At home with... Donna Flower

On the whole, I'm not one for the country cottage and florals look. Then I saw the home of Donna Flower, who collects, sells and creates with gorgeous fabrics dating from the 19th century to the 1980s, through her excellent, authoritative online shop.

So I got in touch to ask her for a proper nose around her Devonshire pad, and a bit of insight into what inspires her style. Over to Donna...

What do you do? I sell vintage and antique fabrics and textiles on my website and at various vintage fairs in the south-west (see my blog for details). I make quilts, cushions, small applique pictures, brooches etc using vintage fabrics. These are only for my own home or for family and friends, I also crochet and knit blankets, but don't have time to sell any more as my website keeps me so busy.

Tell us about your house It is an old farmhouse in north Devon, set in two acres of garden, with sea views. It was a small two up two down Tudor property with Victorian extensions, so very hotchpotch, bits were added when they got more money.

My office chair [above and below] has been recovered by me with vintage barkcloth fabric. It was an old one that I found from Otto Retro, in Exeter,  about four years ago. It is a very comfortable, solid chair. Many old pieces of furniture can be given a new lease of life by being reupholstered. This was easy to do with the help of an industrial staple gun I found at a bootsale.

My fabrics are all filed according to age so that I can find them quickly and easily. They start from 19th century French pieces up to 1980s pieces. My collection is huge and I have an extensive archive including some very rare and exciting pieces.

The wallpapers [inside the yellow cupboard, and also lining another set of shelves in the office] are something I have had for years and wanted to do something with but the style just wouldn't suit my house or please the rest of the family, although I did paper a cabinet in the bathroom with a 1940s yacht paper.  

I have recently renovated a two-storey outbuilding [above] which used to be a bakery when this house was a farmhouse, so now I have a room downstairs full of vintage haberdashery furniture for storing fabrics that I use and upstairs is my sewing room. This is somewhere where I can have exactly what I want without the family having to 'approve' it. 

After reading (and rereading) Selina Lake's latest book, Homespun Style, I was inspired to paint my old display cabinet bright, glossy yellow and from there added wallpapers to the backs of my old fruit crates which I use to store fabrics and then to patchwork the back of a dresser. Again, I feel that there are no hard and fast rules with this, just use colours/designs that you like. If you put a piece in that doesn't work it's easily remedied, just paper over it.

This room is my study and where all the fabrics are kept that are currently listed on my website. It's where I sit and answer emails, wrap parcels, answer telephone calls etc. I very rarely sit in the armchair but it is frequently occupied by a member of my family who come and keep me company as I work.  It is a very cosy room and one that makes people gasp  the first time they see it, as they spot the glass fronted drawers I have in there, full of fabric.

The egg cups on my kitchen dresser started with a few wooden ones, Noddy and Big Ears, which belonged to my grandmother and ones that I used in my childhood. I keep finding other wooden ones on my vintage trawls and so the collection has grown. The canisters came from a good friend and collector who was having a clear out and agreed to sell them to me. I just love the typeface, it's another love of mine. On the rest of the dresser, I have a mixture of  40s, 50s, 60s and 70s ceramics as well as a bit of Cath Kidston thrown in for good measure. Traditional country just would not suit me and would say nothing about who I am and what I like.

The bathroom was originally two rooms, one very long one with no window and just a toilet and sink and the other a very cramped room with an aluminium and plastic shower cubicle in one corner and the toilet halfway across the window. It was a disaster. We took the lathe and plaster wall down between the rooms and put in a reclaimed oak floor. The double ended slipper bath was found at Toby's Reclamation in Exeter and was such a crazy looking bath we just had to have it. My partner and I got in it whilst it was in the yard and thought it was just so OTT it had to be ours. It weighs a tonne, being cast iron, and three men struggled to get it up the stairs!

The toilet and sink were from another reclamation yard. The mirror  and cabinets were  boot-sale finds that I repainted. Everything was done on a budget so apart from the bath, it was relatively inexpensive to do.

The jukebox [left, above] resides in our second living room which also has a bar in it. It is our party room and you will always find us in there for any family celebration singing along to the cheesy songs on it.

The dressing table [bottom right, above] came from Camden Market, some 23 years ago when I was pregnant with my first child. We needed a chest of drawers for the baby and went out looking for one (we lived in Camden then). We didn't find one but I spotted this dressing table and just HAD to have it. I think we went out another three or four times, each time buying another piece of unnecessary furniture before finally getting the chest of drawers.

