Polka dotty

Rainy days ask for a splash of colour to cheer us all up. Here are some polka dots from those trendy people at lookbook:

• From Berlin, a vintage dress and a handbag from a London fleamarket.

• Thrifted polka dot skirt
• From New York City, thrifted dress and belt. Love the peeptoes.

A Brooklyn beacon

Beacon's closet in hipster centric Williamsburg is a must go destination for any New York thrift shopper. Although this isn't your classic thrift store - the funds don't go to support a noble cause - Beacon's closet is definitely thrifty, with plenty of bargains to be found.

The shop is located in an old warehouse space and is ginormous. It is arranged by colours - see the pretty photos - and has a great selection of clothes, vintage and modern. The shoes are fabulous and there is a good dress selection if you're looking for something with a little va va voom.


Men need not feel neglected at Beacon's, there is a good men's selection and there are some comfy chairs at the entrance where they can read a newspaper as they wait for their girlfriends. Alternatively, you can park your manfriend at the record store a couple of blocks away. Happiness all round!

Do you want to indulge in some new shoes but cannot face eating cheese and toast until payday? No worries, swap your old threads for cash or Beacon's closet store credit. Keep in mind that the cash you get for your clothes depends on:

- How fashionable/desirable are they? Would anyone want to wear them?
- Are they in good nick?
- Are they designer? However, see first point. Nobody wants your nylon purple mesh Versace trousers.

Last time I was at Beacon's, I bought a huge, girly dusk pink silk scarf - for $11. I love this place!

For the love of thrift rating (from 1 to 10):

Selection: 9

Presentation: 9

Niceness of staff: 7

Bargain factor (ie pricing): 8

Thrift turnover: 9

Something old, something borrowed, something blue

Moving into a completely empty apartment with nothing but a couple of suitcases filled with clothes, was, I admit it, a little daunting. However, in a city filled with thrift shops, and in the country that gave you Craigslist, I quickly realised that the process of making a home was going to be a lot of fun.

In NYC, there is no reason to go to Ikea or other similar mass-produced, yawn-inducing stores. I want a home with personality. A home where things have a story about who they belonged to, the house they lived in, or how they were hunted down and found. And I'd rather not have to assemble my furniture – lego for grown ups is simply not my thing.

Each day, after we'd moved in, L and I obsessively scoured the Manhattan furniture section of Craigslist. This is one of our early finds and one of my first ‘home’ projects. The dresser had the exact shape I was looking for and in its shabby, off-white state was going for only $30. I dragged a grumbling L miles down south to the financial district.

We followed our map through an anonymous part of town but then found ourselves in a funky apartment where the owner sat us down, poured us tea, and wanted to know our life history. Hmm, we were buying a dresser, not considering an adoption. Nevertheless, we chatted for ages and she kindly sold the dresser to us and volunteered her reluctant boyfriend to deliver it to our door. Success!

From the very beginning I knew I wanted a brightly coloured dresser in my living room. And so I transformed the dresser from its orginal sad white into this gorgeous blue beast, and finished it with these sleek burgundy drawer pulls from Anthropologie.