Introducing... Homestuff with history

I'm not sure I love the say-what-it-is name of this shop I recently discovered, but I do like what it does. And at least the owners are making that clear.

Homestuff with History, an online shop based in Hertfordshire, is run by brother and sister Matt and Kathryn Brown and they may love old junk possibly even more than I do (did you miss my breathless post about the secondhand shops of Lewes?)

Oil painting of Mrs Palmer of Wrexham, framed oil on board, £59.95

Old stacking chair, £44.95

Japanese flip clock, £34.95

Parisian alarm clock, £34.95

Tiny German alarm clock, £24.95

The shop is stuffed with battered old cupboards, interesting oil paintings, a surprising number of lovely alarm clocks (don't you miss alarm clocks?), and a few things they've knocked up themselves using old materials (such as the wooden letters, below, made new in the workshop but from battered old bits of wood).

Wooden letters, £4.50 each

Kathryn and Matt have an eye for oddities as well as solid furniture basics with a well-loved look about them – and the pieces are either sold as they are, like this blue filing cabinet below, or tidied up with a splash of Craig and Rose 1829 paint (nice to have a change from Farrow and Ball...).

Do check out their Curiosities section on the site – the sort of random selection of second-hand things you don't often find online and reflects, no doubt, the home clearance sideline the shop operates. It's possibly not the stuff one might organically pick up at a trade antique market with a view to selling on (currently you'll find there a rusty old anvil, some ancient ice-skates and a miniature floral lavatory).

Blue wooden filing cabinet, £124.95

Every now and then (and I'm sorry to say we've just missed the latest) they also open up the workshop for a big sale, off-loading lots of the treasures they find in raw condition.

homestuffwithhistory.co.uk

Shopping: raiding the antique shops of Lewes

I had a lovely time recently visiting dear friends who have recently moved to Lewes, not far from Brighton.

It was brilliant to hang out and catch up (and eat fantastic fish and chips – well, just chips and a pickled egg for me – from their excellent local chippy). But what was almost as great? THE SHOPPING.

First off, I should highlight the one purchase of the trip (unusually restrained for me, and I didn't even buy it). It is this very beautiful and unusual etching of a duck in flight, which my boyfriend bought me for my birthday from one of Lewes's many antiques shops. I have put it up in the growing bird corner (see more on Pinterest), right by my side of the bed, so I can look at it while I'm lying there.

It appears to be in its original frame, as the artist details are on the back – it is by someone called Stuart N Pike, about whom I could find no information online, and it says it is etched onto calfskin. The mount is newer, made from some kind of thin wood. It's kind of odd, and I like it.

I also liked a lot of other things I saw. We spent ages at Lewes Flea Market, below.

It was packed with treasures.

I am still kicking myself about failing to buy this spectacular horse's head for £22. The rest of the stuff on this stall was a little dubious, I think it disrupted my usual shopping radar.

I can't resist things with compartments (anyone else?) and toyed with the idea of using these, above, to store shoes in by the front door. Not very practical since it would rule out all boots, hi-tops and heels. Couldn't think what else to use them for, so sadly they stayed put.

I have an inherited biscuit jar in the Hornsea Pottery range – like the coffee pot on the left of that glass shelf, above. I keep meaning to buy more Hornsey stuff when I see it cheap, like this (it was £6), but I am hoping I'll find a whole bundle of it together in a charity shop. We went to a beautiful cafe in a local park over the Easter weekend and all their crockery, on tables and displaying cakes and stuff on the counter was this gloriously homely brown, 70s Hornsea stuff. I was inspired, it looked fantastic.

This was another antiques emporium on the high street, it was over several floors and is the place the bird etching came from. A little less random than the flea market, it had carefully curated shelves of Fat Lava pots (below)...

... and collectible (and always pricey) Clarice Cliff china, below.

Next we went to Wickle, Lewes's smallest department store (possibly anywhere's smallest department store, in fact).

What a beautifully designed interior it had. Love the colours of the battered wood panels above, and the elephant's head.

It's got its own little cafe at the back of the shop.

And another at the front, just serving take-aways. What fantastic signage!

