Vintage & Flea Market Success; time for finishing touches!

Tonight, we cracked our “We’re DONE!” champagne! We’re not completely done but it’s finally starting to feel more like a home and less like a building site.

Today’s visit to the Bath Racecourse Vintage & Flea Market was a huge success. We found quite a few items from our eBay wishlist at a fraction of the cost.

We’ve even started to hang pictures!

This world map poster brings a bit of colour into the bathroom.

The bathroom is the most “done” room in the flat. We haven’t found a mirror yet, though, so more pictures to follow…

Remember the sagging ducting?

Chris has fixed it! He just kind of made up a solution while I was working on something else, but it looks pretty ‘textbook’ (as he says).

Meanwhile, I stained the coffee table with real, dark roast coffee! It gave me a chance to try out the new Nespresso. I didn’t actually drink any of the espresso. We have one in the office so I can vouch for it, though.

Might I just remind you of what the coffee table looked like before. I haven’t got a better photo, unfortunately, but you can tell that it looks too white for the zebra rug.

They looked nicer together after I washed the table in coffee:

Another project now finished is my pop art Beano comic chair.

I’ve coated it in varnish so it has a slight sheen on it.

The beano chair was a really fun project that came as a result of buying an ugly lime green chair online. I either had to get creative with it or pay for return shipping.

Going through Chris’s old Beano comics was really fun, too. I found lots of old cards from his mum wishing him luck on his exams and stuff.

Another super quick DIY project is this porthole mirror. I found it at the vintage market for £8 and didn’t even bother bartering. Here’s the before:

I knew that there was some brass under there! A quick sand later and I have a lovely brass convex mirror. These things sell on eBay for £40+! Here’s the subtle after result:

Over in the kitchen, things are falling into place.

Not bad, eh? The green scales were purchased this morning for £10. The print we got several months ago from Top Banana Antiques in Tetbury.

This vintage toffees ad is from Top Banana as well. We also got a drying rack and cleaned up from our curry on Friday night. Sorry for the blurry photo; I will take better ones for the AFTER AFTER pics next week!

The rest of the kitchen leaves a little to be desired. I can’t wait for Will’s massive abstract painting to fill the wall!

On the left, you’ll see a partially finished alcove with vintage car ads. The ads are from Top Banana and the light is a FORSÅ Work lamp from IKEA.

Something needs to go on the top, but I’m not sure what. Ideas? Disregard the chip missing that I have yet to glue back on…

The other two alcoves are looking pretty good, too. They could very well change completely by next week, but here’s where we’re at so far:

Everything on the left we got from the flea market this morning. I kind of feel like there isn’t enough height in this alcove, but I’ll deal with that later. More crates, perhaps? A tall plant?

The 40s stage light is pretty fantastic and possibly my favourite thing in the entire flat. In antiques shops and on eBay, they sell for £150-£200, but we got ours for £90.

I paid £20 for the Vogue mirror but in hindsight, I should have offered much less. Ah well, it all balances out.

This alcove is host to our new George Carwardine Anglepoise lamp. We got it and the ladder at the market this morning, as well as the black lantern. The green stool we got several weeks ago at Top Banana and the print is an Etsy purchase thanks to a suggestion from Lewis. This alcove is likely to change to fit in a Christmas tree pretty soon!

After the flea market, Chris picked up a whole slew of antique prints of Bath from Neil (his dad) to hang on our back wall. Chris asked for one and came back with about 10 or so! They’ll look good on our back wall.

The back wall in the lounge is pretty empty at the moment, apart from an old tool chest from the market this morning. I’m almost hesitant to show you this picture because the chest looks terrible sitting there on its own! I’m going to dust it off and coat it in clear wax. It doesn’t look appealing at the moment, but I think it will juxtapose the pictures of Bath and the sideboard in a nice way.

We’re on the hunt for two comfy armchairs to flank the trunk as well, but we aren’t having much luck as of yet.

Anyways I think that’s it for now! We have some other decorative bits to gather and some others to find spots for. Dave took some cool photos of them this afternoon

If all goes well, we’re going to list the flat next weekend! Wish us luck!!

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