Using Vintage & Second Hand Homewares To Add Soul To Your Home

My job as the Property Coach™ is to help people make their homes more saleable or rentable by reorganising the internal space, de-cluttering & toning down the owners personal style. This doesn’t mean, as so many people seem to think, striping it of its character and painting it cream. I like to use the home owners' many belongings in the redesign process.

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There is something soulless about a ‘show home’ or perfectly presented hotel room. These are fine when you're ‘just visiting' or on holiday for a few weeks.

However try and live in a hotel room for any length of time, like I do when we’re shooting ‘House Doctor’, and it soon drives you mad.

The reason is that you don’t have all those things that make you’re everyday life comfortable, all those personal references to your life are missing. Like that memento that you and your partner picked up while beach combing, the lovely old vase that your grandmother gave you, the framed picture that sits on your bookshelf.

I call this the art of layering.

Isn’t it fun to enter an attractive room then, as you grow comfortable you begin to notice other things about the space that you didn’t first observe?

This can be achieved in many ways with light, with fabric textures, with belongings & art and with well-placed or built-in furniture.

As a child I was always fascinated by the nooks and crannies of dressers, sideboards, and even old boxes. There was always a hidden drawer, a deep recess, something I had forgotten about or never seen before.

The important thing is to have items around you that bring you pleasure.

My mother, a great cook, has a drawer full of wonderful old kitchen utensils. Old potato peelers, corkscrews and Madeline moulds. She claims that they make her food tastier. I reckon she’s right, but not because the item gives them more flavour, more because she is happier when using the item and her happiness transfers to the food.

Things don’t have to be old or heir looms to give them this status. A beautiful new vase, rug, lamp or picture has as much value.

What they all have in common is ‘beauty’ or ‘meaning’ to the owner.

This is great news for anyone making a home as it opens up the avenues of second hand, bric-a-brac and car boot fairs. When I am preparing a home to sell the budget is very tight. I always ‘work with what I’ve got’ in the property. A most rewarding discipline.

Old lamp bases, that look like the type you’d make at a pottery evening class, look wonderful with a new chocolate brown shade, and it will be quite unique.

Plain cushions that don’t quite work can be tied into the scheme and look stunning given a new trim bought for just a few pence.

I recently worked in a home where the owner had a potting shed full of old wooden trays. These had lovely character, beautiful jointed corners, a bit knocked about, which added to their charm. We reused them in his newly re-worked study office and they became a filing area.

An old carpet-knitting bag, picked up for pennies in a charity shop, makes a functional magazine holder.

The great thing about decorating your home like this is the fun you can have with it. Not only does it give you an excuse to go hunting in second hand and bric-a-brac shops as well as the odd car boot and jumble sale (take a look at the directory for Auction Houses, Second Hand and Car-boots).

But you also have the pleasure of knowing that you are doing your bit for the environment, re-using, creating something unique and maybe best of all, having fun in the whole process. What’s even better is that it can be done for very little money, just costing time and a little imagination.

It can, if you’re not careful, become an obsession. I must admit to being drawn to holiday destinations that may have a store or two of goodies to search through. Brighton, Bath (and surrounding towns) and Dorset are often on my visit list.

Once a year I make a pilgrimage to the wonderful ‘Braderie’ Europes' biggest flea market. This is held in Lille, France, on the first weekend of September…go with an empty suitcase, car or trailer and you’re sure to return with some unique finds. The joy is that you create a unique feel to your home that is practical and cost effective.

Some of my favourite hunting grounds in London are.

Alfies Antique Market - a collection of over 100 antique, second hand & vintage tall holders selling everything from clothing to furniture, light fittings to picture frames.

Stalls and shops around Camden Passage, The Mall, Pierrepont Arcade, Islington. Full of a wonderful mix of antique shops selling everything from furniture to toys.

Upper Street and Essex Road N1, London. Many shops selling antiques, vintage and bric-a-brac.

Criterion Auction Rooms – 53 Essex Road, Islington. Auctions every Monday of furniture, art, homewares and many other antique, vintage and second hand item.

Brick Lane and surrounding street (Sunday Mornings)

Columbia Road – not just for flowers anymore.

Bermondsey Market (very early on a Friday morning)

Portobello Road and surrounding streets.

I use yell.com and upmystreet.co.uk to help me find out-of-the-way’ second hand shops.

So when you are creating a home invironment, use the interior magazines as a starting point, but don’t recreate someone else’s style, create your own and have some fun too.

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Have you got an article about buying or using second hand and antique accessories or home wares?

Why not send me your article and I'll post it on the website with your name and website link.

There are loads of good ideas on how to 'Use What You've Got' or buy and use second hand furniture and furnishings in The Property Coach 'Home Staging Handbook'.