them before they went to the dump. I didn’t even have to refinish them, only a little light sanding to clean them up and shake out the wrinkles.”

In the adjoining living room, watering cans of all sizes sit on the mantle, stacked picnic baskets serve as an end table, and a grass rug with an art deco design, bought at an estate sale in Bel Air adorns the floor. Currently, Chris is collecting coolers, but her latest, greatest find is much larger: a 1970s 12-foot Fleetwing camper she has decorated in a cowboy chic motif. She’s planning to take it on a fly-fishing trip to Montana next year.

An old-fashioned washstand on wheels turned into a coffee table is fronted by a grass-green loveseat where the Woodys and their treasured dogs congregate in front of the gas fireplace. The couple has, by necessity, acquired many dog beds, too—there’s one in the finished attic, two in the bedroom, and two in the living room. “Of course, the guests trip all over them,” says Chris, “but that’s not important, because the dogs are happy.”

Christmas is when Chris gets the chance to show off her holiday collectibles. In the kitchen, she strings old-fashioned green and red soft-glow lights over the windows above the sink. On the living room table she sets a battery jar filled with German tree ornaments inherited from her grandmother, and on the window sills flanking the fireplace, she positions her bottle brush tree collection. On a miniature tinsel Christmas tree hang classic ornaments as well as tiny reproductions of 50s kitchen appliances, a gift from her cabinetmaker. Her newest holiday addition is a plastic Santa collection, which even she admits is over the top. Recalls Chris, “When Harold first saw them he said, ‘Chris, you’re not!’ But he goes with it.”

The porch, which doubles as Chris’s greenhouse, is equally festive, decorated with a 1930s antique aluminum tree found at Annapolis’ Featherstone Square Antiques Mall, traditional white lights, and red cyclamen nestled in galvanized buckets on windowsills. Even in the winter Chris admits that she always has something blooming—by her last count, there were thirty-five plants in the house alone, not counting those residing on the porch. With the help of the porch’s space heater, the winterberry, ferns, and amaryllis thrive year-round.

Chris periodically changes the pillows or slipcovers to give the house a fresh look. She also moves pictures and rotates collectibles with those that are stored. “Change is a really important element to me,” she says. “And Harold enjoys that, too. He always says that I’m a chameleon because I have totally different tastes at different times. But Harold I’m really stuck on, so I don’t change that!”

In an attempt to thin out some of their collections, the Woodys rent space at Featherstone Square Antiques Mall, where they and nearly one hundred other dealers sell their goods. But Chris admits that their efforts to scale back their hobby seem to have backfired. Every time they drop off a piece, they end up buying something from someone else to take home.

“The goal is to stop collecting and to selectively collect,” says Chris. “But I’ll always be collecting something. I think when you’re a collector, you’re probably a collector for life.”