Spotted this clever idea for a children's light, too.

And ogled these colourful blankets. 

This is the exterior, modelled by Anthony, baby Rudy and Reggie the dog, looking a little disconcerted – Anthony is the other half of my creative friend Holly who has featured here before.

And aside from all that shopping, Lewes is just ridiculously pretty. Can't wait to go back.

Post by Kate

For the love of car booty

This bank holiday weekend, contributing editor Abi did this...

I've just got back from the Ford Airfield car boot near Chichester; a not too big market of some of the hands-down best junk you'll ever get to rummage.

I'm feeling very pleased with myself as I've scored a load of treasure for under a tenner and had a joyful couple of hours rootling through boxes and bags and wallpapering tables full of cheap treats.

Abi particularly loved Pauley's stall (above and top)

As you'll know from my previous kitchen makeover post I have a thing for vintage coffee pots; fifties, sixties and seventies pottery and china and pretty much anything borderline kitsch. I've been itching to get to Ford for a while (my mother-in-law lives nearby) and our Easter family visits were the perfect opportunity to sneak a little car bootage in.

Above: a Midwinter Queensbury coffee set

Some more Meakin ceramics (see the set Abi went home with below) 

Ford market comprises two aisles of stalls on the hard standing of the old runway. There's much less of the bane of car boots – modern tat like tonnes of kids plastic toys, pot plants, rails of Primark clothes and 400 pairs of orthopaedic shoes on a tarpaulin – and much more of the proper old-school car booty of house clearance boxes filled with immensely rummage-able knick-knacks, excellent period furniture from the 40s to the 70s, bundles of kitchenalia and quirky collectables without the vastly marked-up prices you get in London shops.

 

My haul includes yet another J&G Meakin coffeepot (a complete set; this design is called 'Topic' by Alan Rogers who designed a lot of the classic late 60s stuff for Meakin) for £4 (above, top). I got it from a stall holder called Pauley; a delightful chap who runs a surf shop on the coast and was happily flogging boxes and boxes of gorgeous pottery and china from the 50s to the 70s. I also bagged an utterly adorable donkey ornament (above) that will go in our bathroom perfectly I think. He cost 50p.

Other bargains were this Meakin 'Galaxy' platter for £1 and this Johnson Brothers teapot also for £1. 

But my favourite buy of the day is this gorgeous glass decanter; it's French and I think probably from the late fifties/early sixties – only £3.

I could've bought much more but a shortage of display space at home stopped me, alas. But the stuff on offer was so enticing; and despite a few obvious dealers in situ (some very rare and utterly gorgeous weighted anglepoise lamps were labelled at £190 each despite needing an awful lot of restoration) I could have happily filled the car with, among other things, these fab mid century chairs, a cute little Carltonware fruit cruet and these rather freaky vintage medical prints.

Abi resisted these 50s diner chairs...

...and this solid perfume Revlon owl locket 

...and these airline chairs

...and this lovely old Roberts radio

I also saw these diner chairs with original atomic upholstery and some splendid old airline seats too but the steers head I'll give a miss, although I almost went for this old Roberts radio and a dinky little vintage Revlon solid perfume Owl locket; shame, would've been perfect for my next Abigail's Party...

Ford Airfield car boot every Thursday, Saturday and Sunday

A professional's guide to junk hunting part II

I posted up some pictures on Sunday to illustrate that day's Insider column in the Independent on Sunday magazine, which I write each week.

The theme was how to collect good junk and do interesting stuff with it. I interviewed Sarah Brunner, the co-presenter of a new Sky Arts 2 show, Design Dealers. She's a pro. She had some good tips. Now, to go with the images from last week, here is the extended version of what she talked about with bonus tips and images...

"Old toast racks (above) are also something you always see in nearly every charity shop – which, especially he 1930s ones, make great letter racks. Anything that looks nice and has a good form is worth picking up if it appeals to you. It’s just about thinking how you could get it into your home."

 “Lots of things can be made into lighting – including taxidermy. I love Alex Randall's work, especially this sparrow [swallow] light (above), which looks as it if has flown away and is trailing the lightbulb behind it."

