Woolloongabba Antique Centre

If you're looking for something to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon, then you might like to consider going to the Woolloongabba Antique Centre.  It's an enormous warehouse filled with individual dealer stalls,  each one specialises in something unique from antique French couture (Chanel, Cartier etc) to retro 70's orange furniture and homewares.  It even has a 1950's diner in the centre that serves tea in the most darling little themed tea pots.  Don't think it's all for the ladies though, my husband loves coming along just for the cabinet of weaponry and military collectables.

Antique and vintage furniture really is very competitive with new furniture. You can buy something beautifully hand-made from solid timber for the same price as you'd pay for something made out of chip-board from a big chain store. I recently bought some antique Italian ceramic house numbers for $18 each and they were cheaper than equally sized soulless ones from Bunnings!

These guys have an incredibly good website here  I recommend you put your name down on their mailing list because I attended their Christmas Party in 2010 and it was excellent with lucky door prizes (my friend was lucky enough to win one), free champers and live music.

The least you should know: They are located at 22 Wellington Road, Woolloongabba.  There's plenty of parking around the streets on the weekends though I haven't braved it during the week.  They're open 7 days a week from 9 - 5 and make sure that you allow plenty of time for browsing because there really is a lot to see.

The warehouse has been divided into a series of small open rooms, each one with it's own theme 

Just in case you've always dreamt of owning GIANT neon letters. Sadly not really practical for my 50's California bungalow, but if I lived in a warehouse apartment....

I love that wonderful 1950's set of kitchen cupboards. When I renovated our original 50's kitchen, I couldn't bear to throw it out and the whole thing is intact in our downstairs laundry...now all I need is some paint

This is the most incredible 70's lounge suite.  I love those big cushions too.

Far Pavilions Factory Outlet- Salisbury

For the last three years, the Far Pavilions Factory Outlet has been located about 5 minutes from my house and I can't believe I didn't know about it until this morning.

Far Pavilions is a Queensland owned and operated furniture company that specialises in good quality "interesting and affordable homewares and furnishings". The company motto is "make every home a journey".  The head office and Samples, Seconds and Discontinued outlet is in an enormous warehouse in the industrial district at Salisbury.

The least you need to know: The Factory is at Commerce Street, Salisbury and they are open Wed - Fri 10-3, Sat 9-5 and Sunday 10-3.

It looks like an ordinary old warehouse from the outside

Inside, there are bargains everywhere.  At the moment they are offering 3 pieces of furniture for the price of 2, which is dangerous when you find the perfect entertainment unit and coffee table and you can have the other matching telephone table (worth $399) for free.

The very friendly salesperson was apologising for the mess, and there I was feeling I'd wandered into Aladdin's cave 

I have a feeling that I'll be visiting this place quite often

There's just way too many pretty pieces of furniture in here, very dangerous to my post christmas budget!