Croydon Clearance Centre has got to be the place to go for cheap costumes! You know, pirates,…read moremaids, peter pan, Marilyn Monroe... get my drift? Normally these can be found for around $40 pretty much anywhere, but in this shop there are all $20 and under! You can tell I am seriously impressed by this. The rest of the shop had all the standard $2 shop type objects. There were fake flowers, bracelets and necklaces for only $4 as well as a large variety of home objects such as tupperware containers and sponges. The store is quite large and is completely packed full of objects at really low prices. There were a few tacky objects but in this kind of shop its expected. The staff were hard at work when I went in but the lady at the counter was quite helpful and friendly.

Like a big op shop that only sells furniture, Green's New and Used Furniture is a junkyard of old…read moretables, couches, entertainment units and desks. The taste and style of the furniture is pretty varied, but there's nothing too upmarket in stock most of the time. The prices are similar to that of op shops so it's more affordable option for students and anyone else with financial concerns, and everything seems to be in fairly good condition. It also sells an odd assortment of second hand books at the front of the store and the odd DVD. Green's offers same day delivery, lay-by and trade-ins, and the guy running the store is really friendly and approachable. A good one to keep in mind for anyone whose furniture is likely to keel over anytime soon and isn't at the settled down and decorating the house forever more stage of life.

bad customer service, if you got any question need assist, the lady will not help you or will…read moreresponds with bad attitude even you just want to purchase a gift and need some recommendations.

It truly doesn't get more exquisite than D'Artagnan. Prints, antique armoirs and hall desks,…read moreart-deco and Victorian inspired coromandel screens, lamps and knick knacks to liven up your home. The elegant decor of the shop combined with the beautiful display of furniture and furnishings makes the shop itself look like its straight from the pages of Home Living. I just purchased a black and white art deco coromandel screen, some plush, Parisian black and cream cushions and a Victorian lamp. They're making my living room look very sophisticated and elegant indeed.

Newly opened furniture store on City Road, just a few meters down from the easily recognizable…read moreKing's Furniture, the content of Picci could not be more different. A retro 70's inspired colour scheme seems to be evident throughout, with the soft geometrical shapes in hues of bright orange, lime green and magenta. The building seems to be some kind of warehouse conversion and offers a range of furniture such as couches, coffee tables and foot stools, as well as funky lighting fixtures, lamps and decorative pieces. Even if not looking to buy something Picci is still worth a look if you have time for a quick browse. The bright colours will give you if nothing else a hit of inspiration to take with you on your day.

The Amber Palace is a shop full of all things beautiful for the home. There are great vases and I…read morefound a lovely paperweight that would have suited my desk perfectly. I also found some really cute baby toys but they were quite expensive at $36 for a stuffed, albeit hand made, rabbit. It was pretty cute but as I don't have a baby and I would have no use for it, I kept looking. There were some cardigans made out of high quality fabric, which were quite nice. Again though they were a bit too expensive considering how plain they were. The store had a nice design and the staff member behind the counter was very helpful when answering my questions. This would be a good place to go to get some new accessories to impress some guests to your home. Or to buy your baby a designer rabbit toy. There are plenty more reasons to visit of course, but those seem like the most mainstream.

Fitzroy has so many furniture shops, so it's easy to spend a couple of hours poking around them all…read moreand finding nice things for your home. They range from ramshackle junk shops to over-the-top high end show rooms. Angelucci sits somewhere in the middle, and that suits me just fine. The furniture here is sourced form all over the world so there's influences from a number of countries and eras, but mostly it all fits neatly in to the "midcentury minimalist" style bracket. We had been on the hunt for a glass front cabinet to store an extensive ceramic collection and couldn't find exactly what we were after. That was until one evening we were walking home from having a glass of wine on Gertrude Street and a grand cabinet from inside the Angelucci window caught our eye. We both said "that's the one!" and visited the next day to see if it was in our price bracket. Angelucci prices their furniture fairly and we were lucky to be visiting during a sale time when there was a few hundred dollars off our item. Including a two-man delivery (absolutely necessary due to the size) we paid $2100 for a teak 1930's Dutch Colonial cabinet made in Java. The team here are super friendly and worked hard to fit in with our moving schedule so we could have the cabinet delivered when we were available. Pro tip: Join their mailing list to get alerts about upcoming shipments.

