Lara Spencer - Flea Market Fabulous Designing Gorgeous Rooms with Vintage Treasures

FOR MY GREATEST TREASURES, MATT AND DUFF

Table of Contents

FOREWORD

First off, let me say that Lara should probably not read this foreword. I am about to blow a major amount of hot air up her skirt and I would not want her to read it and then become all conceited and horrid. I would not want her to change.

I love Lara because Lara is fab, Lara is fun, and Lara is a very groovy gal . The truth is that Lara can light up a room. When Lara arrives the party gets started. Her contagious humor and wicked spontaneity infiltrate every nook and cranny. She is a tornado of blonde positivity . That chick has charisma.

But heres the deal: not only can she light up a room metaphoricallychanging the mood from greige to kapow but she can do it literally, too. Laras creativity and her design genius are every bit as powerful as her personal charisma. She has the magical ability to walk into a room and transform the vibe from soggy to glam ... all without spending a billion dollars. She makes chic affordable and accessible!

Lara lights up the world!

In this book you get to accompany Lara as she shines her love-light on nine very different design challenges. You can follow her to the flea market and the upholsterer. You get to slosh paint with her and swag a drape or two.

This is a very generous book. Lara did not phone it in. Au contraire! She has slaved her guts out to bring you a cavalcade of creative solutions and a fiesta of panache-riddled flourishes. Most importantly, Lara is on a mission to help you, dear reader, to make your home fabulous and thereby add fabulosity to your life. Lara has a missionary zeal to bring glamour and color to your home and glamour and color to your life.

Let me sum it up for you: Lara is life-enhancing . I would needlepoint this phrase on a pillow, but I would not want her to read it and then get a big head.

Jonathan Adler

Potter and committed Lara-phile

introduction

Hello again, fellow flea market fanatics, yard sale junkies, and thrift shop connoisseurs! As some of you might know, in my first book, I Brake For Yard Sales, I shared all of the treasure hunting tips my mom, the ultimate yard saler, taught me. In Flea Market Fabulous, I put all of that know-how to work using all of my secondhand scores to create spaces that only look like they cost a million bucks! In the following pages, well be decorating nine very different rooms using almost entirely all rescued, recycled, and reinvented pieces found at our usual hauntsthrift shops, yard sales, and flea marketsincluding the mecca for vintage treasures: the Brimfield Antique Show in Brimfield, Massachusetts.

Robin and I talk design during commercial breaks on the set of Good Morning America.

I spy with my little eye... a nineteenth-century telescope at Elephants Trunk Flea Market in new Milford, Connecticut. Its open every Sunday from March through the beginning of December.

Cameras roll as we shop for an HGTV special called I Brake for Yard Sales.
By the way, I didnt buy that $75 painting and still regret it!

From Reel Life to Real Life

HGTV asked me to do a series based on my first book, I Brake for Yard Sales , in which viewers can watch my team and me solve real-life design dilemmas using all of our secondhand scores and rehab know-how...

In this book youll see real rooms belonging to families with real design dilemmas. Theres the couple so terrified of making a mistake while decorating their living room that they just let it sit emptyfor four years! Theres another couple who wanted to turn their dark and dismal basement into a fun playroom for their little boy, and a place they could entertain grown-up friends as well. Let me tell you, it was daunting, but also incredibly gratifying, to turn a cavernous unused space into a beautiful room that hardly resembles the basement it once was. If that dilemma sounds familiarwhether its your basement or attic or a quirky little room you have no idea what to do withI promise, you will find an idea in the makeovers youre about to see.

There is inspiration everywhere in this book regardless of your design dilemma. One of my favorite challenges is a kitchen belonging to a couple who never got around to decorating because the wife was diagnosed with breast cancer right after they moved in (chapter 8). Now in remission, she is ready to celebrate with food, friends, and a fashionable kitchen that captures the essence of her spirit and zest for life. She felt she was given a second chance, and loved the idea of a room filled with pieces that were as well.

Members of the teamJen, Cija, and Alexwatch a video of one of the design dilemmas with me and brainstorm how well solve it.

Behind the scenes in the oh-so-glamorous world of an HGTV makeover. Hey, safety before beauty. Always.

So, whats your style? Its okay if you dont know. I bet youll figure it out by the time you get to the end of this book. Not that it will be set in stone. Mine has changed a dozen times over the years. The rooms I loved when I was younger were always more seriousfilled with plaids and lots of brown antiques. Now I feel no need to prove I have a grown-up home. My style is much more who I really amquirky and eclectica mix of sleek mid-century pieces with comfortable, relaxed seating, and art that makes me smile.

And thats why flea markets are indeed