Saturday marked my first ever trip to Brimfield, the infamous thrice yearly antique show held on the border of Massachusetts and Connecticut each May, July and September. Picture acres upon acres of antique dealers hawking everything from fine antique furniture to tacky lawn ornaments to jewelry, vintage bridesmaides dresses, antique guns, random tchotchkes and more. Much much more.
It's truly overhwhelming, and I definitely made some rookie mistakes in terms of approach, parking, attire, and most notably bringing a checkbook with only one check left in it (sob). If you're going to check it out in the Fall, and I highly recommend you do, it's worth doing some research beforehand. Click here for some fantastic flea market tips from the pros, courtesy of Design*Sponge.
I noticed several recent decent trends reflected in the Brimfield offerings...
I loved this stack of reasonably priced vintage trunks, especially the bottom one:
Here's how Lonny Magazine interpreted this trend in last month's issue:
And my mom's take at the family's summer home:
These elephants were HUGE - the pictures do them no justice. They reminded me of Timothy Whealon's pool ornaments as featured in Elle Decor last month. (As for the R2D2/E.T. metallic strangeness featured next to the elephants, your guess is as good as mine...)
I was seriously tempted to buy this skull/antler piece for over our bed in the master bedroom. In person, it was actually quite striking, but I was afraid it would freak out the Mr., and give our children nightmares (their alleged reason for making it into the master bed to begin with....)
The antler trend has been super hot in design in 2009/2010; I'm wondering if it's on its way out?!
Speaking of antlers, what about our closely related friend the stuffed deer head, another popular decorating accessory?
Something about this guy's litte hoofs mounted along with his head just doesn't do it for me....
So what did I leave with? For $20, this incredible wooden mirror for over our bed in the master bedroom:
As a former high school history teacher, I couldn't walk away without this:
And a couple of fun necklaces selected from the plentiful jewelry offerings:
I scored this antique mahogany pedestal table for a client's beautiful entryway:
Brimfield had an extensive offering of lighting, vintage signs, wooden blocks for printing, rugs and more!
What could have been... how fantastic are the bones of these tables I passed up?
Almost as upsetting, I apparently also passed up a free ticket to heaven on my way out of town:
But there was no time to stop, even for Heaven, as I had to make my 1 p.m. ferry to the Hamptons (a.k.a. Heaven on Earth)!
Check in tomorrow my Hamptons recap!
Best, Deb
Yay! So glad you enjoyed it. I'm looking forward to booking off a Brimfield day in September. :)
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