Charity Stores, 2nd Hand shops - South Africa's equivalent of 'Thrift stores'

When I started blogging I said that I would put on investigators  cap and start looking exploring 'thrift stores'.  I have come to realise that in South Africa we have Second hand stores and Charity stores (I will write a blog about these stores).  I must admit that what I am looking for is affordable furniture and now in hind sight I am not totally sure that I am going to find that.

Click here to read my very post Blog beginings

When starting on this quest, I was hoping to find furniture that was in a fairly good condition and well priced.  I have sold second hand furniture before and to be honest I basically gave it away on the pretext that its very hard to sell.  These items were a large wooden desk and wooden cabinet that went with it.

Looking back at the American bloggers, I see that the American thrift stores appear to sell second hand items at a really affordable rate compared to what we are getting here.  One blogger that has inspired me to begin this blog has a page about thrift stores. On this page there are photographs of 2 gorgeous wooden round side tables that were being sold for $15 for the set, at todays exchange rate of 13.28 that is only R199.25!  These are not the cheap chipboard tables or laminate tables that are in our stores today.

Another photograph showed a Bergere chair that looked very similar in design to this one pictured below.

It was a lovely wooden chair with pink fabric, definitely a perfect make over chair.  I so desperately would love one or two of these chairs to put into my home.  The thing that totally blew me away was the fact that this gorgeous little chair was being sold for only $8.  Using todays exchange rate of 13.28 to the dollar that makes an amount of R106.24. (The fabric will possibly cost even more per meter). 

After the few second hand stores that I have been into I would say that finding a chair like this for around R500.00 would be a great find.

I have taken into consideration that it's possible that $8 is a lot of money in a US budget but after looking at the following link you will see that what they earn is in line with what we as South African's are earning.

http://www.payscale.com/index/US/Job

Right now to be honest I am feeling quite discouraged as far as finding decent affordable second hand furniture is concerned, but I will keep on investigating and updating you.  Granted I have only been into about 5 stores.  I purposely started with stores that were in poorer areas as I felt that that would be the place with the cheapest deals, but now in hindsight I am thinking that its not very logical thinking as people in poorer areas will buy and sell according to their budgets.  I will be investigating this theory and venturing out into other areas over the next couple of weeks.

Most second hand stores sell trinkets and ornaments and old framed old pictures. The frames are very plain and nothing to write home about in my humble opinion.  From what I have seen they start at R150.00.  That's even more than the Begere chair!

I have found a really nice second hand store that is not very far from where I live.  They have affordable furniture and bunch of other items.  I picked up these ornaments.

 My intention was to spray paint the elephant silver, but my eldest daughter has protested against that, saying the elephant is hand painted and I need to leave it like that ... so we'll see what I decide to do with it.  Must admit that I do like the way it looks and at this stage I am wanting to change my lounge curtains to a silver so the natural grey colour will fit in with that colour scheme.

I absolutely love elephants and I was so excited when I found this particular is because its truck is raised. My mother would tell me that this brings good luck (no I am not all superstitious), but it nice to have small reminders of my mom and some positive reinforcement around the home.  This belief as also confirmed by an African painter I met in Durban.  He said an elephant with its truck raised is a happy elephant!  When looking this up (on google of course) I see that the elephant is the symbol of strength, power, stability and wisdom and that when the truck is raised it will shower good fortune on all who walk past it.

On this note of good fortune I will end.  Thanks for taking the time to read my blog, and leave me a comment.  I just love interacting with people.

Lets hope that you get showered with blessings.

oLuxo - Gift Shop & Jewellery

I thought that I would share my excitement with you.

I have a new friend who makes stunning jewellery and other wonderful gifts.  I have realised that she seems to be very similar to me, as she also seems to be juggling many financial balls, trying to make a living, in what has become quite a tough economy.

My new friends name is Lynethea Page, and her company name is oLuxo; and as the name suggests her products definitely have a luxury look and feel to them.

I ordered a wrap around bracelet, from her.  The colours that I requested was black and silver and asked if it would be possible to have elephant and star charms. 

I know that she went out of her way to find these things for me and I was over the moon when my parcel arrived. 

Included in my package was a number of small testers of the products that she sells.

This is my bracelet and I am sure that you will agree with me that it is just gorgeous. 

Here are a few other things that she sells:

 

 

 

Take a quick break and hop on over to her site

http://www.oluxo.co.za












Thanks for stopping by

 

    









 

Mirror Makeover

Mirror Makeover

Yay!!! I finally got started!!

I decided to go ahead and try my hand at spray painting.  I'm not new to spray painting, so this task wasn't too daunting.  At one stage I was doing interior decorating and I would often cut costs for my customers by spray painting and tinting rebated and round rods. 

I have just never taken something that looks good to start with and apply my own look to it.  (Think this comes from being taught as a child not to damage furniture and things of value, it was kinda drilled into me *grinning*). 

The mirror that I feel really needs a spray paint make over is this one here:

but I decided that before embarking on such a 'big' project I would start with this much smaller mirror

(It is smaller - promise)

I decided to paint it silver and the spray paint that I chose is called Brilliant Spray Paint' colour is HH702.
I paid about R45.00 so that wasn't too bad and managed to spray more than just the mirror.

Before starting, you need to cover the mirror with paper, secure this with masking tape.  I used an old magazine but I would recommend that you use a larger piece of paper like newspaper etc, and tape over all the loose edges, to prevent the spray paint from blowing onto the mirror, (don't ask me how I know this)!  If this does happen you can remove it with acetone, and then using a soft cloth clean with a glass cleaner.

I left the mirror to dry and then I gave it another coat.

The mirror now has a very matt finish, but I am going to be looking around for a spray paint that a glossier look.  I see that in the states there is a spray paint that has a brushed silver finish, I'll be looking to see if we have anything that's similar in South Africa.

I also spray painted that silver bottle.  It was originally a green glass bottle, pretty amazing what you can do with a tin of spray paint.  I'll add some before and after photos of that soon, and also a tray that got the same treatment.


Thanks for stopping by.

Tracy

2017 - New Year and new blog beginnings

After browsing one of my favorite places this week, namely Pinterest, I stumbled on a website that inspired me to revamp my home in simple DIY projects.  Living in Johannesburg, South Africa I am wondering if this is at all possible.  We have many gorgeous second hand stores and 'cheaper' stores but nothing like I have been made aware of when watching many vloggers, on Youtube that are living in the USA.

I am not aware of any thrift stores that sell second hand furniture at a bargain.  If anything the furniture is labelled as antique and is sold at a high price; but I would like to investigate this now and see if hopefully I can be proved wrong.

I am going to start with simple projects like spray painting the frame on a small mirror.

I do need to work on a shoe string budget and I will be testing this to see what can be achieved.

Can't wait to get started.

Tracy