Antiques make a home
The Kitchen
Dress the hardest-working room with antique furniture and accessories found at auction, to create an affordable look that warms the cockles of your heart. Caroline Wheater goes shopping…
BUDGET: £1,500 BILL: £1,262
Of all the rooms in the house, the kitchen is where we gather most, whether to catch up on the day’s news, to oversee homework, or to giggle over a glass of wine on Friday nights. Ideally, a kitchen needs a seat, and a Windsor chair is an informal option that is comfy to sit in and eminently affordable – even the rarer types such as Gothic style. Freestanding furniture is great for storing dishes, mugs, a favourite teapot and table linen –a buffet is ideal for this. For keen cooks, a set of copper pans adds a note of cheffy panache, as does a sycamore wood dairy bowl for keeping fruit, veg, or the flotsam and jetsam of daily life. Finally, if you have room on your walls, add a picture, print or vintage poster – art is fantastically affordable at auction and will give you a warm feeling every time you see it.
The prices quoted are total, so the hammer price, plus buyer’s premium and VAT.
Dressing up walls needn’t be expensive –a silkscreen print by the Suffolk artist Tessa Newcomb (1955–) sold for just £52 at Cheffins’ Affordable Art Sale last summer
Sycamore wood bowls were used for making butter and cheese, and this gem, complete with brass patches, sold for £143 at Mallams
Sip your coffee from something special – these Art Deco mugs with geometric panels were designed by Susie Cooper and sold for £195 at Woolley & Wallis
Buffets, traditionally used for placing dishes on and storing cutlery and napery, lend themselves nicely to today’s kitchens. An early 19th-century mahogany example on castors cost £336 at Cheffins
This teapot with bamboo decoration, designed by Christopher Dresser for the Minton factory in the late 19th century, sold for £130 at Mallams
A range of copper pans in graduating sizes helps layer up a timeless kitchen look – this harlequin set cost £241 at The Canterbury Auction Galleries
This classic Windsor armchair has a stick back, decorative splat, elm seat and yew bentwood elements. It sold for just £165 at Chorley’s
