June 2, 2013-
Whoops!
I totally forgot to mention yesterday…."HAPPY CHILDRENS' DAY!!!!!"
Isn't every day childrens' day? It certainly feels like it around here when we've got a gaggle of girls coming for a sleep-over.
Want to go check out furniture in Beijing. No? Too bad! Claudia and I are heading to Beijing right now – we're anxious to see what we can find for sale there.
WOWOWOWOWOW!!!!
We're driving around an area in Beijing that seems to ONLY be furniture markets. Holy Schmoly! I had no idea that there were so many furniture shops here. I'm sure we'll find something that we'll like.
Soooo…..what style of furniture are you hoping to find? I'm still trying to work on what is my style. I'm thinking eclectic. That covers all the bases, doesn't it?
We've got a quick stop at The Bookworm (a bookstore with ENGLISH books). Need to pick something up for someone special. 🙂 This bookstore is neat! The actual bookstore is small but there's a lending library associated with the shop as well as a small cafe. What a sweet place to retreat to!
Next stop: Lily's Antiques.
We've got the address for this place…but our driver, Mr. Li, is having trouble locating it. We're driving around and around. I see tons of interesting looking furniture shops but nothing that says "Lily's Antiques". It's supposedly a popular expat shop so I'm guessing that it would have the name written in English as well as Chinese. Whew. I'm glad that Mr. Li is stopping to ask for directions. Hey! Here we are!
Lots of furniture and knick knacks to choose from. Ouch! The prices are STEEP!
FYI: This is the piece of furniture I'm hoping to find:
This piece of Chinese furniture is in my friend Sam's house. It belongs to her landlord but I'm hoping I can find something similar but not too expensive. It's got a lot of Chinese characte without being over-the-top. And let me tell you, I've seen a LOT of over-the-top, way too dark, way too ornate, way too everything Chinese furniture. This piece is JUST RIGHT.
However, this furniture store is severly OVER PRICED. I mean, the pieces are okay…but not a single one screams at me, "Take me home!". So I don't think I will. There are some pretty neat pieces though:
Lily's Antiques was three floors of furniture piece after furniture piece. All unique…all amazing but most of the pieces were either too big or waaaaaay too expensive. They also had lots of gorgeous pottery pieces. I'm trying to start a collection of blue and white pottery so it was difficult to resist buying these pieces.
Neither Claudia nor I found a piece that "spoke to us" so we left Lily's and headed across the street. That's when we noticed that the entire road was comprised of furniture markets. Wowzers. We went into shop after shop after shop. Colorful pieces, lacquer pieces, rosewood (oh my that smell takes me back to when I was a little girl and watching Papa play chess with his beautiful chess set), and on and on.
I adore the colors of these two stacked pieces:
Hmmm…this piece is singing my tune (but I'm not going to get you yet):
Okay, so I didn't find any furniture -YET. However, I did find a blue and white pottery jar with a lid that has to come home with us. I can't start my collection going unless I actually start acquiring pieces! So, of course I had to buy it. ;-) (work with me on this one, okay????)
We have a name and phone number of another furniture place in Beijing. Mr. Li is on the phone with them now ….we're trying to figure out where they're located. Huh. We're driving on some back alleys. Are you sure this is the right way, Mr. Li? He's stopped at a GIANT red gate. And honking the car. I'm not so sure about this. Oh wait! Somebody is opening the gates. I guess this is where we're supposed to be!
This is a neat place! There's a small fruit orchard off to one side. A small furniture factory off to another. Guess what? This place does custom built furniture!!!! I think I've found the place. They've got some amazing pieces here- not as high quality as Lily's but definitely they've got character. I'm not quite ready to order my piece – I need to decide on dimensions, wood type and color – but I think I've found the place I need to come back to. Plus, they've got more turquoise and painted pieces here. Now, if I could only decide what I actually want!!!
So, we went home empty-handed but hopeful. This was just a "scoping out the stores" quest. Next time will be the "ordering & acquiring quest". For now I'm happy. Plus, I've got a pretty blue and white pottery jar to get my collection started. 🙂
PS. Poor Mark has a fever!! I hope he feels better soon. It's extremely rare for one of us (adults) to get sick.