But how then, if we must learn to curb our urge to collect for collectings sake are we to satisfy the urge to line our house with aesthetically delightful vintage loveliness? For me the answer is to re-direct my urge to trawl as many junk shops as I can find in search of polka dot plates, Girls Own annuals and crystal bonbon dishes, in search, instead for vintage alternatives to all those things I actually need.
The things that help me create a well feathered nest.
Good quality linen I will actually use. That one exquisitely finished apron instead of that cheap, but slightly too shabby lot of fifteen. Apocethary jars for the laundry room, a pretty little creamware jug to hold toothbrushes in the bathroom. The plainest vintage hotel housewife pillowcases I will use underneath my pretty embroidered ones. Monogrammed tea-towels I will treasure on a daily basis, but not so much that I consider them too precious to be subjected to a good old fashioned boiling in a copper pan.
This means sacrificing some of the more delicate linen I can do nothing with other than display and letting someone else have that biscuit tin full of buttons unlikely to contain truly hidden gems. It is about realising that being a Vintage Housekeeper is about more than tying millinery flowers around my chalkware busts, and stockpiling pretty plates for the day I am called upon to throw a street party for the more discriminating ladies of the locality.
True Vintage Housekeepers recognise the quality of yesterdays homeware and seek to line their linen cupboards with it's frugal, hardwearing beauty.
They are not collectors per se, but homemakers first and foremost: homemakers intent on both treasuring and using yesterdays finery, not simply harbouring more beautiful objects to gather dust nor littering every surface with so much loveliness that housework becomes a task so mammoth it makes us feel quite faint...
We are not Mrs Haversham and our homes are not museums. |
Remember this the next time you go treasure hunting!
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