- Hi, guys.
I am up really early this morning
because today, we are headed to a brocante.
I know you guys have been wanting to see one of these,
and this one will be perfect.
In the summer in most regions of France,
you can find these huge brocantes
or these huge flea markets.
I typically miss the big ones
because our trips never align.
but this year, because we've been here all summer,
I've just been waiting for this. (laughs)
So my friend Freddie is coming to pick me up
and we are going to go take off
and see what we can find,
because I still have a few holes left in the house
that I need to fill, like this.
I still have not found my hooks for the entry
and I think that it's driving everybody crazy now,
because all of our baskets and sometimes jackets and hats
will just be laying here with people tripping over them.
So I'm hoping that that's one thing that we can find.
I also need to find a few things for the bedrooms,
a few pieces of art and some hooks for the studio,
which is this other bedroom
that you guys can see in part two of the tour.
And then I've got this funky little table
that we're just throwing, like all of our stuff on.
It's like a catch all.
So I really want this to look nice,
I'm trying to find some sort of console and mirror,
some little entry piece to give this area character.
So we have a few loose ends
before I give you the part two tour,
but hopefully I can find most of them today.
Let's go.
(upbeat music)
Freddie came to pick me up
and we took off into the French countryside.
It was so wonderful to drive through the forest
and the canopy of trees.
This is scenery that we just don't get in Los Angeles.
After about 20 minutes driving through this forest,
these windy back roads, looking through farmland,
I couldn't help, but thinking, where was she taking me?
Where was this place?
But also I totally trust Freddie,
she's been to this flea market several years
and if she says this is the best way to go,
this is the best way to go.
And then finally, we came up upon a beautiful,
charming little French town.
And as we drove through town,
we could see that things were picking up.
That's my first tip with these flea markets,
you gotta get there early,
not only for the parking situation,
which you'll see in a minute,
but all the best stuff is still there in the morning.
If you wait and get there too late,
you'll end up getting all the stuff
that people kind of passed over.
And as soon as we rounded the bend,
I could start to see the big banners,
"Les puces grande brocante."
So they les puces basically means the fleas
or the flea market.
So then we were off to find some parking.
They started to close off some of the streets
as the traffic was really heating up,
so we got into line and waited our turn.
The cars were already lining up
to get into this big field,
which is where the flea market was held.
I had my two euros ready, which is what it costs to enter.
It was interesting to note
that the euros actually went to a local charity
so that was nice.
As soon as we made it into the parking lot,
which was really just a big unmowed field,
I could start to see how popular this event was.
There were cars being stacked,
attendants directing traffic,
and we finally found a spot.
Now this was just the parking lot.
It was still a long trek to where the tents were
where the flea market was held.
Remember this scene
because this will factor in later. (chuckles)
We paid our euros and in we went.
And as soon as we arrived, oh my,
there were tents for as far as the eye could see,
I didn't know where to begin.
The whole thing was so overwhelming.
I just figured we'd start at the first tent.
Okay, I just found something super cute
that I have been looking for, a little mustard pot.
So mustard is kinda like
the preferred condiment of France.
And you see it a lot of the times brought to the table
when you serve roast chicken or meat.
It's been around so long
that you'll find really beautiful
vintage mustard pots like this one.
I couldn't resist the glass and the wood.
I got it for 10 euros,
and I just need to find a spoon to go with it.
I love these flea markets
because you never know what you're gonna find.
Look at this old soldier's uniform,
it might be a costume rather than the original,
a little theater child's toy, so cute.
There's so much to see, it can really be overwhelming.
Freddie found an amazing silver serving piece set,
which looked pretty great.
And then I found some serving pieces too.
A lot of times these serving pieces
are in these little boxes.
So when you're at the flea market, open all the boxes
because you never know what's waiting for you inside.
These will make great salad servers.
Another wonderful thing to look for
in a French flea market, are linens.
You can find beautiful old quilts
and placemats, vintage style sheets,
you can also get amazing napkins and dish towels.
I love the dish towels
because I think they make for great bread basket liners.
(marketers chattering)
Then I found this,
I am such a sucker for old French paintings.
This is the most beautiful coloration,
and it comes in the frame, only for 10 euros.
Look how beautiful.
Another thing that caught my eye were these molds.
Look at these.
I thought first maybe they were chocolate molds
or gelatin molds, I'm not really sure what they were,
but these oysters really caught my eye.
How cool are those?
Okay, then this, I could not resist.
It was a miniature chest, known as a maquette,
which furniture makers would make in miniature
before they would actually make the bigger piece. (chuckles)
I thought it would make a very adorable jewelry box
for one of the bedrooms.
