I went thrifting in Italy, and here's what I found

Antique telephones, chandeliers, charming desks; the possibilities are endless

I spent the first week of May in Italy, and I’m not even exaggerating when I say that one of the things I most looked forward to was visiting all my favourite thrift shops. These days, I go thrifting every time I go to Italy.

My little stone house in Narni is hundreds of years old, so it would be a shame to fill it up with new furniture. And anyway, who can afford buying everything new? (OK, some people, but not I.)

I grew up with a mom who was a dedicated thrifter. She clothed five kids out of Goodwill and the Salvation Army. This was back before thrifting became hip; in fact it was before “thrifting” existed at all.

Back then, we just called it shopping at thrift stores, and teenage me was less than keen on other people knowing that’s where we got our clothes. When I was thirteen or so, I got my first job—giving piano lessons to kids—and spent most of my earnings on clothes shopping at the mall.

Then I grew up and discovered—as one does—that my mom had a few things figured out. Thrifting is magical! And also practical. In my turn, I thrifted a lot of my kids’ clothes too, particularly back when they were little and didn’t care, which coincided with us being twenty-something newlyweds with no money.

Me being me, before buying clothing for my children, I’d make a beeline for the book section. Which accounts for the fact that twenty years later, I find myself with so many books there’s nothing to do at this point but open a bookshop.

Ah yes, the bookshop. The bookshop in Italy. Despite being there last month, I’m sorry to say that I have very little to report on that front. Other than that while we were there, my husband went down to the cellar and found a dead rat. Did you really want to hear that? Maybe not.

Progress on the bookshop is currently limited to planning, for example my recent epiphany that we absolutely must acquire an absinthe fountain, so we can celebrate Oscar Wilde’s birthday every year in style. (HT: Mary Harrison)

On the upside, you’ll be pleased to hear that my little secretary desk has passed the test!

Remember this desk?

If you recall, shortly after buying it last year, I discovered to my utmost horror that at some point in the past hundred or however many years of its existence, it served as a home and dinner buffet for a colony of woodworms.

This is the dark side of thrifting in Italy.

I panicked and banished the desk downstairs, to the cellar that is not yet a bookshop. Down there, I subjected it to a strict regimen of pest control, and when we left, it was wrapped in plastic, still languishing in the cellar.

And its feet looked like this: riddled in woodworm holes and set inside metal bowls filled with antitarlo to make good and sure no bugs lived to eat my furniture another day.

When we arrived in Italy last month, after eight months away, one of my first acts was to go down to the cellar and bring the poor desk back up, and then set it on a sheet so I could carefully monitor for the tell-tale sawdust that would indicate an active woodworm infestation.

One week later, I pronounced the quarantine over, and brought it back into its rightful place. Some people need a vanity in their bedroom; I need a desk.

Here it is, along with the little upholstered stool I found at the same thrift shop. AND a wonderful pendant light from—you guessed it—the same thrift shop.

The lamp needed quite some cleaning up, but when my husband mounted it on the ceiling and we flipped the switch, it turned on! A little miracle. So this is our bedroom right now.

It’s a work in progress, but little by little, I’m making it mine. Err, ours. My husband is masterminding the decor in the second bedroom, which doubles as his office. So our bedroom is my brainchild, and—as in my life in general—I’m going for romantic.

There’s still a lot of work to be done, but I adore our bedroom a little more with each new thing we add. And guess how much that one-of-a-kind pendant light cost me: six euros!

The entire ceiling of this particular secondhand shop is covered in old-fashioned chandeliers.

Remember my telephone chair, and my amazing antique telephone? These are the other amazing telephones I was forced to leave behind.

Most of the chandeliers in that shop are far too grand for my little house. But my pendant light was perfect. I’m in love. Here’s what it looks like up close:

Both the gold-tinted glass shade and the rose-festooned ceramic base are a perfect match for some other bedroom marvels I can’t yet reveal to you. I promise, they’ll be worth the wait!

We also acquired a somewhat less old-fashioned light for our kitchen, although it’s still quite whimsical and floral. Unfortunately, I just combed through all my photos from this trip, and it seems neither I nor my husband thought to take a photo of it. That will have to wait until July, I guess.

In the meantime, let me leave you with some photos I took especially for you of the most atmospheric secondhand shop in our area: La Soffitta della Nonna, which is Italian for “Grandma’s Attic.” A fitting moniker, as you will see. This is only the outside of the shop, which is just down the hill from where we live. Already quite promising, no?

The inside of the shop is like a maze made out of furniture (precariously stacked, at times). There is one narrow path through the store, which means you get to look at everything. Which is totally fine, because you NEED to look at everything. I mean, don’t you want to take the whole shop home?

And once you make it through the maze, you discover to your delight that there’s a staircase leading to an entire second floor!

Grandma's Attic in all its glory

Endless delights, truly. If only we all had a dozen quaint Italian homes to furnish.

I will be back in Italy in July, and if I learned anything from all my visits to Grandma’s Attic, it’s this: there’s not a huge amount of turnover happening there. Anything I didn’t buy in May is very likely to still be there in July.

So here’s a question for you: is there anything I absolutely must buy for my bookshop (or my house!)? Let me know what I should go back for, what I can’t live without. And what would YOU take home from Grandma’s Attic?