[OH YES I DID] Shopping With Eddie Ross

True confessions: I've *still* never gotten over the fact that Eddie Ross didn't win season two of Top Design. I mean, I'm pretty sure he's fine with it, but I'm just not. Eddie was sooo meant to win--he was the most talented, creative, and if we're being really honest: totallyfuckingadorablicious one on that entire season. But, whatevs... as Jennifer Hudson has since handily proven: you don't necessarily need to be in it to win it.

I've continued to stalk follow Eddie over the years--I love catching up on his blog and I follow him on Twitter (duh). And yeah, he's done pretty well for himself: His country home was featured on Lonny, he designed a GAW-gous window display at Bloomingdales for Elle Decor, and he's shooting his own pilot this Spring! (among sooo many other things!). Needless to say...he ain't sweatin it. After noticing on his blog that he leads these guided flea market trips in NYC and other cities across the country, I finally said to myself: "YO, SELF: YOU NEED TO SIGN UP FOR ONE OF THOSE MOFOS."

So, yeah... I did.

And last weekend I joined Eddie, his partner Jaithan, and about 20 other well-heeled wannabe flea market ninjas at the Antiques Garage in Chelsea. The whole shebang cost $50 bucks and, honestly, I thought I would get to meet Eddie, learn a few tips here and there, and have a fun day shopping. WHOA...IT ROCKED SOOOO MUCH HARDER THAN THAT!

Srsly, ppl: it was by far one of the coolest, most informative, most fun-filled trips to the flea market I have *ever* taken. I love, love, loved it. In fact, it ruled my face so hard, I'm seriously considering signing up for the next one.

First of all, Eddie-n-Jaithan are both so fab and sweet and down-to-earth cool. If Eddie hadn't won me over already, his last line before we finished up for the day certainly did: "And now I desperately need a Diet Coke."

ME TOO, EDDIE! Meeeeeee tooo.

Anyway.

The trip was chock-full of amazing, useful, easy-to-implement information and tips about: great gifts to buy, what to look for when shopping for silver, pottery, etc, totally creative ways of repurposing things, home decorating ideas, and more. I own every single issue of Domino magazine, I have a subscription to Living, Etc and I'm a 3rd degree black belt ebay ninja, so trust me when I say I consider myself pretty savvy about all this crap: and even *I* was learning shit left and right.

I was also insanely impressed by Eddie's deep wealth of knowledge about allll sorts of crazy, random stuff. It seemed like you could literally walk through that market, pick up any object at any booth, and that dude would know exactly what it is, what is was used for, from what era it came from AND have some killer idea about what to do with it.

I can't give all his tips away, cause you gotta go on a trip on your own and pay for that shit, but I will share what I think was one of his best (and one that I try to rock in my own apartment). And that is this: its allll about collections!

The world is pretty much your oyster with a few of the same-like objects. Eddie happens to love shadow boxes, and had a number of kickass ideas about collections you could put in them. He mentioned he was redoing a man's office right now and picked up a bunch of beautiful old vintage pens that he had mounted in one. Voila! Cheap and totally chic.

He also pointed out that a collection of beautiful, old, ornate buttons would look gorgeous in a shadowbox in a woman's dressing room or bedroom. Or cute animal buttons could look fab mounted in a shadowbox in a kid's room.

Another tip he shared that I totally loved, was about gift giving. We all go for that standby bottle of wine as a hostess gift when we're invited to someone's house, but why not kick it up a notch with a fab adorable vintage corkscrew. Buy a case of your favorite bottle of wine to keep around (so you are always ready to go!) and pick up a bunch of cheap, vintage corkscrews at the flea market. Then when its time to gift, you can tie one around the bottle of wine with chic piece of twine and your boring bottle of wine is all of the sudden totally cool and unique. He also suggested picking up a bunch of vintage bottle openers (again, many of these items are around $1 a piece, so you really could go buy 10 of em and just keep them in a drawer). Now when you're bringing over that microbrew six pack to your friends, you can tie the vintage bottle opener around the top handle of the case. Adorbs, right??

Sidenote: as we were walking through the garaage I spotted this doll and ever since then I've been having nightmares about her like whoa (I mean, have you EVER???):

Anyway, there is waaaaay more where that came from. Eddie took us through both floors of the Antiques Garage, stopping along the way at interesting booths and improv-ing through 2 solid hours of design porn that will keep me fantasizing for weeks. The booth owners were practically brawling in the aisles in the hopes of getting him to stop by, particularly since pretty much any item he picked up was immediately purchased by someone in the group who felt confident in laying down the cash after it had Eddie's fingerprints on it. One industrious booth owner smartly requested: "can you pick up something really expensive??"

It looked something like this:

All along the way Eddie was happy to answer questions and offer his opinions. I ended up going by myself, and yet I still had a crapload of fun.

Best of all, it was a cold rainy day in NYC, so the market was practically empty, allowing us way more freedom to walk around and hang together as a group.

So, yeah: on a scale of 1-10, I give this trip a 72. Eddie rulez. And if I were you, I'd sign up for his next trip immeds.

To Do:

• Follow Eddie on Twitter and read his blog.
• Sign up for his next Flea Market trip in NYC on 5/22 (For details and reservations, email jaithan@eddieross.com).
• Then fly your ass out to Chicago and catch him at the Randolph Street Market on 6/20.
• If you have a bajillion dollars, hire him to decorate your place (I'm sure its not a bajillion, but the dude can ROCK it out, so it might be close).
• Check out the Antiques Garage in Chelsea...its really pretty awesome.

Comments

[NineDaves]

eddie was the only designer from season two of top design who i really remember, and it sounds like he's continued to be memorable and fantastic. looks like it's time to do some antiquing!

[LisaD]

I LOVE EDDIE ROSS! So Jealous! Maybe I will sign up for his May trip.