Today I ventured out to a hashtag I’ve seen recently on Instagram, #waverleyantiquesbazaar, which luckily for me exists in the real world too.

My friend Krissy and I wandered around for a couple of hours, and  didn’t see everything, or even half of everything on the floor.

Seriously, that place is HUGE!

Stall after stall after stall, row upon row, of furniture, bric-a-brac, clothes, glassware, junk, trinkets, tools, duck decoys, kitchen paraphernalia, ladders, jewellery, books, lamps and more – ranging from the ridiculously overpriced, to bargain finds.

Hmmm, can they really be antiques if there’s new stock arriving daily? Quite the conundrum! (I think it would be more properly named a Vintage Market, though the TYPO portfolio I saw didn’t seem very vintage-y.)

These four items epitomise the variety in this emporium of domestic detritus – amazing and raunchy lamps, old jars by the thousands, a KILLER chandelier and a killed animal. The chandelier was really, truly amazing – my photo doesn’t do it justice.
If I was planning any kind of renovation that required lighting, this baby would be top of my wish list. She was beautiful.

I think this was my favourite find of the day, because TYPEWRITER. And for bonus points, YELLOW. Swoon….

What occurred to me as we wandered around, oohing and aahing, sometimes in delight, sometimes in bewilderment, was that most of these items probably had past lives as functional, even mundane objects in people’s homes. All those jars and bottles, rotary telephones and telephone tables, the armchairs and dining chairs, lamps and pliers have belonged to someone, or a series of someones. They’ve been held, sat on, talked into, slept in, cursed and oohed and aahed over as brand new, possibly quite extravagant purchases. They’ve witnessed family celebrations and traumas, and eventually were discarded, as their usefulness expires, or  fashions change.

And around and around we go, things go out of fashion, then rush back in about a generation and a half later, and we’re out in droves on weekends to trawl markets, trendy strips of vintage furniture stores in the inner suburbs, or day-trip it out to rural ‘antiques’ hot spots, all looking for pieces of our collective past to decorate our oh-so-individual present and futures.

We’re creatures of habit, and seekers of treasure.

Some of my most treasured possessions are the ones with family history. I’ll pop a few pics up on Instagram, and tag them #familytreasurepics. Do you have anything in your home that belonged to your grandparents or parents?