To like vintage and shabby chic

[Summerbreezing]

I know it's not 'cool' anymore and everyone's so over it, but I still love my mis-matched crockery and jugs of flowers and colourful cushions and painted chest of drawers etc etc etc etc.

AIBU to think that Vintage rocks and to not want to re-do my house in chrome and blonde and cream and all that calm and neutral stuff that in no way reflects my chaotic state of mind?

I love mid century, although am aware that's as much of a cliché now as the whole shabby chic thing.

I have to restrain myself from setting fire to every 'Keep Calm' sign I see. They do not calm me.

LoveVintage. I love shabbied is that even a word industrial stuff too and I definitely prefer a smarter shabby than a shabby shabby.

I love Ercol. It's a fab company and it really suits my house. They do a lot of granny stuff (no offence to grannies) but some of their still is fab. They do import some made in China stuff (some coffee tables???) but I only buy the items that are made in the UK.

I think some people make shabbied stuff too fussy.

'I bought a brilliant oval bevelled mirror on a chain for only £2 - nobody was buying it as the glass was all warped and marked. It is one of my favourite purchases ever -just bursting with character.'

I have one of these, it's also one of my favourite acquisitions. Someone had left it out as rubbish!

I like shabby chic. But I don't like intentionally distressing things. If you want a cupboard to look as though paint is cracking off it why not just go to a junk shop and get one rather than spending hours crackle glazing or whatever.

I'm more of a faded grandeur person. I like stuff that was the height of luxury 200 years ago and is now scratched, marked, cracking, bits cracking off all piled in a mish mash of stuff in my little 30s semi.

I have what was once beautiful victorian clunky furniture which all needs restoring but I like the fact it's hard life shows. In 150 years all ikea furniture will have rotted away. Mine is still going, albeit battle scarred.

I'm not keen on modern furniture. It has no soul.

I also love that walnut art deco furniture. Beeeeeyooootiful.

are annie sloan paints any good? I have what will be a lovely chest of drawers once painted and every time I Google furniture paint those paints come up.

I love Annie Sloan paints. They are expensive and very over marketed but they are lovely colours and good fun to use.

I like that it dries really quickly and that it is easy to distress. Not that I do much distressing as it's not my style.

Shabby chic should be the interiors version of Lauren Bacall style.

Effortlessly elegant, the home version of "Oh this old thing, I got in on my adventure to . . . " that fits perfectly, flows smoothly yet is still up for a bit of rough and tumble. It fits with kids, animals and other assorted non-minimalist lifestyle choices. Form follows function and the masculine and feminine complement each other beautifully, so a modern soft pink silk cushion might on antique battered leather chesterfield. Together they provide the perfect spot to curl up with a good book and a cat.

What it is not is twee, fluffy, wall to wall Barbara Cartland. Kath Kidson is an accent not a shop display recreated.

I've mastered the shabby,but am still working on the chic.

Distressed furniture makes me think of a table that's been insulted.

"What it is not is twee, fluffy, wall to wall Barbara Cartland. Kath Kidson is an accent not a shop display recreated."

Totally agree. A room that overwhelms you with florals and flounces and dusky pink upholstery is not my idea of shabby chic. And someone who decorates their house floor to ceiling in Cath Kidston is more likely to be a fashion victim than a lover of vintage and quirky stuff.

I love shabby chic, and am not ashamed to say that I have made a little bit of a living out of doing shabby and industrial chic over the last few years. Not a huge amount, but just enough to fund the hobby, pay for petrol and it has made my menopause a little bit more bearable. I just take all my hot flushes and mood swings out on my latest project and voila! Perhaps I need to invent Menopause Chic lol

But seriously, it was a lovely thing whilst it lasted but now so many people are doing it that unpainted or "un-Sloaned" furniture is actually going for more.

I am this weekend putting all my stock on ebay, for one last final time. I have 45 items of furniture to photograph and list, ten vintage metal drawers and an enormous (thousands) amount of MDF plaques and shapes that I will be selling in rainy day kit form. Purely because, again, so many people are now doing it that it is now a saturated market.

TCP x

Melonbreath - yes, "faded grandeur" and "battle scarred" sum it up perfectly! That is exactly what draws me to things, the knocks and scrapes and scratches on them.

I astonished the local auctioneer by asking if I could buy/have the battered and very rusty dustbin that sits outside the auction house and which just gets rubbish tossed in it. I was desperate to have it for my garden for storing compost in. One man's rubbish..

Nutjob being of a certain age too, I love the idea of Menopause Chic! Imagine how random that would be

I have a couple of ercol pieces (inherited) and love their clean smooth lines.

Annie Sloan is expensive and well marketed but I find a little goes a long way and I mix colours as well (e,g Paris grey with white to get a pale grey, duck egg blue with yellow to get sage etc).

There are some great blogs around if you want inspiration - The Beach Cottage, The Weathered Door, Elizabeth & Co, LizMarie etc.

My house is an old converted mill so still has the original metal roof beams and windows and suits second hand furniture and vintage type things. However, the landlord has totally wrecked that by laying bloody laminate floor throughout the whole place!! My furniture is all second hand; I have an oxblood red leather chesterfield suite, sheesham wood sideboard and side tables in the living room, huge old oak table in the kitchen, with the dreaded Annie Sloan painted chairs around it, black wrought iron bed and matching side tables, then an old g-plan wardrobe that I picked up for a fiver!

My ideal house would have stripped wooden floors in all rooms, apart from the kitchen - that would be slate. I'd have open fires and/or log burners, big, fluffy rugs in front of them, lots of lamps instead of harsh overhead lights, the same suite that I have now because I luffs it, lots of old, solid pine wardrobes and drawers, so generally quite old fashioned/traditional. Apart from the kitchen and bathroom because that's where I like modern things!

I generally don't give a stuff what anyone else likes as it's me that has to live here :)

Juliet - your ideal home sounds beautiful

Ooh have just googled industrial chic! I like. A bit steampunk, non? It wouldn't work in my wee basement flat though!

I'm allergic to the sight of stripped except on floorboards.

Stripped pine that is!

Ah but LaQueen is it Modern Laura Ashley New Country Style or Modern Laura Ashley Old Country Style.

They're very different, you know.

My DSSs' have industrial chic décor.

Metal furniture is the only sort that resists oversized teen boys.

Ah- ha leQueen I now think you might be more Martha Stewart.

In a good way

< runs >

LMAO.