The head came from a friend who had a lovely little junk shop and was closing down. He used it for display and I had always admired it and persuaded him to sell it to me. It was in a sorry state, very crackled and dried as it had been in the sun for many years. After some TLC I got her back to near original state. She is a 1940s  Jacoll Hats display piece. I love her. The hat boxes [above right] contain various, vintage, hats of course...

The fabrics

My favourite era for fabric has to be the 1950s, the colours and patterns of the exciting post war period are hard to ignore. After the drabness of the 1940s, during the rationing, they are a real contrast.  The patterns and designs are bold, exciting and innovative as we looked forward to the 'atomic' era, taking influence from science and nature and of course space travel.

I have some amazing pieces by Marian Mahler, Lucienne Day, Michael O'Connell, Mary Warren and Mary White that I cannot let go. They are my 'pension pieces'. I went to see the exhibition Designing Women of Postwar Britain at London's Fashion and Textile Museum in April and saw a few of my pieces hanging there.

I think it is important to buy what you like when looking for vintage fabrics. Regardless of value, age or importance, the textiles have to please you if they are to be in your home. They have to say something about you and suit your home or your style. So, anything goes really, there are no rules when mixing colours or eras. If you are going to use the fabric upholstery obviously condition is important so it is imperative that you check for holes or blemishes before buying it.  

Donna Flower's favourite links

Otto Retro a "jolly" junk shop in Exeter [no online buying]

Selina Lake the 'Homespun Style' the author and stylist's colourful blog
Dottie Angel blogger and documenter of artists' lives

Browse Donna Flower's fabrics and textiles at her webshop, and follow her blog The Fabric of My Life (be warned: if you, too, are a fabric junkie you are about to lose hours of your life clicking through...)

At home with... Sam Jones of Hey Pico!

Sam Jones makes beautiful cushions from vintage fabric and sells them at her online shop, Hey Pico! I love her cushions and guessed she might have a beautiful home to match. Indeed she does... 

I'll hand over to Sam to tell you all about her southeast London house, her style, inspiration – and her ridiculously photogenic dog! (And isn't that the most stylish dog bed you've ever seen?)

I’m Sam Jones and I live in Brockley, southeast London. I started making cushions from vintage fabrics two years ago, purely for myself to start with, and it reawakened a passion that had lain dormant for some time. I’d forgotten how much I love the design and textures of old fabrics, particularly 1950s barkcloth and I’m drawn to  strong mid-century modern graphics so, I set up HeyPico! really so I could indulge my fabric habit, make lovely cushions and sell them on. 

I live with my husband and Bedlington terrier in a two-bedroom Victorian terraced house with a cute little garden.

I love furniture from the 50s and 60s and we’ve got several nice pieces including a lovely sideboard (see top photo) from eBay which we bought after my husband broke the leg off of our old Habitat one whilst trying to move it. It was a bargain, including delivery all the way from Norwich, I think it was a happy accident as it’s much more stylish.

I bought the arc lamp (also above) about 15 years ago in a little shop in Brixton, they’re a bit ubiquitous now but I particularly like this one as the stand is totally arched, no straight bit, with a solid marble base – impossible to move!  

I love colour.  And lots of it. The lounge is painted dark red, which I love, it’s really cosy and seductive, it doesn’t get a lot of light so my thinking was, "make it darker!" The kitchen has bright yellow tiles around the work surfaces which our builders were initially appalled but they did admit, once they were up, that they looked "nowhere near as bad as they’d thought." The bedroom is a "fruits of the forest yogurt" pink, the office a 50s pale green and the bathroom a 50s pale blue. The hall and landing are white which hangs it all together and prevents it from looking too much. Basically, I’ve never recovered from visiting the house of Frida Kahlo in Mexico fifteen years ago. I’d seen a picture of it in an interiors book and absolutely loved all the bright Mediterranean colours but I didn’t realise who it had belonged to. When I walked into one of the rooms and the penny dropped, it was, literally, like stepping into a painting or a dream.

The display cabinet in the bathroom (above) is lovely, I bought it at a vintage furniture fair at York Hall in Bethnal Green, the sellers are based in Milton Keynes, Retro Bazaar, and they’re great for furniture or if you’re looking for real cult 60s and 70s ceramics, telephones and electrics. 