Angelucci is like stepping into a time warp - sleek wooden chairs, minimalist wood side tables and…read moreretro lamps are just some of the treasures you'll find inside. Most of the stock is sourced from Europe, in particular France and Denmark and you can't help but believe that maybe the set designers for Mad Men once visited Smith Street and blew their budget here. The atmosphere here is more like a show room than an antique store, I guess the only place to compare it with would be the Smith Street Bazaar further down the strip. The Smith Street Bazaar has a quirky charm and a sense of chance as you wander through the warehouse, whereas Angelucci is more organized and set out - and while the products are still beautiful, I think it could do with a little more character. The service is very helpful and laid back, Angelucci is a place where you can relax and just waste time looking at beautiful furniture.

"The greatest collection of everything but nothing in particular." How aptly said. This is the…read moretagline from the Supply and Demand store website. Yet, as a home ware store, Supply and Demand does its jobs well enough and offers a huge range of crockery and cutlery, napkins, table matter, candle holders, vases, tea towels, bathroom gear, art and selected pieces of furniture. It also carries a great range of vintage inspired tin signs, plenty of glassware and bits and bobs to give your home a fun, quirky appeal. I absolutely love the French inspired vintage garb, new (old) milk crates, milk bottles and the elegant collection of affordable provincial style décor items. And even though the shop is quite cluttered (and it will take you some time to soak in the atmosphere), it is because of this that Supply and Demand is so much fun to shop in. Great for gifts and picking up home décor items that you don't necessarily need but just add a fun touch to your décor scheme.

If you are a devoted interiors person like I am want to be, Supply & Demand does fill in the gaps…read more A great go- to place for a wide variety of homewares at heavily discounted prices. Some are contemporary, some provincial, some industrial, some retro kitsch... You get the idea here. It does offer a lot, and they seem to be working on their layout of things, which these days seem more grouped according to style and also function. Yay visual merchandising! Makes for a more pleasant buying experience. True, a selection of the items sold do make you wonder about the longevity and overall quality, but like I said, an interior stylists needs the range to work with, within budget and most importantly looks great and looks the part that they are crafting in terms of achieving the style. Good stylists know that you do NOT put a room together with things from ONE single store alone even though you could and no one will stop you. But beware the raised eyebrow! Sometimes, things just need to look good from a distance. The staff mostly leave you alone until you approach the counter with your goods. Still, don't really expect the ultimate customer service here. They have an offshoot store on High Street, Armadale called Industria which focuses more on, you guessed it, industrial furniture and home wares.

What a gorgeous shop front. Those windows! And that's just the exterior…read more Inside, it's even better. The ground floor is full of mint condition mid-20th-century furniture. Beautiful pieces of furniture in such good nick can demand a high price and they do. Knowing I can't afford much on this floor, I usually cast a quick glance over the goods just as a treat to my eyes, and then head up the stairs to the vintage clothes. I'm always pleasantly surprised by the prices here. For this location on Smith Street, the stall holders could really ask for more for their vintage finds, but they don't, and I for one, am not only grateful, but feel vindicated for being annoyed at retailers for upping the price tag just because they can. This is how it should be done. Beautiful store filled with earthly delights for all the enjoy (and possess).

A treasure trove of antiques and vintage furniture, if you wanted the decor of Mad Men all you need…read moreto do is visit the Smith Street Bazaar. Beautiful tables, sleek chairs and intricate sideboards are scattered throughout the enormous store. There are also some fantastic lamps, tea sets and vases, that look as thought they belong in your grandparents houses in the 1950s and 1940s. Up towards the back is a modest clothing section that has a great range of shoes, bags and accessories too (90s backpacks are back in people!). They also have an impressive range of costume jewellery. It isn't surprising that the Smith Street Bazaar always has some devoted retro fans or artists crawling through and marveling at the woodwork or kitsch posters. Last week I was very tempted by a slick wooden chair that was low, sexy, and remarkably modern, but with a price of $700 (quite reasonable for a quality piece but a mere dream to a student), I unfortunately had to kiss that beautiful piece of work goodbye. One day when I have an income and a house, I'll buy some furniture from the Smith Street Bazaar. But until then, it's always a pleasure to just look.