Antique Heaven

Yesterday, "Team Van" assembled and we ventured out to Slegers in Hamont. Here's the spiffy website for Slegers if you're interested in checking out their goodies. Truth be told, they have some amazing stuff there.

If I was insanely rich.. I mean... in terms that money was no issue and owned a castle, I would've gone buck wild in this antique warehouse. They had all kinds of furniture pieces that dated back to (atleast) the 1870's. Beautifully hand carved pieces that just made you wanna stare at it for hours.. and the whole warehouse was like this!! Makes you wonder about it's origin and the things it's seen before it ended up amongst us common folk, hmmm?

This table was MASSIVE! It seats 21 people (I think). I wonder what disscussions and events happened during it's life in whatever house it used to be in.

This grandfather clock was STUNNING in person! I mean, it's totally not my style at all, but I was completely impressed with the detailed carvings and craftmanship from top to bottom.

I wanted this SO bad!! SO SO SO BAD!! I just know Eric would never allow me to get it, lol

Massive cabinet

Furnaces. Look! They're even detailed!! geez!

Awesome bench.. the seat lifts up for storage items.

They even had a Confessional!

Seriously, I had to get a picture with this bad boy. Look how huge it is!! Keep in mind, I'm 5"7... and I thought the schrunk we got from Germany was large (it's 9 feet tall). This totally took the cake. In all honesty, this wouldnt even fit in our house (height wise)!

Ahhh yes... my entry way with my Christmas decorations up:

This is one of the goodies I scored from the shopping expedition.. it's called a Trog aka trough. Sure, random animals used to eat out of it (or whatever), but it looks pretty spiffy on the hallway dresser. Barb actually got one of these a few weeks back and I fell inlove with it... I ALMOST bought one while we were in Poland, but the dude there was tryin' to rip me off. He wanted 30 euro for a Trog that was alot smaller and pretty beat up. This Trog is in WAY better condition, a nice color that goes with all of our darker furniture AND was cheaper :D I'm a very happy camper! Once I got home, I scrubbed it down a lil bit then filled it up with some Christmas cheer!

We've been in desperate need of some fireplace tools since we've been making our lil fireplace earn it's keep. There's one that a gal is selling (locally from base) and she was wanting $80 for it. Truth be told, it was a pretty cool tool set, but I wasn't willing to shell out that kinda money for it. So, I managed to find this set for 30 euro AND it's much cooler looking. There was another one I fancied at the warehouse but it was EXTREMELY heavy...no joke, probably about 30lbs. It was solid iron and had some cool craftmanship to it, but I was taking into consideration our ever impending PCS when it's time to leave pretty Belgie. We have a weight limit to keep in mind!

This lil' guy is a Speculoos mold. Speculoos is a ginger type cookie that's pretty popular, especially here in Belgium...anyway, this dude is a pretty good size (from the tip of my middle finger to the crook of my elbow) and is made of solid wood. When you wanna make your cookie, you press it into the mold and bake it. BAM! You have your cookie shape. Given, I won't be using this for my baking needs..I thought it was pretty cool to find a windmill shape. Rather fitting for Belgium!

On our way back from our warehouse raid, we stopped off at the Tourist center of my town.. go figure. I havent done that and I've lived here for almost a year (eek!). Barb was telling us about these cool mugs called "Bottoms Up". Pretty much, the botton of the mug is round so you cant' set it down...SO... when you have your beer in it, you gotta drink it up and once you're done, then you turn it upside down to signify that you've polished off your beer.  I thought this was pretty cool! I'll probably never take it out of it's little crate, but it's still cute / cool and it's a conversation piece.

Tomorrow, Team Van will be splitting into two teams... Team Rudolph and Team Nissan (I'm Team Nissan). We'll be bombarding the Aachen Market since some of the other gals havent seen thier market yet.. so.. we should be up for more shinannigans once we're set loose in that town! Wheee!!