Renovation Project - Where to find cheap antiques in France

Renovation Project - Where to find cheap antiques in France

We have booked a friend to come and take the photographs of the house for next Saturday that means we have one week to finish everything, nothing like giving yourself a time limit!

We still don’t have the chairs that we want yet; I have tried everywhere including websites and private ads. I know exactly what I want, but at some point I may have to admit defeat and give up on the picture in my mind!

But today we are going to check out some of the antique and second hand shops, I have my fingers crossed.

We arrive at our friends house, we are all going to go as they have a people carrier that will fit more furniture in (this is called positive thinking, I am not even going to contemplate not finding what we want!)

First stop is Le Chiffoniers, we arrive and the place is enormous, it is a like a great big warehouse and full of all sorts of antiques and a good selection of junk. John is very taken with a bicycle plough, but he can’t have it, we need to find furniture, now put it back and let’s get on with it.

The next shop is Emmaus, we find a number of wooden cabinets that may be suitable for the landing, but we’re not sure, is it time to start panicking? We do end up buying a bureau, we both like it, but it’s not exactly what we wanted, but we think it would be good for the B&B reception stuff.

There is so much furniture in this place and the price is unbelievable, you can pick up an antique, ornate carved dresser for under a hundred euro’s (and yes they look just like the ones you see in the antique shops in the UK for much more money!)

The next and final stop is the TROC, this used to be similar price wise to EMMAUS, but has recently been taken over by a new company and the prices have all increased, still some fantastic bargains to be had, but not the same as they used to be.

We don’t hold out much hope as we had been here only 2 weeks earlier, but I have my fingers crossed, and I really do believe today is the day (that may have something to do with the fact that we want to open in 2 weeks so need to have the chairs!)

We wander around and we see the chairs that we had seen last time, I love these chairs but the seats are knackered and we have no idea how much it would cost to renovate them and even John cannot do anything with these.

We continue looking and I see the chairs, they are exactly what we wanted, they cost more than I wanted, but I don’t care and then we see 2 more in a different colour! I don’t believe it, I really don’t bloody believe it, what do we do now, I have a choice I never expected. I now have to choose whether we want green which look better quality or the Pink ones which feel much better, we all take turns on sitting on them and there is a unanimous decision on the pink chairs.

We also find 2 chairs for the other bedroom, which just happen to match the furniture in the back bedroom perfectly. I am so happy we have the perfect furniture for the house; can the day get any better?

Actually yes it can, we spot a heavily carved wooden cabinet and it is only 30 euro’s (this has to be the wrong price!) but we check and it isn’t.

We make all of our purchases and leave John and Dave to attempt to fit it all into the people carrier, it takes some manoeuvring but they manage and we set off for home, 2 very happy bunnies, we have everything we need, I always knew we would get what we wanted, I never wavered (well maybe a little bit, but not for long).

The furniture looks amazing in the house, now we just have to get it finished!

A great big thank you to Jane and Dave for all their help today