About one year ago a friend of mine asked me to thrift with him some dining chairs.
We went in an ex industrial area in the middle of nowhere ,in Amsterdam Noord.
And that was the exacte day when I felt in love of the northern part of my city 😀
Neef Louis
When we arrived, I has amazed….we were in an HUGE warehouse full of all kind of design furniture from the 50s on; a paradise called Neef Louis.
Lights, armchairs like the Wegner Papa Bear, German pottery, teak sideboards, sofas, chairs like the Bertoia ones, coffetables and all the furniture you can imagine, strictly from the last 50 years!
Neef Louis is a shop, don’t ask me where they find all those design treasures because I’ve no idea unfortunately, but they also rent some of the pieces they have -their private collection- for photo shoots, movies, commercials etc.
Apparently this is their main business so they don’t have a real interest keeping the prices of the the goods down. They know exactly the quality and the value of what they are selling and then the prices are high, at least for me… no Charles Eames office chairs for 20 euro 😉
But the good news is that they have a lot of stuff, so you can definitely find some nice accessorize for your home for few bucks…I bought these desk clocks for 25 euro!
Another characteristic of this shop is that they also sell industrial pieces, like these big letters, that I love too! Cabinets, desks, chairs…from old factories, warehouses, hospitals and even schools. I saw some chirurgical equipment as well!
I had a chat with one of the guys there and he told me that the shop actually exists since a quite long time…I suppose it was a warehouse it self in the past…but it was located somewhere else.
Van Dijk en Ko
In front of Neef Louis there’s another warehouse/shop… Van Dijk en Ko. Is less design oriented but you can find great furniture as well…they have more a ‘country’ style there.
Big wooden cabinets, stools, chairs, closets and many kind of different items; some of them really funny like this horse-bike 😀
But you can always be surprised…in fact, few weeks ago I spotted some Eames office chairs while I was thrifting !
On the websites you’ll find all the info to reach these shops…is quiete easy, but check Google Maps because the street is small and is easy to get lost 😉
If you visit those shops come back here and leave a comment with your feedback and findings, but in the meanwhile keep following Mid Century Home for free trough the RSS by the Mail List or Twitter!
You will only receive great ideas and information about the mid century modern world.
Check also the previous posts of this series:
Ciao!
