For the Love of French Antiques

French Husband had barely parked the car at the brocante when I jumped out.

Having the brocante bug is uncontrollable. It grabs you and pulls you wherever antiques can be found.

Is there a cure? God, I hope not. If there is I am running far from it.

As soon as my eyes fell upon the thickly painted, white-ish grey cupboard/buffet, I knew the brocante bug would begin to boil.

Why couldn’t I have the shoe bug, or the candy bug, or the magazine bug, or the makeup bug? Why do I have the furniture sized brocante bug? 

Looking over the whitish-grey cupboard/buffet piece, I knew it was a perfect fit. The height and length were ideal for the kitchen, and it would fit against the wall perfectly—like a silk glove on a hand—if only there weren’t already an armoire there, that is.

Have you ever done that, mentally start moving things around in your home so the something you want will work? Usually, I have an utter mental gymnastic of moving every thing right, left, up, down, inside out and backwards to make thing work. Today my mental gymnastics went like this:

I could sell my armoire. That was the only option.

I stared at the one of a kind beauty and whispered, “Bad bad brocante bug!” It didn’t even blink, that nasty broacante bug, poking at me.

To make matters worse, next to the cupboard/buffet piece were six dining room chairs. Caned seats, grayish color, late 1800s, perfect condition.

I do not need another chair.

Now here is the ticker… the chairs all six of them cost less than one chair at Ikea.

That is the biggest pain of all: When I find antiques in good condition, lovely patina, authentic, under price and DO NOT NEED THEM, nor have room.

Wait a minute… I could fix things to the ceiling?!

My name is Corey and I am a brocante o holic.

I kissed the cupboard/piece and the chairs goodbye, then wished I didn’t need to drop five pounds otherwise I would have some big salty fried delicious thing.