You gotta love flea markets. True, it takes a keen eye and some imagination to sort the wheat from the chaff, but there's something ultimately satisfying about discovering stuff other people are discarding. "Upcycling" is the current terminology, but I prefer "re-purposing". :-)
Not too long ago, I went to the Alemany Flea Market in San Francisco to do a little browsing. The trick, in my opinion, is to be open to the possibilities instead of going in with a fixed agenda, since you never really know what you might find on any given day. I lusted after what looked to be a Balinese carved teak wood panel something like this only bigger, which would have made an awesome headboard, but alas the $900+ price tag was a bit more than I was willing to spend that day. (I think I'd rather poke myself in the eye than haggle--just tell me the price, dang it, and let's get on with it!)
Instead, I ended up adding to my cobalt blue glass collection (do we detect a theme, here? See previous post) with some nice hand-blown pieces. I also found this very cool wooden crate (see photo at top), the slats of which are lashed together with rawhide. I have no idea what the original purpose of this thing was--it's not terribly sturdy, and the slats are pretty far apart-- but I've turned it into a nifty little display rack in my entryway to showcase said cobalt glass and a few other tchotchkes. Total outlay for the day was roughly $40. Can't even do that well at IKEA, and this is far more fun!
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