I’m always on the lookout for unusual items from the past and I love flea-markets. But most of the time they are either overpriced or you can’t really find anything interesting. So imagine my excitement when I heard about this house that needed to be emptied and where you could get things for free!
I’ve been part of a couple of groups on the internet where people post things they are giving away. I usually just use those to post my stuff I am getting rid of. Most of the time it doesn’t really make sense to travel all the way to Vienna just to pick up a few books. But a few days ago a woman posted that her grandmother’s house needed to be emptied (she had passed away a couple of years ago) because they were selling it. Mostly they wanted to get rid of the bigger furniture and I knew that as much as I liked some of the things they had posted, I simply was lacking room in my apartment. But since they mentioned they had some smaller items as well, I decided to go there and take a look. Plus this was outside of Vienna, only a half-hour car ride away.
Well, there was a lot of garbage (as expected) but I managed to find a few gems (click to enlarge)
First of all, this gorgeous mid-century “Junghans” wall clock (trust me, it was not in this condition when I picked it up, I had to spend quite some time cleaning it). It’s really beautiful but I haven’t decided what I’m going to do with it yet because first of all I have 2 wall clocks already and secondly it is mechanical and missing the key to wind it. So I don’t even know if it works properly. But I think I’m going to keep it.
Then I found this cute mid-century stool/ plant-stand. Again, it had to be thoroughly cleaned (it had bad 80s pop-star stickers on top) but it’s in great condition and I love the color and pattern of the laminate.
Another gem is this mid-century fabric that I am probably going to sew into some sort of bag or purse (it’s not enough fabric to make any piece of clothing, unfortunately, or I would have used it for a dress, trust me!
Next an old, heavy steel balance, which was completely caked in a mix of grease and dust. Unfortunately the pans show some rust and there are no leads for the balance but I want to keep this for purely decorative purposes in my kitchen, so it’s fine.






