Posh designer sofas are not the only alternative when it comes to freshening up your home.

Instead of heading to the nearest furniture store, consider a trip to a flea market, a place where treasures are waiting to be discovered.

"The appeal of furniture and accessories from a flea market is that the items have a story to tell," said interior decorator Annika Egner of Karlsruhe. Whenever Egner is assigned to furnish private homes for Room Doctor, a network of German interior decorators, she reverts to old furnishings first.

"There are heirlooms in every home," she said. Their owners simply have to know how to position them. "If everything that's collected over the course of a year is just thrown together, it often doesn't feel cosy."

When old and new pieces of furniture are combined, a certain amount of attention must be paid to their common denominator. Wood types that vary greatly should not be combined, Egner said.

Lighter woods such as birch and maple go well together, but a dark oak and red cherry don't. And, especially eye-catching pieces such as a Biedermeier armoire should stand alone, she said.

Furniture and home accessories by Claudia Hoehne usually look best on their own. Hoehne runs the Dusseldorf-based furniture store Villa Oliva, which features home furnishings with flea market flair found at markets all over the world.

"The beauty of it is, the pieces are not slickly polished. Instead you can see that the furniture has had a life," Hoehne said. "If a piece of furniture looks too shabby, then I paint it a creamy white and sandpaper it," said Hoehne.

If a buyer wants to do up the piece themselves, that's fine too.

A sofa can be reupholstered, a dining table or commode can be decorated with new pulls. Advice is available in the book Flea Market Style by Emily Chalmers and Ali Hanan.

Some pieces can remain as they are. Others need careful repairs, while some require an entire overhaul, according to Chalmers. Using a little imagination is always a good idea. Turn a bench into an end table, for example, or turn a glass jar into a vase.

Those who adopt a slow approach to flea market-chic can start with accessories. An ornate candelabra brings a grand air to the dining table, while an ornate enamel jar can be used for spices. A floor lamp from the 1970s beside the living room sofa is hip today.

"The Japanese call these pieces 'wabi sabi'," said Egner. That means that these objects are all about a hidden shine, a reference to the belief that true beauty is often hard to detect. Thus, scanning flea markets for furniture with character requires a trained eye and buyers should be open to originality.

(DPA - expatica August 2008)