Community Highlights: Meet Victoria Apodaca of Cascas Vintage & Design

Today we’d like to introduce you to Victoria Apodaca.

Hi Victoria, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.

My love for American vintage and antiques came from my parents. They were immigrants from Peru and loved everything Americana. They also loved traveling and that was passed on to us kids and grandkids.

Design and travel to me go together. Just the fact that when people move from country to country, city to city, or state to state, they bring things from their old homes and it transforms and merges into a new life. I’m all about incorporating vintage or “saved” pieces in every design.

I just finished working on a restaurant whose inspiration was Colonial Mexico so I took the owners to San Miguel de Allende and they fell in love with the architecture. San Miguel is a haven for great art and Mexican antiques. Before I became a designer, I was a buyer for a furniture store. What an amazing time that was traveling and buying, couldn’t believe my luck! And I knew pretty much what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. However, the market crash in 2008 happened and I had to adjust to the new way of doing business. The design was changing, builders and contractors were going out of business.. and so did the company I was working for.

I jumped ship and started my own company. No one was buying new furniture, people were more internet savvy, and it was a perfect storm. So I took on small projects, just furniture, and home remodels. At first, it was scary but little by little I learned more about the construction side of the business. Worked with a few contractors doing bathroom & kitchen remodels. When everyone started scaling down they also lightened up their look. With lighter furniture, lighter walls, and open kitchen plans, it was out with the old-world look and hello Restoration Hardware look. And underneath that was an evolution of sorts.

Young people did not want their parent’s old world furniture. Suddenly they wanted painted pieces mixed in with an antique piece they found at a flea market. They wanted their grandmother’s old settee reupholstered in a hot pink crushed velvet. We had to change our plan again, I went to upholstery school and learned how to refinish and paint furniture. So in addition to small remodels I started doing flea markets from San Diego to Alameda. It was tough, I started with a friend and my brother and at times it was 4 am-4 pm every Sunday for years.

We finally got smart and rented warehouse space to house vintage pieces but items for clients and staging. In 2017, we opened a 2nd location in Newport Beach but thankfully we moved everything back to Huntington Beach because Covid was right around the corner!

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
I think speaking for myself once I started my own business in 2008 there was a sense of relief. I did not have to worry about my job status if I worked for myself. My husband is an entrepreneur and he is my cheerleader. At first, my Dad was freaking me out because he had always worked for a big company.

He was afraid I was making a big mistake by quitting my job. I didn’t want to go down with the ship and the company I worked for was not evolving with the trends. I wanted to progress. I’ve tried hard to be fluid with my business over the years, grow, and shrink when I needed to. I started in my garage and then moved to a little warehouse. I think we’ve moved 4 times since 2010. For me the struggle over the years was trusting my gut when it came to aligning myself with others that didn’t share the same ethics when it came to business. There are a lot of self-serving people in this world.

Another struggle how you react when think go sideways. This year at our new office space, an old water heater located above the office burst and flooded the entire unit. That resulted in damages to my unit and valuable inventory. It was the first time I was faced with this type of adversity. I’ve seen couples break up over remodels, arguments, and heated discussions when it comes to construction. This was my initial exposure to the world of abatement, asbestos, and mold.
I tell you I learned A-LOT! I learned about rental agreements, insurance coverage, and the abatement process! But I got through it and have a brand new studio and warehouse to work out of. I can relate to clients who have gone thru remediation, ugh..not fun.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
First, the name of my company name comes from my Mom’s background. Cascas is the name of the city in Peru where my Mom was born and wanted to be buried. Her whole family is in the only cemetery there. When I first toyed with the idea of starting my own company, that name kept popping up in my head. I used an old photo of her for my logo. We do everything from the ground up, residential & commercial design. When I started my company I just did furniture space planning, custom window treatments, and color consultations, but always incorporated vintage or antiques in every design.

That came out of necessity. I would do house calls and clients would show me pieces that were special to them because maybe it was passed down to them or they discovered when they were cleaning out their parent’s house. So my job was to modify the space plan to include those pieces. I love that kind of personal design. Another part of our business that came out of necessity was reupholstery. Reupholstering chairs, settees & sofas that my clients wanted to keep but needed some “love”. You do not know what you’ll find when you open up a chair from the 1800s-1940s.

It’s either magic or tragic. I look at it like I’m saving from putting more things in a landfill. It’s not just upholstery we save or reuse, we have over 400 vintage books & 500 vinyl records in our warehouse. It’s a mindset nowadays, younger clients love to mix and match eras. The rules are thrown out the window! They’ll slap paint on an antique passed down from their grandparents and not think twice about it. I know it sounds cringey to some people to paint an antique but necessity is the mother of invention. In this case the economy was moving design in a different direction. And it was good for recycling too.

Once my clients and I decide on a design, we shop together to find the pieces and finishes that they want.

Warehouses, flea markets, and small companies (I call them artists) that I’ve discovered over the years that make custom iron, wall finishes, and even trees. I also believe every room in a home, restaurant, or office space should be functional and visually amazing. That’s what we try to achieve in our designs.

Who else deserves credit for your story?
First I have to say my parents for even having the courage to come to another country back in the early ’60s. From Peru to Chicago! It took “Ganas” as we say in Spanish.

The first client I took on a buying trip (who is still a client) told me to put some money away from that first project and purchase an iPhone and computer. Which I did and he was right, it changed the whole way I do business.

I mentioned my husband before. He is a realist and believe me there were times my bank account was close to zero and he kept encouraging me to push on. I’m glad he did because just when I would feel defeated I would get a new client.

I did a small remodel at a beach house in Corona Del Mar in 2012, unbeknownst to me I was working in a house that was for a family of 4 generations in the restaurant business. Looking back I’m glad I didn’t know, I would have been nervous. They then gave me my first shot at remodeling restaurants. It was an amazing project & I have lifelong friendships from that experience.

My father-in-law said something to me when I first started my company, he said “surround yourself with great people”. That definitely stuck with me, especially in the last restaurant project I did in Oxnard. I’m so proud of my team and how this restaurant came out. It’s beautiful top to bottom! From the wall finishes to the art pieces, the light fixtures, trees, handmade tables, to the tile! I took the owners to Mexico and we picked out all the special artifacts that are now in the restaurant. There’s a beautiful panel in the restaurant of Frida Kahlo we installed that we found on its side outside! We all felt like it was saved. We saved a lot of pieces on that trip. What a treat it was and I will always be grateful to the Renezeders for the opportunity and the trust they put in me.

Contact Info:

• Website: cascasvintagedesign.com
• Instagram: @CascasVintageDesign
• Facebook: cascasvintagedesign
• Youtube: cascasimports
• Yelp: cascasvintage&design