favourite things,......

a large portion of my styling at home revolves around vintage items,.....  things that have been passed down in my family....things that i have discovered,..and things that have been gifted to us,...


i love things with a history,...with a story,..


i love having things around my house which i find visually pleasing,..and also texturally pleasing,..things that i do not have to be too precious about.


so, i thought i would share some of those things with you..

this cluster of vintage decanters sits on the top of a sideboard in our lounge room.  i love their 'sparkly decadence',... the one filled with liquid belonged to my grandmother.  the liquid inside is cumquat brandy.  my mother made it with my nannie 40years ago,.using the cumquats from their tree, and papa's best french brandy.  it is sensational over icecream!

these four photographs hang in one of our hallways.  they are my dad's schoolboy rowing and rugby photos.  the kids love picking out their poppy and laugh at how young he looks!

this gorgeous still life was a market find.  it is oil on bark and apparently over 100years old.  

this painting 'boy reading newspaper' also belonged to my nannie. her interior designer chose it as a meditation painting for her when she was battling cancer.  she would sit and concentrate on the small red splash of paint on the boys shoulder.  it is tar on canvas.  i loved looking at this painting at my grandparents house when i was a child and adore having it hang in my own house.

these are antique, persian woodblocks.  they are intricately carved pieces of wood which are dipped in ink and are then used to print on fabrics.  they are beautifully textual pieces,..lovely to hold and trace the pattern in your hands...

this is one of a pair of vintage, cowhide chairs.  they were stationmaster chairs in the 1940's and are fabulously comfortable to sit on.  perfect for drinking scotch by the fire!

 this is a wooden pattern used to make industrial metal cogs,..wheels and other factory tools.  it is about 60years old,..and the smooth painted wood is wonderfully sculptural.  

this is a vintage town planning ruler.  we found it under our house when we moved in.  it now sits in the corner of our lounge room and extends the full 8metre height of the ceiling.

this is an antique obstetricians light picked up at an auction in melbourne.  the metal is dented and beaten about,.and the steel frame is rusted in places,.but i love the industrial quality it lends to our lounge room.

i am not really sure what this little wooden mold was used for.  it is a perfect semi-circle inside,..and the wood is worn and smooth...  my kids use it as a receptacle for shells and coral.

i love vintage world globes.  ideally i would have a collection of them sitting atop a cabinet somewhere,..but now i have to make do with this one.

so...there you go.

these are the things i am loving at the moment.

i move them around our house,.. recreate vignettes with them,...pick them up,..hold them in my hands,.. enjoy their textures as well as their design,..let my kids enjoy them.

live with them.

jane xx