I do love ladies in Victorian garb and the courting  couple in this picture remind me a bit of The White Stripes, had they lived in England in the 1900s! It’s hung in the bathroom, I found it in a junk shop in Devon – it’s great to have little finds like that on trips.  

I really like the coloured storage jars in the kitchen, they complement the yellow tiles. I refer to it as "the sky line", if we’re a bit flush, it’s the full tourist treat, if not, it looks as though the wrecking ball has been in. The green lady’s head (below) I found in an antiques shop in Suffolk, I’ve no knowledge of her origins but she looks suitably snooty to preside over kitchen hygiene issues. 

The bathroom’s a really good size and the roll-top bath sits under the window. If there is such a thing as a lovely net curtain, this is it! I bought it many years ago in a street market in Naples and it has accompanied me to many dwellings. 

The bed is interesting, I bought it from the basement of a chandelier shop in Notting Hill and I had to put wooden slats across it myself. It’s Romanian and quite unusual. I love the cushion on the bed, I made it from a beautiful piece of tapestry that I found in a market in Madrid, it cost two Euros and it’s probably over 100 years old.  

I covered a piece of cork in the office to use as a pin board for postcards and photos that inspire me. It’s a fab piece of fabric which I got from a US website called Repro Depot – they seem to be having a break on the fabric front at the moment, which is a shame as they did some great reproductions, really colourful graphics – hopefully they’ll be back.

Get the look (or at least the cushions)

Delores, Celia and Alice – all £40.

Sam's favourite links

Donna Flower For vintage fabrics from turn of the century through to the 70s

Fabbits An Etsy shop selling 70s European fabric. Great caravan vibes

Design*Sponge I imagine everybody knows this one but I love the DIY upholstery tips, which is something I’m veering towards at the moment

Interiors Nut The polar opposite to my house, all very neutral and grown up but beautiful with a real eye for classic design

Drake and Naylor A great little website with some interesting vintage ceramics and curiosities, they have a stall on the Broadway market in Hackney at the weekends

Retro Bazaar For dyed-in-the-wool retro fans.

The Vintage Guide to London All the markets, fairs and happenings around London, listed by area, which is handy

Things and People Only recently discovered this lovely little site dedicated to people talking about objects that are dear to them and the story behind it – heart warming

At home with... The Peanut Vendors

Becky Nolan is one half of the couple behind one of my favourite shops, The Peanut Vendor. It is based in north London but the online version is just as exciting. And you can imagine that running such a stylish shop would equal a pretty special home.

So I asked Becky to share some snaps, which you can see below. It is a testament to how much you can do on a shoestring, and in a rented flat. Very inspiring indeed. Over to you, Becky…

Tell us a bit about yourself and your shop… I set up the vintage furniture shop The Peanut Vendor in 2008, with my partner Barnaby Read and we live together in Stoke Newington. We started the shop because we wanted to do something creative together and we've always loved finding old gems, whether it be furniture, records or clothes.  The whole idea about The Peanut Vendor is that we don't focus on a particular period of design, so our tastes are constantly changing. We love seeing how items from the past can become so interesting looking really set the scene for a room. 

Where do you live? We rented this flat back in 2009. We'd only been trading for about six months, so money was tight and we had to be "creative" with finding a place we could live in for a while. It's a second floor flat above an old Victorian shop, at the end of the road, on a nice street with a window in every room. It's always lovely and light. But the flat was pretty disgusting when we viewed it: stained brown carpet, fitted 80s cupboards and brown walls. We negotiated the rent down in exchange for ripping everything out ourselves, re-painting and laying down flooring throughout. We also knocked down the stud wall in between the very small living room and the useless spare room, giving us a normal sized living room.

Describe your decorating style... We are constantly bringing interesting things home, some stay permanently and some go back to the shop. I definitely want our flat to feel lived in and cosy. We want there to be a mid-century sort of feel, which I think is reflected in the chairs we've chosen and our sofa (we're still searching for the perfect arm chair). But we don't want to live in a house that is entirely dedicated to one period.

Show us some of your favourite things... 

We adore these chairs that this very cool elderly couple came in to the shop and sold us. When we told them that we were going to keep them for ourselves, they were over the moon.  The leather on the seat is very worn now, but when it finally goes, it'll be fun to restore them again.

The little blue lamp! It is tiny but so perfect in every way. The base is polished marble and the enamel, turquoise blue, champagne-style shade is so dainty. I haven't seen anything like it since we got it.

