quotable sunday :: William Morris
2009
~ Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful ~
Oh I so try to live by this mantra. Sometimes Julian has to remind me, point out the useless, the silly, the downright ugly :-) But I’m so much better now that I’m getting old and sensible :-)
We’ve been having such a wonderful time lately, cruising the suburbs on the Sunday before the council’s hard rubbish collection, finding items that we consider very useful and sweetly beautiful – but that which others have left on the kerb to be munched into splinters. Honestly, as I clean and repair and paint my finds during the week, I am counting down the sleeps until the coming Sunday!
A marvellous haul tootled home with us today – a vintage wooden ironing board, a couple of serving trays, an antique cane chair, an antique spoon backed chair, a vintage woman’s bike with front basket, back luggage rack and stand, a wooden standard lamp, a wooden and linen laundry hamper, a wonderful vintage lowboy – cupboard with drawers inside, and the piece de resistance – an antique CHAISE LONGUE! Can you believe it!
We had to ask the owner/disposer if we could move it back into his front garden whilst we hurried home to unload what we had previously considered to be an amazing collection and then come back for the chaise. He was highly amused, but amiable and as we carried it back inside, warned “You do realise it’s broken?” “Do you mean here, where the dowel has come unglued on the back rail?” I asked, having already sat and laid down on the chaise and looked underneath, checking for wonkiness. “Yes,” he replied very seriously, “We have the whole suite upstairs – matching armchairs, and a sofa, but when this chaise broke, it was just no good to us.”
Oh – my – goodness! What a strange world we live in! So very indulged materially, that we have become terribly, terribly wasteful. You wait and see, with a minimal amount of effort – but a lot of love and joy, this chaise longue will be beautiful and give us many, many years of useful comfort. We also rescued quite a lot of smaller household items – a perfectly good pruning saw (Mum’s been meaning to buy one at the hardware store for months), a blackboard/easel for my nephew Oscar, a expandable safety gate for the doggles, a new laundry trolley for Mum, a pair of wooden curtain rails, a rattan blind in perfect condition and a wooden planter box.
So, long may the words of William Morris guide the nesting of the Boot family. Useful and beautiful. I think we can manage that :-)
p.s. this is my new work-a-day apron,
perfect for hard rubbish thrifting, painting, sanding and cleaning,
and it’s ticking both boxes for me – beautiful and useful – and tonight, dirty!
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What a treasure trove you collected. The chaise sounds (perfectly) divine! Will you show it to us once you’ve lovingly attended to it? I quite like that little shelving unit in the photo. Your new apron is certainly beautiful and no doubt useful!
Sounds like you found quite a few treasures. I’m sure that if I brought any more furniture home, I’D be the one out on curb on collection day. Love the apron, too!
This is one of my favorites as well! Love that quote.
And love the apron! I want an action shot ;)
xo, K
That is a great challenge, and one that I appreciate as we are in the process of moving and rethinking “home” in smallish space.
love that quote!
What a haul! It sounds like lots of fun and a good way to save money. I love old stuff. I have a vintage ironing board that I use and I think I bought it at a garage sale more than 30 years ago.
What a great find! I know you’ll enjoy that chaise. I love the apron – so pretty!
Your treasure hunting Sundays sound so fun! I can’t wait to see that chaise longue! My grandmother had a lovely green and red velvet one, but unfortunately my aunt and uncle who inherited her house, didn’t see it’s charm and put it on the bonfire without consulting the rest of the family. It still irks me, twenty years later! I’m happy to see that there still are people who see the value of taking care of old things :-)
That’s a great quote! I think that will help me clean out a lot of clutter around here!!