Entry #16: Antiquing Part II

anitazachary
Feb 2
5 min read

We're back at it again with one of our favorite activities: Antiquing! This time, we popped into one of our newer favorite shops just before a big snowstorm immobilized the state! What awaited my daughter and I was a world of vintage wonders.

Various shades and sizes of blue and white plates stacked horizontally in a grate on a table, surrounded with other antiques.

My daughter and I happened upon this shop a few months ago, having quite literally caught our eye. Nestled on a strip between an Afro-Carribean market, a tattoo shop, and a Roaring 20s themed tap room, a red-and-white sign decried 'Antiques' and 'Vintage Treasures!'

There wasn't a moment of hestitation.

Thankfully we were on the right side of the road; whipping the car through a Bojangles parking lot, we squeezed along the tiny, one-lane road, praying no one tried to leave while we were inching by. Eventually, we found a parking spot right by the front door. Huzzah!

Though, while getting out my daughter did slam her arm into another car's side mirror (they're both fine, she just has a bruise). Oops.

Once inside, we were met with a thick, gold legged table filled to the brim with handmade jewelry, hats, wigs, and vintage blazers. Though, once we turned the corner, the shop opened up, flanked on both sides by booths packed-to-bursting with what I just knew were hidden gems!

Various shapes and sizes of blue and white objects on a dark wood table and dark wood shelf, all for sale.

First, we came upon a shabby chic themed booth, with chalk paint in colors of creamy white and french blue, with pops of silver and gold. This is a favorite booth of ours; though we don't usually find anything to take home, just getting to look at it all is a treat. However, I did have to pry myself away from these absolutely goregous tins - and my daughter loved these magnetic gold frames!

Two large tins sitting in a line. The first is a cobalt blue and decorated with silver leaf in bows and leaves; there is an image of a white and blue castle on the very front, surrounded by green mountains and sky. The second tin, behind the blue tin, features a red-brown faux wood frame, surrounding a renissance era town, complete with gray stonework and red roofs.

Four various shaped (two square and two oval) frames, no bigger than your hand. They are all guilded in a very shiny gold, and feature elaborate feathering and scrollwork. Each of the pictures inside are different, but are watercolor photos of nature - two bouquets of flowers, and two nature scenes of water and trees. One picture has sailing boats in it.

As we ventured on, we dipped into another booth, and something big drew my attention.

The facade of a large dollhouse. It is painted banana yellow. The windows are outlined in a dark sage green, and the top two windows have pink shutters on them. The lone bottom window has a box of flowers beneath it. Between the top and bottom floors is a sign that reads 'ANTIQUES'. Just beside that is an open doorway, also painted a dark sage green, but outlined in white.

A dollhouse! Not just any dollhouse, an antique store dollhouse!

It is no secret that I love dollhouses. I always wanted them when I was little but never got one. My desire was reignited last year when I saw a dollhouse liquor cabinet on Charish (the price tag made me cringe) and I've been on the hunt for one since! I have a beautiful, solid wood sewing table that I'm going to set my future dollhouse on, so I can get the look without the price tag (and the liquor).

But this sweet little dollhouse just took my breath away. I would've bought that for my daughter, if she were much younger, in a heartbeat.

An interior photo of the dollhouse. There are two floors, both covered in wood plank with wallpaper on the walls. The first floor has a grandfather clock against the back wall, and a wrought iron spiral staircase goes up to the second floor, where various lamps sit on the floor, and various sized pictures hang on the wall behind a lamp.

The interior of the dollhouse, but on the inside door which opens. The same wallpaper as before continues on the wall. There are many, many minature antiques on the walls - a guilded mirror, cuckoo clocks, paintings, a mini shelf with blue and white transferware, and a mini wooden rolling pin holder.

Look at all the furniature it comes with! The wallpaper! Even the sweet, wrought iron staircase looks perfect; but my personal favorite were the little cuckoo clocks hanging on the striped wall. I'm not sure what it is, but I've always loved the ticking of a cuckoo clock.

Continuing on, we found deer head statues and a few pieces of Blue Onion!

A black, stone statue of the shoulders and head of a buck sits on a black pedestal.

Two jars, one reading 'creamer' and the other 'sugar' in the pattern and shape of Blue Onion.

I've been drawn closer to Blue Onion as of late; the colors and the typescript are just so beautiful. If I had a bigger kitchen, I think I would own more of it!

In the same booth, my daughter fell head-over-heels in love with a set of bowls. These are part of a larger fine china set named Galaxy (I've since got her a set for herself, as a present). They had a little bit of wear, but they weren't tired at all. Later, when we came home and were unwrapping our treasures, she told me that years ago she'd seen that same china on a blog - something whimsigothic, which she loves - and had wanted it ever since, but never knew where to look, or what to look for. How crazy that we found that same china, in a little antique store, which we went to on a whim?