It's hard to see, but we replaced every single brass door handle with 1930s Bakelite door knobs and all the ceiling lights with traditional fabric covered cable. It's the little things that matter.

Where do you like shopping to find all this lovely stuff – and what else inspires you? Love the Historic Lighting company. We got large bulbs from here and brass fittings for our living room. When we went to Paris, we were so excited to visit Deyrolle, an amazing Taxidermy shop. The entomology room is incredible. You can choose a box and spend hours deciding what to put in it. The Geffreye Museum is down the road from us in Dalston. Every room has a different set up, going through the periods. It's fantastic inspiration and we like to copy their Christmas decorations too. 

GET THE PEANUT VENDOR LOOK

Taxidermy bird £125; 50s floral bolster cushion £25; Travel blankets (underneath), £25 each; WW1 first aid poster £100; Stackable vintage stools £65 each; Industrial-style hook rack £85

Buy filament light bulbs, £13 and fabric electrical cable, in various colours, £3.75 per metre from Historic Lighting 

How to… tackle an old house (Antoni & Alison style)

If you saw today's Insider column in the Independent on Sunday, about the studio/house of Brit fashion design duo Antoni and Alison – and how they did it up, you might want to see how it looks. 

Well, here are a few snaps of their quirkily styled and lovingly restored space...

When the creative partners bought the derelict 1820s house they spent a year, says Antoni, “Going ‘Agh! What do we do with it?’” They wanted to respect its history but not to the point it resembled an English Heritage property. The result is a surprisingly beautiful blend of Mr Blobby ornaments and painstakingly salvaged authenticity. On 17 September, as part of London Fashion Week, they open it to the public (Openhouselondon.org.uk). I asked Antoni what he’d learnt during the restoration…

Love conquers all “Never buy to sell on,” says Antoni. “Fall in love with a place.” It’s what gave he and Alison the strength to grapple with a collapsed roof, wall-mushrooms an exterior covered in plastic flowers. There was also a "secret" cemented over basement that the previous owner had filled with relics from his job – as a dustman. In other words, rubbish.

Gotta have faith “The surveyor told us to ‘walk away’ and my dad, a builder, said ‘don’t do it’,” he continues. “But the house had survived two world wars, been a workshop, a dress-making shop, a lino off-cuts shop and been DIY-ed to death. Being told no gave us a challenge.”

Expert touch "Somebody said: ‘Get an architect’. So we did. And it was brilliant because the architect said, 'What you want to do is lose this wall here, rip out this, turn it into a big modernist space…’ and then we knew he was talking rubbish. It made us realise we wanted to preserve as much as we could because we’d grown to love everything about it."

Your history “We asked people in the local pub, went to the records office – anything to piece together the house’s history. It helped us make decisions about what to keep and restore.”

Can’t touch this “Don’t do anything immediately – it took us a year of thinking to start work. We took photos of every inch and laid them out elsewhere to help us make a plan. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed while surrounded by the space.” It is also tempting, he adds, to expose wonderful things as you find them – in their case, the original banisters, among many other treasures. But resist until building work is complete – things are easily ruined amid the dust and chaos.

Truth and rights “The house’s history was important to us – but we weren’t slaves to the era. When we added new bits, even matching wood panels, we didn’t try to make them look old. Nothing is fake: we wanted to be honest.”

Mega mix The duo have chairs – which you can see further up – once owned by the Beatles (bought from the Jesus and Mary Christian Trust and, now, adorned with a specially- made brass plaque noting the Fab Four's probable link), Billy Butlin’s old bathroom (the sink is also labelled with one of the pair's commissioned plaques) and 1940s lighting discarded from a department store. “We deliberately added things slowly and organically,” Antoni explains. “It’s not stuff you’d maybe think would all work in a Georgian house – like Mr Blobby! But he fits in beautifully because he’s loved. And I think that’s the secret: don’t get things just because you think they’re worth something, get them because you think ‘I really love that.’”

Search and rescue “Salvo is brilliant. You can post very specific things you’re after – like an 1820s sink – and someone, nerdishly, will have a tip.”

Scene and heard Interview a good few builders on-site: “You wouldn’t hire anyone else without doing so. And listen more than you speak.”


Boxing clever Antoni's dad was a builder. His top tip? “Don’t let workmen box things in. If they make stuff thinking it’ll be on display, they’ll do it beautifully. Box in at the end if you like, knowing there’s perfection underneath.”

Inside job Take a guided tour of the house online: Antoniandalison.co.uk