Antique Chests & Arundel this weekend

April 19, 2013

Antique Chests & Arundel this weekend

Good Morning

from

Arundel Eccentrics

Sunny one here in Arundel, Sussex.

Farmers market tomorrow in Arundel

Its always the third Saturday of the month.

Will someone please tell me where the time goes?

Ford car boot sale is on as usual tomorrow morning.

Just outside Arundel,

its on the old airfield down at Ford.

This bread is gorgeous

You will find just about everything down there.

It tends to be really buzzy first thing.

Dealers come from all over

the place to buy and sell.

If you've never been it's

a great way to spend

Saturday morning.

I am so busy at the moment

I haven't had a chance to go on one of

my Arundel walks.

Lets have a little meander............

We are so lucky to live in such a beautiful town.

..........and no Arundel tourist board aren't paying me....but maybe they should LOL

King Street Arundel, where many of the houses were built by Napoleonic prisoners of war.

Ever had tea here?
When my English friend Stella comes back each year from Kentucky its the first place she wants to go.
We have a lovely English afternoon tea and catch up on all our news.

Victorian Chests of drawers

Upcycled and ready for the next 100 years.

I thought you might be

interested to see what we

get up to with our

19th century chests of drawers.

For many years, it seems to have

been stripped pine, or brown,

that was all the rage,

in antique and vintage,

chests of drawers.

These are still

immensely popular with some folk.............

These days, though, many people are looking

for something a bit different,

lets say, a little quirky.

They still want antique,

but with a little more,

as the French say,

" Je ne sais quoi "

That's hopefully,
what we add to our

19th century chests.

We take antique,
mostly 19th century chests,

that are looking a little

down at heel......

such as this pair of sad looking specimens,
which came complete with fablon........

and we turned them into....

this

you look a lot happier.. hey guys?

We paint them

before lovingly

decorating them with,

mostly decoupage.

It's now,
apparently,
called
"Upcycling"

some of our chests of drawers have been gracing pages in very smart interiors magazines..

as well as some extremely, posh shops

sometimes we paint them all over...

This was in red tartan

Occasionally, we gild them,

and then decorate

with decoupage.....

I know,I know,

completely bonkers

aren't they?

People love them..or not,

but they never ignore them... ha ha

I once had a large stand

in an antique centre in

Arundel High Street,

( now an Italian Restaurant)

when a woman in her early 20's, and her

extremely well heeled mother, came in.

"Oh, look Mummy, isn't it gorgeous?"

"Dahling, I think its absolutely hideous,"
Mummy replied, in a very haughty, plummy, accent

They then proceeded to have a
huge debate,
right in front
of me,
as to the merits, (or not,)
of my chest of drawers.

Ha ha

Never ignored though.......

We mostly, (but not solely)
work to supply trade,
and these have ended up in some

extremely smart stores,

in New York and other

large US cities,

London,

and Paris.

It takes us many hours of cutting out the

Victorian, copy right free images.

We age them down,

so they look as if they were decorated

over 100 years ago.

silver gilt swallows on a black chest of drawers

this chest has begun a new life and is now residing in the Laguna Hills in California ...ha ha

This lovely chest of drawers,

I cannot take credit for,

my lovely, Aunty B hand painted it.

It's a Noah's Ark design

which of course,

the Victorians loved.

I love the butterflies and moths.

This chest came out of

Osborne House

on the Isle of Wight.

You know, where

Queen Victoria used to

escape to for her hols.

Although it has a

Queen Victoria stamp on the back,

I can't guarantee she

kept her cami-knickers in it.

LOL

The most popular of all our

19th century chests, are the black and fish.

I am not sure why they work so well,

but they do always wind up looking extremely smart.

These have featured in a few magazines.

Vintage sheet music

on a

Victorian
Chest of drawers

This was a vintage screen we found at auction.

We decorated it with music on one side,

and black and dragonflies on the other.

There really is no end to our eccentricity..ha ha

This is another Fabulous, Aunty B

painted chest of drawers.

I Sooooo wish I could paint like her.

This chest of drawers went off to a

new life in the US, a few years ago.

It's now living by the ocean in Carolina.....
wish I was.......
no, not really,
just a holiday there for a
few months would be great.