I just couldn't resist it, so I had to snatch it up.
Now, the thing that I must find
are these things for the entry.
I am having absolutely no luck (laughs)
finding any hooks or any type of thing
that I can put all those market baskets on.
I gotta keep looking.
And then moments later, I stumbled into this man's booth.
He had all different kinds of nautical lanterns
and iron pieces, and then I saw something
that I thought could be a possibility.
Okay, basically, I'm gonna make this work.
I'm gonna take the two blonde ones
and put them together for the entry,
and then I'm gonna take the two small ones
and put them in the studio.
This was definitely the stand to come to
because he's got all kinds of hanging things.
Speaking of hanging things,
look at this old, beautiful map of France.
Isn't that cool? (chuckles)
I just couldn't get over the variety of things
that you could find at this flea market.
Look at these amazing chaise lounge chairs.
They remind me of the kind
that would have been on some very chic cruise ship,
crossing the Atlantic. (laughs)
How beautiful and cool are they are?
And then of course I saw another hanging thing.
Look at that.
Wasn't that beautiful?
Well, too late, I already found mine.
Okay, then I found something I was really looking for,
the piece for the entry.
This is going to be perfect.
I love it, it's beautiful,
and I can store lots of things in it.
(speaking in French)
I was explaining to Freddie
what I love most about this piece,
was the fact that it was a lighter wood
and would match the other pieces in our house.
Sometimes in France, it can be easier
to find the darker pieces,
but finding these lighter pieces
can sometimes be a challenge.
We just need to find somebody
to help us bring it to the car,
(laughs) 'cause this does not look light.
(upbeat music)
Well, it turns out because of the pandemic,
they did not have any porters this year at the flea market,
but the best he could do
was to put it on a little hand trolley
that he said we could borrow
to cart it to the car.
I kept thinking about
how we would have to take this piece of furniture
and get our way first out of the tents,
then take the long trek home,
back to where the cars were parked.
It probably was about a kilometer.
And I just kept thinking could we do it? (laughing)
Was it worth it?
The kind seller could see me sort of processing all of this.
So he showed us how light it really was.
Look, one hand, not a problem. (laughs)
So Freddie took a turn just to verify
that we could in fact carry this thing.
And we thought, "You know what?
Girl power, let's do it."
(Freddie speaking in French)
- I'm going to use all of my yoga strength
(Freddie laughing)
to cart this to the car.
I'm a woman on a mission.
You know you're a lover of old things
when you are willing to drag an old piece of furniture
through the hot sweaty field (laughs) of a French brocante.
(upbeat music)
(marketers chattering)
It'll be worth it.
I find it's an hour of pain
for a life time of enjoyment.
(upbeat music continues)
(marketers chattering)
And I love that it came with the key on a little tassel.
How cute is that?
Mission accomplished.
Done.
There's nothing quite like the thrill of victory
after shopping a French brocante.
I couldn't wait to get these treasures home
and put them in place.
So now it's a few days after we went to the flea market
and I wanted to show you how the entry has come together
from all of our flea market finds.
Ta-da.
Now you can see the after,
which I think is a lot more cozy,
a lot more integrated and definitely more functional.
Okay, so here is the big hero piece,
this little entry table,
which Freddie was saying that she thought
used to be what they would store jams and jellies in,
in old kitchens in France.
So, they didn't really have cabinetry,
they used a lot of furniture
and she said this probably would have been something
in a kitchen, but I think it is perfect
right here in the entry.
And then I found this really fabulous mirror,
hey, you, (laughs)
this really fabulous mirror at a local antique shop,
Atelier Brocante, I'll link to it below
in case you guys come here and rent the house.
It's a really fabulous place to find all kinds of things.
I just love the scale of it and the design.
It's one of those gold French mirrors
that you see a lot of the times over mantles.
I like it because it's not that ornate.
It's really simple,
a bit streamlined and modern in its approach,
which I think is good for this house.
And then this little curious piece
I found at another local thrift shop.
I got it for about five euros
and I just thought it was so pretty
and would work here is like a catch-all.
So we put like extra keys in here, our masks,
anything, you can put change in here,
anything you need to kind of put in a drop zone.
I'm told that the original purpose for something like this
probably would have been as a poubelle de table,
which literally translates to a trash for the table.
It's not used so much now in France,
as much as it was probably used a few decades ago.
There's so many courses in France
that in between the courses,
you would need something to put like little chicken bones
or rinds of cheese that you didn't eat,
all the little scraps from the table
that you probably didn't want to get up
and go to the kitchen to scrape the plate,
to interrupt sort of the flow of the meal.
I don't know.