Three Galaxy bowls lean against the back of a china cabinet; they are dark blue with 14k gold stars all along the rim, and one in the middle of the bowl's face. In front of these bowls is a glass candy dish and a brown bowl filled with fake budding flowers in pink and white.

An up close photo of the Galaxy bowls; the rim is a dark blue and various sized gold foil stars twinkle all over it. A gold foil rim runs around the edge, and a single gold foil star sits in the very middle of the face of the bowl.

After she rushed those to the cashier to hold for us, we ventured on to another wonderful booth, where we found a whole shelf full of cookbooks, which I had to stop and peruse, while my daughter scoured the fiction and CD shelves just behind.

A bookshelf filled to the brim with different things - baskets and trays, teacups and saucers. The middle shelf is nothing but various cookbooks, with a sign saying 'cookbooks'.

Then we drifted over to the booth I get the most excited over. I find myself constantly looking for ideas, and this booth always has adorable ones! It's very shabby chic, with pops of french country in the shape of doilies, toile and ticking crafts, as well as bits and pieces of more well known transferware. The very first two pictures on this post are from this booth!

A brown shelf holds five books in greens and browns while a stuffed bunny made of a black and brown toile pattern is frozen in the action of leaping, held up with a spool that has been chalk painted white. Fake, yellow flowers stand behind the stuffed bunny.

A black bowl full of stuffed bunnies sitting on their hind legs. Half of these bunnies are made of toile in shades of green, brown, and white; the other half are made of blue and white ticking with a brown button holding a bow on around their collars.

Everything in this booth was ready for Spring - bunnies, Spring toile, Spring forever flowers, teacup rain chains, lace curtains, macrame, and napkin eggs galore!

After thoroughly finding inspiration, we finally drifted to the other side of the store, and were immedietly met with this Fun Fellow -

a marionette of a Spanish or Mexican man; his face is painted flushed, with a black mustache and a wide smile. He wears a straw hat; one of his hands is open while the other holds a gun. His body is limp and flat, except for black shoes that are well worn. He's held together with four black strings.

And a small basket of alabaster fruit! A peach and pineapple.

A basket sits on a black shelf. There are two pieces of alabaster fruit in shades of yellow, orange, and red. One is a peach, and the other is a pineapple, with shoots of green leaves popping out of the top. There is a ball wrapped in red paper beside it, and behind the fruit is a box of dominos in yellow.

I only recently found alabaster fruit that I'd been longing for: grapes! I had dug through online shops, thrift stores, and antique shops until I found some two months ago - albeit at a different antique store, one of our staples - but it is still very encouraging to see more alabaster fruit out and about!

A bowl of alabaster grapes in sage green and dark sage green. They sit in a bowl that's patterned in Blue Willow, their stone leaves reaching and spilling out. They sit on a dark countertop. — The alabaster grapes in question.

From there, we drifted past a booth selling only candles, another booth bursting with Christmas and Christmas-themed Valentines decorations, a gold-and-silver buying table, a booth of just chalk paint, a china dresser full of gourmet soup packets and freeze dried candy, and a shelf of new Young Adult novels, to finally enter our ultimate favorite booth. It's U shaped, one of the bigger booths availible, and carries everything from dictionary prints and touristy knick-knacks, to a wooden duck dressed in an angel costume, and antique stereoscopes with 24 pictures included in its purchase.

A shiny copper kettle hangs from a white hook beside a copper pan. The kettle has a porcelain handle in blue and white, and a knob on top of the same kind and pattern. Above this is a shelf, where a painting in shades of green, brown, and blue sits. It showcases a winding dirt road set between rows of big, leafy trees. A blue river runs beside it and there are houses in the distance. A barn is in the left most corner of the picture.

The first of many beautiful things in this booth was this copper kettle with what looks like porcelain details. We didn't end up taking this home, but I almost took home the painting above it; it's one that I've stared at every single time we go, I just don't have space for it anywhere.

A pink and gold music box frames a spinning ballerina in pink and gold. It looks just like a music box, except it is also a lamp, though no cord can be seen.

This ^^ is another piece my daughter and I look at every time we go. Believe it or not, this sweet little ballerina is actually a lamp! It twirls and sings, as well! We both agreed that it would be too tough to rewire (and clean) but it would be perfect for a little girl's room, or inside a She Shed.

And that was our visit to a newer antique store in our rotation! This shop is so cute, you can easily loose a few hours there, even if you're just looking! We were also lucky with this shop, as it's open all seven days a week - a rare thing as most places here close on Mondays, at least - so it is a true shop that you can pop in-and-out of anytime.

While we let this shop gather new and interesting gems, we'll take you to more of our favorite antique stores and give you the lay of the land, and maybe give you an insight into what we look for!

Happy Antiquing!