Monday 27 October 2014

Review: The Vintage Furniture Flea Marylebone.

As a lover of all things vintage, I am always up for going to a vintage fair on my Sunday off! Whether it is clothing, home wear or furniture I am there! This Sunday it was The Vintage Furniture Flea at Marylebone, organised by Judy's Vintage Fairs and as I had only ever gone to the furniture flea at Bethnal Green, I thought it was about time I gave this one a go!

After finding the leisure center where the fair was being held on a back street off of the Edgeware Road (we had a lovely "detour" around the streets of the west-end passing some very beautiful houses in styles spanning from Georgian to Art Deco!) we was met by a big old fashioned leisure center, possibly originally a swimming baths.
The fair was being held in the main hall, which had a beautiful glass roof, so it was very bright the perfect light for looking at vintage home wear and furniture, and seeing the bright colours in all there glory.

The glass ceiling provided excellent light.


After all of the walking of our little tour, we was feeling rather hungry and in need of a spot of tea, something that is well catered for at all vintage events! Yes it is true us vintage girls do love a good cup of tea and a piece of cake! And I was please to see that at this particular event they had Pear of Peas to fill or cake and tea needs! 
I had sampled Pear of Peas cakes before and of all the vintage events I have been to where tea and cake is available, I must admit that theirs are the best! They serve tea and coffee, along side an extensive range of freshly made cakes ranging from salted caramel and coffee to a good old fashioned Victoria sponge. They also have freshly made sausage rolls, and will make crumpets with butter and bacon rolls to order. They are available for hire for a wide range of events, and all tea is served on very cute vintage cups, saucers and plates, check them out at www.pearofpeas.com 


 

This time I choose a white chocolate and raspberry sponge cake!


After out little refueling, we went on to see what delights the fair had to offer us, and oh boy there was a lot! 
Shelves of Pyrex stacked high on a table caught my eye at first, I'm not much of a collector myself but I have many pieces that where my nans that we still use today, and I can appreciate that people want to collect something that has 50's and 60's design in bucket fulls but is still very functional today and can still be used in a modern kitchen. This particular seller seemed to have many different designs and colours, some of which I had never seen before and seemed to have items in sets that matched, again something that can be hard to find. For any one who is interested they where called Top Tat and can be found on Instagram under the name @TOPTATDB
Top Tat sell a range of vintage Pyrex. (pictured)

Moving around the fair (away from the Pyrex before it all came home with me) once again I was draw to certain items that always seem to catch my eye, this time in the form of 1950's kitchen cabinets. For some reason I have always held a soft spot for these and quiet often find myself browsing the internet or antique shops for them, even though I have no room for one and they are not the most functional piece of furniture! This one was very striking in a lemon yellow and white colour scheme, with sliding glass cupboard doors and a small work surface that pulled out, just was I was imagining my dream kitchen, my mum pulled my back down to earth and informed me it would not be coming home on the tube with us, nor would the glass cocktail cabinet I had been eyeing up that was from the same seller. I had just been thinking moments earlier that the cocktail cabinet would be the perfect place to display my collection of 50's and 60's glass wear! Spoil sport! 
Dregs of Society who these cabinets belonged to are on facebook and stock a wide range of homewares, kitchenalia and cocktailia.


The two cabinets that I wanted! I love how they have been set up with all the relevant pieces.



There was still so much more to see though! The Vintage Furniture Flea does not just sell big pieces of furniture, it also sells a wide range of home wear both vintage and new. Everything from lights and kitchen wear to maps and record players can be found, even if you are just looking for a piece of vintage glass wear to fit into a very modern room you will find something there to take your fancy! 
There are stalls that sell cushions made from vintage fabric, so if you don't want to have an all out vintage home you can just add subtle hints of vintage in the form of cushions and curtains, or for example there is often a wide range of vintage film and music posters that would look great even in a very modern room.

The next stall that looked appealing was one that I had seen before at the furniture flea in Bethnal Green. They are a company called Retro Bazaar and they specialize in restoring old telephones and record players so that they are suitable for modern use. I managed to grab them for a quick chat to find out exactly what they do:

"We take out all of the insides, of say a record player for example, we renew or remove the valves, depending on if they are in good condition or not, we then fix any underlying problems with the working of the item and replace all of the orignal wiring with new modern wiring that is safe. We take to pieces the turn table and clean everything so it is dust free and runs smoothly again. Everything that we sell gets PAT tested so that the people buying can see it is safe and up to modern standards. We never touch the outside of a record player, phone or radio as we believe that it is the little dents and scratches that give it character and age. A lot of people will renew all of the casing as well but if you are going to the trouble of doing that then why not buy a new one!?"
Retro Bazaar can be found on facebook and twitter, and also at retro-bazaar.co.uk


Retro Bazaar sell a range of lights, telephones and record players.

All to soon it was time for us to be making our way home, although this time there wasn't much for me to buy there apart from a couple of West German pottery vases and an LP, if I had a house that wasn't already bursting at the seems some of that Pyrex and a cocktail cabinet would of defiantly been making its way home with me! Oh well always next time! 

Two photos of the stalls at the furniture flea.

So many colours!









1 comment:

  1. This was a great post! I wish I had fairs like this near to where I live xo

    ReplyDelete