Top trunks

Next time you think about adding some home wares or furniture to your flat, my top tip is instead of making a mad-dash to Ikea (although I will never hear a bad word said about this affordable home ware wonderland), look closer to home. London is literally bursting at the seams with affordable, good quality vintage finds.

Myself and Iain really love trunks. Before we moved into our flat, we knew we wanted one as a coffee table or feature piece and we spent an inordinate amount of time gazing at gorgeous ones in markets and little curiosity shops. The only problem? We were between leases and staying with friends for a few weeks. We knew that arriving home with chests and trunks to our friend’s lovely (and already happily furnished) home might not make us flavour of the month!

Now that we’re settled in, we have a happy collection of three vintage trunks and they add real character and colour to our living room. The ones that we picked up were also really good value and a bit of bargaining can see you picking up a real steal.

The large brown chest in the picture above has old rail stamps showing journeys from Basel to Zurich to London. I love the idea that someone owned the chests and case before us. And now their journey has come to rest with us.

Happy trunk hunting and I’ll let you in on a secret, Finsbury Park and Stoke Newington are real treasure troves for good value furniture finds.