Curran and Marymar Fudge are turning architectural salvage into an experience, and a love letter to preservation.
Walk through the doors at Dead People Stuff and you immediately get it.
This is not a quiet antique shop where you shuffle past dusty shelves. This is a full-blown world. A 40,000-square-foot warehouse in Oklahoma City packed with architectural antiques, stained glass, hardware, doors, reclaimed lumber, vintage oddities, and enough one of a kind pieces to make your brain short-circuit in the best way.
"You want to check out some funky junk? Come on in!"
Dead People Stuff is part antique warehouse, part design playground, part preservation mission, and part hangout spot. It is a collective where you can grab coffee, eat barbecue, maybe get a tattoo, and then wander for an hour just getting lost in the past.
Meet the Fudges (and the newest addition)
Curran and Marymar are the kind of couple who can make a huge warehouse feel personal. They are hands-on, curious, and clearly obsessed with the stories behind what they sell. You might even meet their newest team member, their six-month-old baby, Amelia Allesandre Fudge the Great, who joins them during the tour like she owns the place.
In a way, she does.
Because Dead People Stuff is built like a family project. Not a corporate concept. Not a trendy flip. A life they’ve shaped together.
The showroom: stained glass, statement pieces, and "how much for all of it?"
The tour starts in the front showroom, where the light does most of the talking.
Stained glass filters natural light across feature pieces and curated vignettes. Curran points out his favorite glass in the shop, a rare set of German glass that dates back to the 1700s. It made its way to Kansas in the 1800s, and years later, Curran and Marymar bought it on Marymar’s birthday after a museum trip that turned into one of those “we cannot leave this behind” moments.
That’s part of the magic here. Their best pieces often come with a story that feels like a chase.
The showroom also highlights what Dead People Stuff does best: collaboration between salvage and design. They find old doors and old windows, then marry them into something new. It is preservation, but it is also reinvention. A door sourced in Round Top, Texas becomes the base. Glass sourced through Kansas, originally from the Northeast, becomes the soul. Then their team makes it work.
They aren’t just selling objects. They’re curating possibilities.
The warehouse: 22-foot ceilings and life-size Tetris
Then you step into the warehouse, and the scale hits you.
The ceilings climb to 22 feet. The room holds massive architectural pieces that would swallow a normal store whole. And the building itself has history: it originally served as a 1940s Caterpillar facility, complete with cranes that are still operational today.
Those cranes were built to move heavy machinery. Now they’re used to hang, lift, and curate gigantic salvage pieces that would be impossible to handle otherwise.
Curran laughs about the endless lights suspended overhead. Getting them up is the worst part. Once they’re installed, they disappear into the air like they were always meant to be there.
The warehouse is also the result of endurance. They bought the building in 2017. Dead People Stuff has existed since 1978, but when the Fudges took over, the place needed serious help. When it rained, the warehouse functioned like a funnel, and water would pour in. They were renovating while keeping the store operating because they needed the sales to survive.
In other words: the dream required grit.
The showpieces: big risk, bigger reward
Every antique store has a few pieces that feel legendary. Dead People Stuff has many.
Curran points out a massive drugstore mirror from Weatherford, Oklahoma, so large it took a dozen people to place and install. Moving it was sketchy. Lifting it made him sweat. It is in two pieces. It is worth it.
That is the pattern here. Big pieces. Big stories. Big effort.
And because they buy in bulk, the collection is always growing. Curran jokes that his real job is life-size Tetris, constantly shifting inventory like a puzzle so the next wave of treasures can fit.
The hardware shop: for people want "proper and period"
For homeowners and builders restoring old houses, Dead People Stuff is a resource. The hardware shop is packed with pieces that help keep historic homes true to their era: glass knobs, door knockers, and period-correct details for bungalows, Tudors, and Arts and Crafts style homes.
Curran even breaks down how stamped versus cast hardware changes the value and the price, which is exactly the kind of detail preservation people care about.
The lumber rack: "Our boutique Home Depot"
Ask Curran his favorite section and he points to the reclaimed lumber rack.
It’s the picker section. Wood that looks rough until you realize what it can become. Curran admits he’s the number one customer, pulling from it for restorations, framing, and shop projects. Marymar calls it their Home Depot, except boutique.
This is where their ethos lives:
Reduce, Reuse, Upcycle
Door, a hearse, and movie magic
Doors are the main seller, and once you see the rows of them, that makes perfect sense.
One of those doors even ended up on screen. Curran mentions that a door from their shop was used as the main house door in Killers of the Flower Moon.
And yes, they also have a 1969 Cadillac hearse wrapped in skulls. It’s a showpiece. It’s ridiculous. It’s perfect.
Come for the treasure, stay for the mindset
Dead People Stuff is a builder’s paradise, but you don’t have to be a builder to enjoy it. You don’t need a plan. You don’t even need to buy anything.
You just come in and get lost.
Curran and Marymar are passionate about historic preservation, but they’re also trying to shift how people think. A crack or a ding doesn’t mean something is trash. It means it has life left. It can be repaired. It can be reused. It can be carried forward.
Their slogan says it best: bringing the past into the future.
And the best way to understand it is to walk in, wander for an hour, and see what finds you.
Learn more about Dead People's Stuff by visiting their website (www.deadpeoplesstuffok.com) or their shop at:
1900 Linwood Blvd, Oklahoma City, OK 73106