WEST COAST ADVENTURE

If you have been missing posts from bZd (you haven't) and you were wondering what had happened to me (you weren't), then I'm happy to report that I have been away on vacation enjoying sites such as this:

#nofilter

...and this:

#nofilter

I have returned home safely from a really awesome journey to the northwest coast, visiting some close friends in Vancouver and taking 4 days in Washington state to enjoy Sasquatch Music Festival. If you haven't heard of Sasquatch, look it up. Then go.

Vancouver is as good as everyone says it is - a west coast vibe is easily felt in the city and it offered some really amazing shopping.  

Gastown, Vancouver's historic area, boasts cobblestone streets, beautiful bistros and some truly unique boutique stores. Inform Interiors, the international furniture dealer, has a massive retail location here which I happily browsed, but left dejected after not seeing many price tags that were below the $10,000 mark. (Yes, $10,000!) Still - definitely worth a look. 

On a more mundane budget, there were some really awesome antique and knick-knack dealers, such as this one pictured below, which offered a bunch of taxidermy-type things (my favourite), and some decorative french horns. Man I love me some french horns.

... Of course I didn't note either the name or address of this store, but it's in Gastown. Perhaps on Cordova? This post is useless.

My great friend Margherita also whisked me off to The Kitchen Corner, in Kitsilano. Now this place was BUDGET. FRIENDLY.

Basically a dollar store on crack (the good kind), this place had a huge offering of housewares, most for less than $20.

Shelves of bamboo storage systems:

An overwhelming glassware selection:

A metalware section, where I found this beautiful two-toned bucket which I thought would be beautiful to put ice in to keep drinks cold in summer:

And ceramic and pottery-palooza:

I left with a few ceramic pieces for my kitchen, but would have loved to have left with more. Packing light has its disadvantages.

Vancouver itself had a really cool style, that I would recommend to anyone to check out. If only I could have spent more time there to relay more places to check out.

Do you have any cool insider design hotspots to recommend in Vancouver? Let me know!

bZd