Where growing, making & good living come together

Second hand kitchenalia

Posted by on Tuesday 1 March 2011 in charity shopping, frugal | 7 comments

Piper, who writes about The Frugal Life on MSN, has asked: Would you fit your kitchen out in second hand items or do you insist on brand new?. I started to reply on Twitter but quickly ran out of characters!

We joke that our house is “the house that eBay” built after my numerous purchases on the auction site in the months after we bought our new house – and the kitchen was one of the main recipients of that. We replaced the very dated, dark green hob & plastic sink with eBay specials – less than £20 each for a very good quality stainless steel Smeg hob (and collected from less than a mile away!), and a white ceramic farmhouse sink with taps & waste — they really transformed the kitchen, making it a lot brighter & easier to use/clean. I’m currently looking out for a new oven (since ours is old and playing up) – and that’ll be a used but in good condition one from eBay too.

The kitchen itself was installed by the house’s previous owners in the early-mid 1990s – it’s a bit dated/not our style and also the cupboards in the small extension don’t match the rest – but it’s fine. We might replace the cupboard doors at some point – but I imagine that’ll only happen if a perfect set comes up on eBay/Freecycle or is heavily, heavily reduced at a shop (such as ex-display). The previous owners also left their fridge, freezer, microwave & dishwasher – we’re going to swap out the separate fridge & freezer with our old stacked one when our coal hole is finally turned into a utility room, but that old one was also secondhand — a freebie from a relative upgrading their kitchen.

Most of our crockery is a retro set my mum & dad used when I was little – we got what remained of a dinner & coffee set off them a couple of years ago and have been adding to it from charity shop finds ever since. The best charity shop find was a complete dinner set in the same design but a different base colour (cream instead of mustard yellow) – for £3. Other random plates & bowls were charity shop finds including the most chintzy plate I’ve ever seen, which John hates but I think is perfect for cakes.

Our most commonly used pans were a cheap set my brother bought to take to university in 1995 – he returned from uni with them and I took them when I moved out of home in 1998 and have been using them ever since. Similarly, we’ve got a small casserole dish that was given to my mum and dad as a wedding present when they married in 1974 (retro chic a go go!).

We have two sets of scales – both from charity shops. Our pots for wooden spoons etc are old school lidless crock pots – 40? 50 years old?. Our two small teapots are a hand-me-down and a charity shop find respectively. Our cereal bowls are little Chinese soup bowls from someone emptying out a store at a restaurant. Our blender & pasta maker & blender were both unwanted re-gifts. Our fruit bowl came from a charity shop. Our former egg storage chicken was a charity shop purchase too – but she’s just too small for our egg collection these days!

So would I fit out our kitchen out in second hand items? umm, yes!

Other posts you might like:

Charity shop finds: two fruitbowls and a vintage cookbook Charity shop bargains from Shipley Using expensive freezer real estate efficiently Bad buys: nearly all the clothes I’ve ever bought off eBay

7 Comments

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  1. Attila
    1 March, 2011 at 4:10 pm

    Absolutely YES! I’m sitting here drinking tea from a Johnson Bros Greydawn cup and saucer and using matching milk jug. The teapot with pink roses is an odd one from my collection. Greydawn is the main vintage/second hand set I use but I have numerous bits of crockery/tableware/cookware that were all secondhand. I used to have a used hand mixer and have had loads of secondhand appliances; presently fridge freezer and washing machine (both gifts).

    Reply
  2. sara
    1 March, 2011 at 6:30 pm

    O yes..i am always on the look out for second hand bits for my kitchen,they have much more character than the mass produced stuff these days…i love that my cups don’t match..and that i only have 2 cups and saucers that do match..all my mixing bowls and baking bits are from charity shops and at a fraction of the cost..i have lots of china and it doesn’t match..just makes my table look shabby chic without even trying..i have mismatched glasses and it just looks so nice..my fridge is secondhand,freezers and my breadmaker..nothing wrong with them at all…tbh i prefer secondhand or preloved as i like to call them..cheaper and in some cases better made than modern stuff..stands the test of time..

    sara

    Reply
  3. Linda
    2 March, 2011 at 1:48 am

    Second-hand unmatched cups and glasses are fantastic! You don’t need to worry about using someone elses vessel as they are all different.

    Reply
  4. Lynsey aka Swirlyarts
    2 March, 2011 at 7:16 am

    Oh yes – it makes mealtimes much more fun if none or only some of the plates match! In fact the girls like choosing which plates we will use that evening! I’ve written a mini blog post about it but will have to document all my secondhand things in the kitchen one day – I have some fabulous enamel pans I got in France :)

    Reply
  5. David
    2 March, 2011 at 8:32 pm

    We catered our wedding on mixed up charity shop crockery. It took weeks to get enough together for all our guests. Then the week after the wedding, we took it all back to the charity shops again. Everyone loved it. Recently we discovered cheap LeCruset pans on ebay. It’s heavy and no one wants to post it, so it ends up selling at a fraction of the new price. Probably shouldn’t have said that… watch the prices rise now!

    Reply
  6. louisa
    3 March, 2011 at 10:35 am

    Hi guys,

    Glad to see we’re not the only ones with character filled kitchen cupboards :)

    David: shush! how will I get my bargain LeCreuset if you tell everyone?! ;)

    Reply
  7. Linda
    4 March, 2011 at 4:51 am

    Awesome David, I thought you were going to say that the guests got to take their crockery home haha!

    Reply

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