Vintage Mischief: Salvage Hunting in Suffolk

I write a lot about how much I love living in Norfolk, but in truth we are only just across the Norfolk/Suffolk border, and Suffolk is pretty special too! 

Just down the road from us in Beccles is one of the best vintage shops around. Vintage Mischief is run by Simon and Danielle, and specialises in mid-century, retro and industrial pieces. It is filled with everything from watering cans to record players, and is wonderfully curated so you don't have to sift through hundreds of bits and bobs to find the gems - every item is completely take-homeable! They were recently featured on Salvage Hunters (and we all know if Drew says it good, it must be true!) and popping over is one of our favourite ways to spend an hour (and some pennies) on a Saturday morning.

The shop is set out over several rooms, and furniture spills out into the courtyard at the front, as well as into several smaller buildings surrounding this.  I discovered I'm being very drawn to yellow things - particularly light fittings - we loved some of these ones! We also loved this hilarious deckchair complete with it's own sunshade!

One of the most exciting parts of the shop is one of the upstairs rooms, full to bursting with kitchenalia, brightly coloured crockery, glassware and some fantastic patterned items. I adore those grey and yellow chairs and the way everything is organised by colour!

Can you spot the little mug with the crocodile? It's a character from the Timbuctoo books which Rodger Hargreaves wrote before he wrote the Mr. Men and I had quite a few of them when I was little - I very nearly took it home with me. 

We had been hoping to find a mirror for our bedroom when we made the short drive over to the old dairy barn this morning. We didn't buy a mirror, but there were several we liked, including this large round one.

We also both loved this chair, but again left it behind as we've made a decision not to buy anything if we don't know for sure where we're going to put it! Otherwise we run the risk of filling the house with random pieces of furniture but having no finished rooms!

Isn't this floor fun! Vintage Mischief is definitely the place to go for vintage children's books (which we're both rather fond of!) They also have a large collection of Ladybird books (you can see them on the left in the first image) which I find really hard to resist, I just think the illustrations are amazing! 

The only part of the shop more exciting than kitchenalia is one of the smaller rooms attached to the courtyard. It's full of haberdashery supplies, patterns, fabrics, jars full of buttons and piles of amazing vintage towels that make me feel like I'm three years old and at the beach with my Nanny. I could lose hours (and hundreds of pounds) browsing through all these. Did anyone else have those striped flannelette sheets growing up? 

The wall between this room and the one next door is made of just that, doors!

There were a few bits we couldn't leave behind though. We've been planning to have a very loose nautical feel in our bedroom once we get round to decorating it, and I've been looking for a sunburst style clock because I always think they look quite compass like. This one is the perfect size and I love the style of the numbers! It's not working, but it should be fairly easy to fix, and it's made by a company called 'Smiths' (you can just about make it out under the hour hand) so it was meant to be ours! 

I also bought some little terracotta pots for my growing collection of succulents! I paid a pound for all three, and there were literally hundreds of them in all different sizes so I'm sure I'll end up back for more. I particularly liked the bigger ones because they have no rim, and the little one was too cute to resist! 

I also bought a couple of bits in Trip Trapp, the vintage clothing shop within the grounds of the old barn - but I think I'll save those for another post! 

I've you're ever in Suffolk, I can't recommend this place enough!