WHY I LOVE ANTIQUES

Just last week I read that on average we will dispose of new items of furniture after fifteen years but will dispose of an antique piece after thirty years. As a lover of antiques I’m surprised the gap isn’t wider but, either way, what this shows is that there is something about antiques that many of us like. 

I love the whole business of antiques. I love sourcing them, interacting with the people who sell them, enhancing them by, for example, having them reupholstered and then meeting the customer who decides they want to put it in their home. I love things that evoke a certain time or place in the past and things that clearly bear the signs of its makers hands on them.

I know exactly where my love of antiques comes from. My father bought them and sold to collectors from all over Europe. My mother had an eye for quality and a hatred of waste. A brilliant combination. I feel like most of my childhood was spent at antique fairs and in salerooms. By fourteen I was working at an auction house after school and in my holidays. After completing my degree in Art History I decided the law was for me but I was wrong and after a decade I went back to my first love - antiques.

For me, the impact on a home of having just a few antiques in it can be enormous. Suddenly that home feels more personal, somehow more grounded and certainly more idiosyncratic. Here you will find a mixture of objects ranging from humble baskets to hand painted ceramics, from antique linens to paintings. To me, all these things blend together to create a home with feeling.

Thank you for taking the time to look at my website. I hope you enjoy it. If you have any questions about an item you see, an antique you want to find or buying antiques generally please get in touch with me. Love, Kate