My daughter came up with a good point
like, "Well, they had to go to the kitchen
to get the cheese or to get the dessert,
(laughing) why didn't they just scrape the plates?"
I don't know why, but maybe one of you guys know why.
It seems like a very charming little tradition.
So I don't know.
I'm very curious about it.
But it works very well
to hold our keys in the modern era. (chuckles)
Then I also got this little carafe,
it might actually be a vase, I'm not really sure,
but I love the gold striping on it
and I love the size of it.
And I thought that would be really pretty
to hold some flowers.
These are these gorgeous hydrangeas
that I don't have growing here yet,
but hopefully will soon.
Freddie gave me these from her garden.
Aren't they gorgeous?
And I have found that little coasters
work really well under a vase on a wood piece
so that you don't stain the table,
so I've got that there.
And then I kept the key in the key hole of the chest,
but then I decided to move the tassel (laughs)
because I thought it would look a little bit better
on the armoire, since we didn't have a tassel on there,
we had this ugly sort of blue plasticky thing,
keeping the key in place.
And I just thought it looked right at home on the armoire.
So that's where that went. (chuckles)
I love a good tassel, it looks so pretty.
Then, here we go, the piece de resistance,
my little hooks, (chuckles) which I am so happy
because it leaves this bench free and clear,
and we put them together and hung them as one.
And actually, I think I could probably
have room for maybe one or two more.
So we will see about that.
But each one has its own little spot.
My daughter even got her little basket here,
(laughs) which is cute for her little change purse.
And it's just so functional.
You come in from outside,
come in from the market,
you put your basket there and away you go.
It's so great.
And then my older daughter found this pillow,
which I thought was really cute,
just to sort of soften this bench.
Anytime my girls come up with ideas for decor,
I always like to integrate it
because I think it's fun
to see them getting involved in it
and I want them to know that their opinion matters.
So, that was a good little find.
And then we put a rug in here.
So one of the things we're learning with the concrete
is you need to add some softening touches,
which is why I really love
to integrate the old with the new,
because it seems to just kind of soften the whole vibe.
And then we have a light fixture that we put in
and, oh, and then this, I actually found this online.
I think a website called leboncoin
is where I found it or maybe, selency.
It's an old antique umbrella stand.
It's made out of copper.
it has these like little porcelain decorative touches.
I love it because it really rains pretty hard here,
and when you come in and you've got a wet soaking umbrella,
you just pop it right in there.
The only other thing that I think I would like to do
to this entry before we leave,
is to create a fabric panel above the door,
sort of going here to there.
I think that'll soften the space
and cover what is now the thermostat
and all the alarm stuff.
I don't know.
There's something that just sort of feels still
a little unfinished to me.
Maybe it's just a one panel, like a, I don't know,
classic stripe that might just go across the door
and then swoop with a tieback
and kind of soften that area.
I think that might be kind of pretty.
So let me know in the comments,
what do you think,
leave it as is, or add the fabric panel? (chuckles)
And then as far as the little painting goes,
I really wanted to put that right here.
I know it looks kind of funny
just being its own little thing,
but I don't know, I like small little paintings
on big walls sometimes
because it just focuses you in
and makes you just sort of notice it.
And there's something really cute
about the coloration of this painting
and how it really matches all of the China,
'cause it has that same sort of gold and green coloration.
A lot of you guys have asked me what the pattern is called.
I do not know, I have been trying to find it myself
because I would love to find some matching coffee cups,
(laughs) we don't have the coffee cups, but I don't know.
I do think it's quite pretty.
If I ever find out what it is,
I'll post it here and let you guys know.
And then my little mustard pot is sitting here.
We're still waiting for its spoon.
I was never able to find the spoon,
but I think that that should be easy enough to find,
but I haven't used it yet
because I don't have anything small enough to go in there.
But I just thought it was a nice little piece on our buffet.
This is another painting that I found,
which I think is so pretty.
Again, it came in the frame,
but I love that it's really best appreciated from afar
because it almost is kind of impressionistic.
You can see the boats and the coloration.
I just love it, I think it's so charming.
And then if you guys haven't seen,
I did finally hang the oyster plates.
I thought they just looked better three,
because sometimes with something like that,
less is more so we went with the less is more approach.
And if you missed the house tour
and you wanted to get caught up,
you can click this annotation there.
And if you want to see all of my videos
that I've done in France,
you can click that annotation down there.
All right, you guys, I'll see you back here next week,
when we will tackle the French creperie.
(crockery clattering)
(Beth speaking in French)
(everybody laughing)
(chef speaking in French)
- (laughs) It's quite a visit.
Until then. Bye.