Lock It Up!

As many of you know, Ryan and I have recently moved into our first house and in the process have needed to furnish A LOT more space than we’ve had before. As a result, we have taken our time to find the most unique and modern pieces to add the final touches to our place. Since we don’t have a closet when you walk in the front door, we needed a place to store shoes, jackets, bags, etc for ourselves and guests when they come over. Being that I am a teacher, we thought it would be different to use school lockers for storage. At that is where the hunt began!

I obviously began by researching typical cost of a set of lockers, the different sizes/configurations, and the colors they come in. The less work that had to be done to the lockers would definitely be better for us. Anyways, my search began on Craigslist, and after chatting with a few people, I found that it was going to be more difficult than I thought finding what I wanted. I then realized I should probably go check to see if Schiller’s Architectural and Design Salvage had any in their warehouse. My trip their was successful in the fact that they had some, but just not in the condition I was looking to fix up. I then chatted with Allison and thought to check out the awesome places she had visited week prior over on S. Manhattan. There, I did find a nice set of newer looking lockers, but they were priced awfully high and they didn’t have much of a “vintage” look to them.

After coming home feeling defeated and not happy about my failure to find the lockers we wanted, I began looking on Facebook for other vintage shops in the Tampa Bay Area. That’s when I found my saving grace, Paper Street Market, in St. Pete. I followed them on Twitter and within hours, they responded saying they had found tons of lockers if I wanted to come check them out. A friend was staying with us for the weekend and was all about taking the trip to find the perfect set! We hopped in the car on a Sunday and headed to check them out. We met the owners of the store, Sean and Celesta Carter, who had us follow them over to their warehouse a few blocks from the store. We walked through the HUGE space filled with all sorts of different antiques and furniture pieces until we made it to the motherload of lockers. We found a few we liked (in blue) and decided on the one set we were going to take. The cost was reasonable especially bring in the condition they were in and being “picked” from a local school. We made the decision to take one set and come back for a second set later in the week.

Celesta helped load the lockers into the truck and Sean explained how to go about refinishing the sides that were a tan and orange color and make it a shade of grey. We picked up the spray paint and clear coat on our drive home and I got to work refinishing the sides of the lockers before putting them in place. The process was really easy to complete and they turned out AWESOME! Ryan was able to stop back later in the week it pick up the second set and I refinished those as well.

On our first trip out, Celesta had invited us to come back to one of their Brocante Market Days, which is a weekend long event held once a month in the large warehouse where the lockers were stored not far from Paper Street Market. There, the “Brocanteurs” which is a french word for flea market, set up different booths filled with all types of fun looking and unique pieces they have collected along their travels. What was cool about this invite was that we were given early access during the sneak peek event which is held the Friday night prior to the market which runs from Saturday morning through Sunday evening. Check back on more about my AMAZING trip to the Brocante Market Sneak Peek Event later this week! Until next time…..Happy Hunting!

-Nicholas