On the Hunt in Spain

Today, I decided work before fun. So while Theo was still ‘resting,’ I started mopping the new floor tiles for the umpteenth time, scraping up the bits of plaster, grout, and paint spatters with my razor blade and scrubbie pad. After a first pass with the mop, then onto my knees for maniacal close-up scrutiny, I was still able to catch a glimpse of the amazing sunrise.

This was all in anticipation of putting down an area rug in the living room to not only warm it up a bit and absorb some of the noise, but to help us decide on colors and size of the eventual permanent rug.

I have a list of probably 50 rugs ‘bookmarked’ on my computer, but they are new or are retail antiques, and well, we’re always looking for a deal. Who isn’t??? When furnishing a house of this size from scratch, you gotta mix up the less expensive ‘finds’ with the full-retail pieces you really want. Well, I found a rug that I thought would be amazing for the living room on Catawiki. And after wrestling with their software, trying every freaking credit card I could find in the house to be accepted into their stupid system, I finally succeded in placing my first bid. While meeting the reserve price, a steal at €689 for a 2.5 meter x 3.5 meter Sarough with 360,000 knots per square meter in pristine condition and freshly cleaned with 9% auction fees and shipping of only €15, I was holding my breath as the auction was close to ending, thinking I was soon to be the new owner of this beauty. Then I got busy with something else for a few minutes, went to check the status, and yep, someone had swept in seconds before the lot closed and outbid me at €740. Still a bargain. Damn. Lesson learned. Anyone out there buy or sell stuff on Catawiki? I’m a newbie, but am always game.

So, no carpet for me. I decided with a vengeance that somehow we would wrestle the large rug (that was in the living room when we bought the house), back in from spending months outside under a watertight roof. After heaving it onto the patio and vacumming it to the best of my ability, Theo and I pulled, tugged, lifted, and cussed the heavy rug inside. Then tried to place it as well as possible. Here’s what it looks like now. Still fairly undressed, this room, but was better than a couple of days ago.

So after all this hard work was done, it was time to play, so we took showers and headed out to a furnishings store we had discovered last year. Thank goodness all the retail folks speak some English––it’s so much easier than in France! Engaged with a very interested sales gal and proceeded to find many items in their shop. Still need to take some measurements, but we found some very comfortable lounge chairs for the front patio, a great little outdoor dining table, a headboard for the downstairs large bedroom, a very comfortable sofa for the apartment, and candidates for the master bedroom.

After a satisfying lunch at our favorite Chinese food joint in Javea, we headed towards Calpe to a long-time design store favourite. On the way, Theo was peeling around a roundabout and I said “keep going!,” there’s a store over there we HAVE to go to. And we discovered the most interesting store ever! The Dutch owner was very helpful and when I described what I was looking for, she said she had something interesting in the basement (aka their warehouse on a lower level). We went down there and I didn’t want to leave. I was in my element (being a warehouse lover myself), this is where their inventory was unloaded, unwrapped, and wow, was there a lot of stuff.

I was on the hunt for a wowie-zowie bookcase unit with a Moroccan/ Indian/Asian feel to downplay the mid-century upholstered pieces in the room. And she showed me a beast. I forgot to take my phone, so don’t have a photo, but it was VERY similar to this one.

And a steal—they buy containers of Indonesian furniture that the destinare couldn’t pay for, so they get them for almost nothing, but they never know what’s going to be inside. What a fun business…right down my alley… UPDATE: I called after we got home to have them send a photo of the bookcase and she said another customer bought it right after we left. Go figure–just like the rug! But it wasn’t precisely what I had in mind anyway.

We finally made it to our ultimate destination store, which ended up being a bust. Everything I remotely liked was so oversized and just not right for our space, so home we went. To measure. And dream. Now we cross our fingers that the stock market rebounds, as we’ve put a hold on more major purchases for the moment because of the effects of the Coronavirus on investments. 😭