Suitcases are Cool

I love this look from apartment therapy

We live in a 60s chamfer on brick house in the burbs. We have enough room (for now) and are quite comfortable. Storage however, is our biggest issue. Mr Cool would say we have too much stuff, but, you know, what does he know about it....


These pictures inspired me to think outside of the 'box' regarding storage. I love rearranging rooms in my house, my eldest child has actually had her bed or cot in all of the bedrooms of the house! This means that at times our cupboards get a bit higgedly-piggedly. Earlier in the year it was time to do some sorting, we had sent an old smelly cupboard 'to live on the farm' and this meant that the things in this cupboard had to go somewhere else, and that somewhere else had things in it so they needed to go to another somewhere else....  Know what I mean?


So... the craft stuff had to be moved out of the baby's room, for obvious reasons, and the coats had to go into his spare cupboard. But... the craft things had no-where else to go. Then I had my idea....


I popped across to a store in town called the LifeLine Emporium, which specialises in selling old things, some cool things and some creepy (furs - eek!) things. I have snapped up handbags, scarves, gloves and other bits and pieces from this groovy shop....  I then bought up some old suitcases. They are not truly vintage, I looked at some on ebay and oh-my-days they were expensive! I like to call mine 'Retro', they were in good condition, clearly had not held a decomposing body and all matched in a mismatched kind of way.  

All of my 'crafting' things fit into these. The bottom one holds all my fabric. The two brown ones holds most of my scrapbooking things (I have some more scrapping things under my desk - boy that stuff multiplies!). And the top one holds things like pictures and paintings and things the children have made that really have no-where else to go.


I was going to shove the stack of suitcases into a corner to just look kitsch from afar, but I actually love them where they are. I love the look, it reminds me of trips abroad, and formica counters at bus stops and percolated coffee served by a blonde with a bad perm. I like to imagine where these suitcases have been, I wonder if they have been to London or Paris - we could share some stories together....  


What cool things have you snaffled up from an Op Shop?