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Category Archives: original surfaces
Out dammed spot
Can you imagine living in a world where certain decorative items purchased for the home – came with a large sticker announcing – this person has TASTE and MONEY? From the 1950s until some time in the 1970s New Zealand … Continue reading
Revisiting paint effects, theatrical and otherwise.
I recently acquired a suite of three elliptical Italianate landscape paintings. They were purchased primarily for their frames, which I mistakenly thought were circular – one of the perils of online purchasing but that is, as they say, another story. … Continue reading
In praise of Candle Power
A good friend of mine, married to a professional fireman, lives without candlelight. Indeed she lives in a house from which all forms of naked flame are exiled. Her husband has, somewhat sadly, seen too much melancholy evidence of what … Continue reading
Posted in inspiration, original surfaces, practical matters, Uncategorized
Tagged candles, firemen, smoke
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The great silver rush of May 2013
Recently we spotted a little silver tray – three legs and in good solid plate with a little copper showing through – but otherwise unmarked. It was lot 2 in the local sale so it didn’t take long to acquire. … Continue reading
Posted in auction finds etc., collecting, original surfaces, Uncategorized
Tagged sheffield plate, slver trays, trays
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only walking through
Sometimes I worry that we don’t use the big studio room in our house enough. It was, in fact, the reason we bought this house – against all reason. Well, Douglas says I forced him to buy this house. And … Continue reading
Posted in colour, original surfaces
3 Comments
Third lustreous time around
I’ve been fascinated by recent television programmes around antiques on which dealers say of an item ‘they used to get hundreds of pounds, but now you can expect to get about thirty.’ I think of copper bed warming pans and … Continue reading
Posted in collecting, original surfaces
1 Comment
Grandmother’s couch
Sometime ago Douglas and I began to think we probably needed a couch in our bedroom. We wanted to read in more comfort than we could sitting on a chair and wanted something on which you could also slump, in … Continue reading
Posted in auction finds etc., original surfaces, Uncategorized
Tagged art deco, auction, couch, grandmother, sanderson linen
1 Comment
Omega Workshops – Down on the Farm
Today is the first day of a short holiday I’ve cooked up for myself, in order to sit in front of the fire and do nothing. Surprise, surprise then if I wasn’t at Maidens & Foster at 9.30am this morning … Continue reading
How to wallpaper with old book pages
Some time back we came across an old dictionary in a box lot at the local auction house – its cover was missing and it was in pieces but it had great illustrations and great (no longer used) words. There … Continue reading
Posted in inspiration, original surfaces, practical matters
Tagged dressing room walls, wall linings
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Woolen Upholstery Fringe
Lazy blogging? Perhaps? I just wanted to post these Victorian upholstery fringes from the collections held at Hawke’s Bay Museum & Art Gallery. Mostly because of their vibrant colour. They came into the collection decades ago and have been stored … Continue reading
Posted in inspiration, original surfaces
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Decor Extremus: 