EASTHAMPTON — Vintage markets commonly feel like a grandmother’s attic: cramped and crowded with old knickknacks and collectibles stuffed into every shelf and drawer, and wardrobes full of dresses and jackets that have seen more moth balls and dust than wear time.

But that’s not the case at Keystone Vintage Market, which uses its unusual location and unique features — large windows and tall ceilings, for example — in the old Keystone Building to its advantage, transforming a cramped storefront into an open space with sunshine illuminating the bright colors of mid-century and modern trinkets, fabrics, clothes and furniture.

“Customers always say the vibe in here is really cool because it’s industrial,” owner and founder Jasmine Montanaro said. “People love that it’s bright, that things are laid out, because a lot of vintage stores are very dark, and they have like cubbies, and we don’t have a lot of that, and so I get a lot of compliments.”

It took six years before Keystone Vintage Market, formally known as Vintage Cellar East, settled into its home at the old mill building on Pleasant Street, but the location is one of the keys to the store’s success. The other, Montanaro said, is the endless work each of the 28 vendors and artists puts into their booths: curating items, adding new merchandise, even just shuffling things around keeps a store of old things feeling fresh and exciting.

“We have a really good selection, like people are bringing in their best stuff,” Montanaro said. “They’re really being selective when they bring stuff in.”

Before Keystone Vintage Market, Montanaro sold, painted and reupholstered furniture in a market in Northampton until the store closed, leaving her and other sellers at the store without anywhere else to go. Without a new home to sell from, she created a storefront, now known as The Vintage Cellar on Bridge Street, with several other vintage sellers, including current owner Dan Egan. Montanaro helped manage the Vintage Cellar, learning more about marketing and little business tasks along the way, until she decided eight years ago to start her own place in Easthampton.

“I chose Easthampton because I could tell it’s kind of an up and coming town,” she said. “It was in the outskirts of Northampton. It had a really great vibe. Cottage Street over there was really cool back then. It had a lot of galleries, and restaurants were there, there was music, and there still is.”

The storefront on Cottage Street, called Vintage Cellar East, was small and cramped, but it’s where Emily Ayer, founder of Vintage Emmaloos Bizaar and a vendor at Keystone Vintage Market, fell in love with antiques. Ayer frequently shopped at Vintage Cellar East for the three years it lived on Cottage Street, gathering more and more items that “my grandmother had in her house, things that bring me back to my childhood.”

When Montanaro realized the prime location on Cottage Street was too small and lacked the foot traffic she needed to stay open, she decided to move into the Keystone Building and asked Ayer to be a vendor at her new location.

“I love vintage fabrics. I’m a huge fabric collector and lover,” Ayer said. “It kind of hit me one day to reupolster a seat with really cool velvet fabric I got from an estate sale and it sold quickly.”

The first couple years were slow, and it would take a couple years before Montanero changed the store’s name from Vintage Cellar East to Keystone Vintage Market, but the new location opened up space for more vendors and artisans.

Ayer sells retro clothes, kitschy knickknacks and refurbished mid-century and modern furniture using new and vintage fabrics, but both Montanaro and Gerry Lafleur also sell refurbished and renovated furniture. Under the name Tiny Moose Vintage, Lafleur and his wife Michele travel from estate sale to estate sale, finding strictly mid-century and modern piece of furniture to, as Montanro said, “bring back from the dead.”

“Furniture is a funny thing in that it’s a commitment.” Gerry Lafleur said. “I can go into Keystone and poke around and find a little dish and it’s only $12 and stick it somewhere in my house. But if you buy a coffee table or a cabinet, it’s a lot more money, but you also have to move it, you have to have a place for it and a need for it.”

The Tiny Moose Vintage booth stands out the most from the other booths because the Lafleurs organize the spot almost like a room, with a lot of space to walk around and see all sides of the furniture.

“People tell us ‘your booth feels like a room,’ and that’s sort of the vibe we’re going for,” Gerry said. “If you look at modernism, it was a very clean look and purposeful, so we try to have our booth fit that feel.”

While Tiny Moose Vintage is the most distinct booth, each vendor styles their space slightly differently.

Starry Eyed Vintage sells clothes out of a closet-shaped room, with styles ranging from the 1940s to the 1990s.

Broken Broom uses wicker furniture and neutral brown pallets to show off vintage embroidery and nature-themed trinkets.

Vintage Shop Easthampton, owned by Julie Zuckman, works with vintage and “vintage-adjacent” items, keeping real vintage next to new items that style well with vintage pieces.

“I upcycle stuff. If something has a tear, I will fix it,” Zuckman said. “People have different MOs. Some people find it, throw it on a hanger, price it, put it in the shop. I’m fussier.”

The variety of vendors brings in a huge age range of customers. Both Zuckerman and Montanaro pointed out that younger people spend hours hunting through the vintage clothing racks, which make up roughly 20% of all the store’s sales. Mid-aged and older customers often browse through the vintage trinkets and furniture, looking to spruce up their space at home or relive the joy of an old memory.

Buy low and sell higher, but not too high, Zuckman said, is a key philosophy for many of the sellers at Keystone Vintage in order to move merchandise rather than allow it to collect dust in the store. The price point is a major draw for people, and Montanaro said items move fast because of its affordability.

“We had a sign that said the item that you saw yesterday and came in for today, somebody saw it the day before and came in yesterday,” she added. “I always tell people if you like it, you should get it.”

Keystone Vintage Market has tripled in size and sales compared to where the business started, Montanaro said, and the line at the register isn’t the only wait at the store. Montanaro has a list of at least 50 vendors, all hoping to set up shop and tap into the store’s loyal customers.

Vintage seller Wendy Sheldon noted that the business model really helps with exposure.

“It’s a group shop so maybe customers don’t come in for my booth,” she said, “but as they’re coming around the shop, they might see something in my booth that they end up purchasing. There’s a good variety of the shop and I think that attracts people of all ages.”

Emilee Klein can be reached at eklein@gazettenet.com.