Light by Dale Chihuly

"You also see people doing lots with old bottles and mason jars – it is quite a trend. And I like the work of Dale Chihuly, who has done hanging clusters of coke bottles and made chandeliers from them (above). Although neither of these projects are something the average person could or probably would try to do, nor afford to buy from the artists, they are still inspiring because it's about realising that you can take the ordinary and do extraordinary things with it."

Light by Alex Randall

"Brass instruments make great lights, too. People are doing some really beautiful stuff with them – and brass is set to be one of 2013’s biggest interiors trends, so worth taking a second look if you see a collection of old brass anything for sale on your travels. I have a euphonium in my own home as a light fitting: it took 15 minutes to do – you just buy a light holder and thread it through." (See the previous post on this topic for more details on this). Alex Randall also does interesting things with brass – check out her organ pipes and gramaphone trumpets, above).

"I keep finding lots of broken old glass beaded jewellery: I’m collecting it and using the beads to make Victorian-style glass bead flowers by threading them onto wire. These glass bead flowers (above, top) made from broken jewellery are heading over to Arrietty in Exeter, Devon, a lovely shop full of handmade and haberdashery. I'm giving hands-on upholstery courses there in March if anyone is interested." (See end of this post for how to contact Sarah direct.)

For sale on the Mint List, designed by Lilly's Lightbox

"Another thing to look out for is lightboxes – they can be fantastic for the gloomy corner that every home has: use them as they are [I know someone who has a little one as his bedside table – it casts a lovely glow] or you can have anything fixed to them – old photos, pictures of your children, vintage advertising signs… just take the lot to a sign-writer who will apply it to plexiglass and do the job for you if your craft skills don’t extend that far. It's not very expensive – I had some really big ones done and they only cost £100ish, so smaller ones would be much cheaper. I had an old 50s toothpaste ad with Marilyn Monroe in it that I really loved – and I took that to the sign-maker. The combination of light and colour really brightened a dark corner at my place."

The image above is in a brilliant new book, Teeny Tiny Gardening, which I will be writing about in full over the next few weeks. It is by Emma Hardy and published by Cico, and gives step-by-step instructions for this and other excellent plant-based projects. It is available to pre-order on Amazon

"I learned a lot from having to do retail window displays at my old junk shop Otto Retro in Devon (now under new and very good management – do check it out!): you have five seconds to grab people’s attention – one time, for spring window, I had loads of lovely 20s and 30s wooden dining chairs I’d collected, but broken and had no seats. So I made seed trays the right size for where the seats would have been and filled them with compost and grew grass where the seats would have been." (See photo above for a similar idea).

"Another great one for gardens is old filing cabinets – and you see LOADS of those at junk fairs or second hand shops, not even beautiful ones. Simply turn them onto their backs, remove the drawers and fill the cavities with soil and you have a perfect divided herb garden – and usually in great colours for gardens."

And here, in case you missed the original piece in the paper, are Sarah's original tips that go with the above-mentioned images I posted last week...

“Recognise what fills you with ‘object lust’ – then think how to get it into your home. For example, I LOVE 1970s glitter drum sets: wall-mounted, they’re shelves for rolled-up blankets; on the floor, a side-table. Approach junk-hunting by thinking: ‘what do I want to look at?"

“Teapots have many lovely uses. I like them as outdoor planters hung at intervals with wire.”

 “You can do LOADS with gorgeously old, paint-spattered ladders – like wall mounting one horizontally (with l-shaped hangers) and using it as a book shelf.”

“Find sources of inspiration before you go junk hunting: I particularly love James Plumb – they bridge the gap between art and utility with their repurposing.”

"Wooden skis are just beautiful. I like fixing them on walls – minus the foot holders – to hang fabric from. People are also making beautiful coat stands using three of them lashed together upright.” 

Does all that sound daunting? If you aren’t crafty – just source a good maker. Chances are, you’ll still have found a bargain, and a unique one that tells a story. You can also hire Sarah Brunner’s skills via the Design Dealers’ Facebook page.