So, while you’re swanning around Copenhagen at high speed (2pm, really?) I am dissecting the shopping potentials in…

Glasgow. Yes, Glasgow. There are no mermans on the buildings in Glasgow, but there are my parents, a lot of chatty folk (on the streets, in the shops, at the cinema, next to your car…), and a few great antique warehouses. One of them is Glasgow Architectural Salvage.

A place that holds a special place in my heart since I bought an old shop cabinet there for £250. That’s right, £250. The people behind GAS are salvage and restoration enthusiasts with a keen eye for old and precious fittings as well as curiosities – they go digging on private estates for old glass bottles and such like. On the day I went they had a stack of old Pool table tops outside the warehouse, from which they were rescuing the slate backs to use in the renovation of old fireplaces. Very cool. It’s the place to go to if you’re looking for original doors, handles, baths, basins, taps, bannister spindles, lighting, Victorian tiles and plenty more. Even spectacles, weirldy. I limited my purchasing to four Victorian tiles. They’re pencilled in for a fireplace hearth project in my spare room. Here’s a few more photos of stuff you can buy.

Queen of the sea

Yes, just back from a brief trip to Copenhagen. It was cold, sunny and as lovely as you’d expect. I especially liked the merman motif on lots of buildings and the wrought-iron swans that flank doorways all over the city. One thing though, if you’re thinking of nipping over for a weekend of foraging through […]

Roving Reporter: The lengths we’ll go to

If I wasn’t so lazy I’d be that person who got up at 5am mid week to drive to a racecourse-turned-antiques fair for dawn breaking over acres of bargains. But the promise of weak tea and a greasy buttie is not enough to prize me out in the cold at that hour. So, when the […]

Holy Moly

Q: What happens when the bird trend goes too far? A:

Wallpapering everything

I’m just back from the cinema watching enjoyable trauma-drama Precious. I enjoyed it, was moved… but is it wrong to admit that the sets for the grim projects apartment in which Precious survives looked pretty damn chic to me? I think it was the mix of floral wallpaper in dingy autumn colours and black paint […]