One of the new additions at this year’s Grand Designs Live was a reclamation area with items from Lassco and English Rose kitchens on display. I would love to spend hours (and no doubt hours more) perusing a whole market like this, so was really pleased to take a legitimate wander around in a "well-we're-here-dear-we-should-take-a-look" kind of way. You see MOH is much less of a ‘make do’ kind of person (and I mean that in a make do and mend way) and likes to have good quality items, that last. I think that's great, but for some items I like to think I’m more adaptable and open to reclaimed items, and have a much more flexible approach to fittings and furnishings with character, which at times can be tricky, but usually we end up with a compromise.
I think the closest I've got him to a salvage yard is Maltby Street Market, but when it's been turned into a hip weekend market and usually involves a burger and cakes, actually we haven't even done that for a while...
But presented with a whole area of the show dedicated to recycling and reuse I was keen to make the most of the opportunity. I’d also been lured over by the brass knobs and pretty tiles, yes I can be such a magpie...
MOH soon picked up though when there were lights to look at, not necessarily these, as these are far too pretty, and too small for MOH’s big sell (to me) project. I liked the fluted shade, and the brown wire though, but they wouldn’t do for our dining area, as they're too delicate, but would be great over a dressing table or as bedside lights. One day, we may find a light we agree on - I haven't given up hope!
I was enthralled by this old gymnasium flooring, MOH humoured me, and I know while he made sympathetic noises that really he’d be trying to peel or clean off the sticky markings around the red sections. Seriously. I once bought a bottle of wine that came covered in dust, on purpose, he dusted it...
This would make great flooring in a high traffic area wouldn’t it? I'd be wondering where it came from, what sports and sports men and women had played on it, and if it had played host to any famous trainers.
Ah, more brass knobs! Rose brass no less, I didn’t even know that was a thing - but it does look great, and so do the pink patterned tiles.
In the English Rose kitchen display, it was knobs of another kind that caught my eye. These traditional shaped, but colourful handles made me smile - we don't have kitchen handles like this anymore do we? Well in fact, I don't have any kitchen handles at all in our kitchen, and (obviously) I like that too.
The kitchen units which had been spruced up looked great, it's not a kitchen that I would go for but I admired how it'd been given a new lease of life and brought up to date with a modern look and feel.
Clearly there's still some work to do on this one!
But look at the shape of the units above, our local kitchen shop has this very shape units in its window, so it just goes to show that quite often styles come back into vogue, even in homewares.
I mentioned lights before and this is the one thing that I think MOH would happily have a reclaimed piece without any questions, in fact we'd both happily have something like the one pictured below if we had the space, and if we didn't already have two standard lights.
It's the style of lights pictured below that we disagree on. It's not that I don't like them, but I'm not convinced by the amount of light they give out and think one chunky light while looking industrial above the table, isn't really the look I want - and I'd be concerned that it would fall on my table!
The green enamel type lights in the background are also good but I'd want to be convinced by the light a single pendant gives out, I think these would look better in a row of three, and that means more work and making holes in the ceiling which I'm less keen on. That's really our dilemma, wanting something more modern than we currently have but not compromising how much light it gives out.
We'll get there, and in the meantime we'll have fun looking at many, many lights, reclaimed or not!
