Good morning, friends! Hope your holiday preparations are going smoothly! In case you need some last minute gift ideas, we have added some beautiful new items to our Chairish shop, The Collected Home. All of the items have been sourced here in New England, and are one of a kind pieces – vintage or antique – that I’ve come across in my travels, at estate sales and antique fairs near or around Amherst and the Cape. Whenever I go shopping for antiques and uniques, I have two rules I follow: One, the item must be something that I fall for right there and then, and that visceral reaction you get when you find something you love in a place where everything competes for your attention is what makes me swipe my card, each and every time. (No lukewarm feelings allowed, it has to be love at first sight 🙂 ) Two, the item must be in great condition relative to its age. If it’s pottery and it’s old, then a few chips are fine, as long as the overall effect is beautiful patina. So, without further ado here are some of the items we’ve recently listed in our shop. Hope you see something you like!
1) A vintage mesh fireplace screen
If you have a thing for fireplace screens and are very particular about the style, I completely understand… I love a simple, clean look that is both delicate and sturdy and doesn’t detract from, or obscure, the beauty of a roaring fire. It takes patience to source a vintage piece that is exactly the look you want, at the price and size that fits your budget and home…
When we first moved into our cottage, we removed the existing brass screen and the fireplace sat screen-less for months. I was looking for a simple, farmhouse style screen that would be similar to the one at Clove Brook Farm (images above and below) but I couldn’t find anything on the market that was even remotely similar (and somewhat affordable).
So after months of searching for a vintage piece locally, I had to settle for a store bought screen that could get us safely through the winter months. But I wasn’t happy with it. It took about a year to finally find the right fireplace screen, and we absolutely love what it does to our fireplace!
A beautiful mesh screen that fits the particular dimensions of a given fireplace box is not easy to come by so now, whenever I see one I buy it. But we only have one fireplace, which is why I’m looking for good homes for the ones I got in my collection. Here’s one of the prettiest I’ve found so far:
2) Vintage Americana Yellow & Blue Stoneware
If you also share my thing for vintage pottery (the older and more collectible, the better) we’ve added two beautiful yellow Americana stoneware with navy blue banding. I believe they are from the early 19th-century, based on the wear shown on the bottom, but are in great working condition. These mixing bowls add a pop of color to any kitchen and are highly collectible…
You can see them dotting the shelves of New England farmhouses up and down the Eastern seaboard, and have been beautifully displayed in Gil Schafer’s pantry at Middlefield. I have been on the lookout to find some ever since I first saw this image….
We’ve also added a vintage painted duck decoy, and an absolutely wonderful antique reproduction engraving. The choice of a duck decoy is self-explanatory… who can resist them?
Water fowl decoys can be fun to display and look great solo, or with a flock, as seen in these images below…
As for the engraving, I am absolutely in love with it! Signed and dated on the back as being framed in 1917, this large print is a reproduction of a 1780-1785 engraving by Joseph de Longueil, François Basan and Isaak Jansz van Ostade.
It features a charming village scene with travelers halting outside a tavern at right, a horse-cart standing on the road at centre, one of the horses drinking from a bucket, three peasants resting at the foot of a tree in right foreground, another pulling up his socks in lower left corner; after Isaak van Ostade; coat of arms in lower margin. The original print was registered with The British Museum (linked here).
Anyway, hope you saw something you like! More items coming soon, including some lovely furniture pieces too. Stay tuned!
To see more of the beautiful country homes featured in today’s post, make sure to check the following Café Design stories:
A Nantucket Summer Home designed by Markham Roberts
Wish that were 40” wide! Darn.
Love the vintage fireplace screen and had one at our cottage that looked exactly like yours. It was sturdy and large enough to cover a very large opening. I wish they were easy to find but like you said you’ve got to search for them.