Johannesburg - Two corsets are casually hanging on the wall, near a stack of old suitcases piled on a wardrobe and an old drink cabinet in the corner.
Poke around some more and you spot a gorgeous old cabinet with doors that elaborately fold out and fold in half, revealing a bright red interior. So far, the stuff stacked up in Trouvé antique shop looks pretty much like any other, a delightful place where one man’s junk is another man’s treasure.
Then I notice that the front door of a house adjoining the shop is painted turquoise - but looks like it was done decades ago - with patches of old red showing up beneath. Now I’ve found the twist that makes Trouvé unusual. Owner Joe Strydom isn’t aiming for neat and shiny perfection in his antiques, he’s aiming for a battered, loved and lived-with look, even if he has to cheat and apply it himself.
“To call it shabby chic is very cliche, it’s more stylishly distressed,” he says. The word “unfinished” also springs to mind, which pleases him, even though he spent hours deliberately making his turquoise door look like it needs more work. He calls it “upcycling,” or turning ugly duckling furniture into swans.
He likes his wood to be painted, not polished or stained, to enhance the original grain. He sands it enough to get a good texture for the paint to stick, then paints it and applies a finishing coat of varnish he concocts himself to add a patina for an aged appearance. “Most shops strip furniture down and restain it to look like it looked originally, but I take it further by painting and stressing it to make it look older but not original,” he says.
Like the turquoise door: “It looks like an old door that’s been hanging in a barn for years and the paint has stripped off. It took me a very long time to make it look unfinished,” he jokes. He initially painted it neatly, but the colour was overwhelming, so he sanded some paint off again to reveal the dark red undercoat, instantly adding age and character.
“Painting is like meditation for me. I can sit here until three in the morning painting something meticulously and then sanding it down to get it to look old.”
Trouvé is an apt name for his shop because he favours furniture with a French country feel and gets excited by the little treasures he finds.
Ask how he started, and he says: “By being poor and not having enough money to buy furniture from the major retailers, so I’d buy from pawn shops. Redoing things came from my mom. She’d go into the townships and buy furniture and she has a house of antiques now, so it’s in my blood.”
Although he initially reworked furniture just for himself, demand quickly grew. “Friends would see these things and ask where did you get it, can I buy it? So I started going to auctions and antique shops and pawn shops and to dead people’s houses,” he says.
His favourite auctions are in the antique-oriented village of Parys, and in De Deur, between Joburg and Vereeniging.
“The one at De Deur started as a livestock auction and then people started bringing furniture along, so you can buy a cow here and a piece of furniture there, which makes it so interesting.”
You never know what you’re going to get at an auction, but it’s wise to go with a definite idea of what you’re looking for, he says. Although if he sees a nice trunk he’ll never say no.
“Suitcases and trunks are a big passion of mine. I wish I could bring a suitcase to life so it could tell me where it’s been.”
Suitcases work well in his shop because the smaller items usually sell the fastest. “It’s a bit more of a commitment for people to buy a big piece of furniture than an interesting little trinket,” he says.
Strydom has a large Indian clientele with a passion for distressed furniture. Young couples setting up home are another big market.
“I’m finding a trend where younger couples are looking for unique pieces. They don’t want to go to Mr Price Home and buy the same wall units that their neighbours have. There’s also a lot of word-of-mouth trade because people are proud of what they buy from me - I offer them something unique.”
Trouvé stands slightly too far beyond the Northcliff and Bergbron antique shop district to be an obvious find.
“I moved into the area about eight years ago, when there were only one or two shops selling antique furniture, and over the years more started opening,” he says.
Antiques are commonly considered to be at least 100 years old, but Strydom also ‘upcycles’ more modern pieces if he sees merit in them. “The older a piece the better for me, but if it’s newer I’m not averse to that. It comes down to quality. I’ll still offer people solid items, even if they’re not antique.”
As well as teaching himself the practical techniques of restoring and adapting furniture, he also had to learn not to get attached to it.
“That happened in the beginning. I’d think this is so gorgeous, let’s keep it. You have to think maybe it’s not your prettiest child, and sell it on.”
Trouvé - 68 Long Road, Bergbron. Tel: 082 4571294.
Lesley Stones, Sunday Independent