I am totally in love with a show at the moment called Kirstie's Homemade Home. It's an English show and the series I'm currently watching is the third season. The first season was all about decorating a gorgeous little cottage called Meadow Gate, the second was a Christmas special.

This season she is helping other people decorate their own homes with hand made crafts, and old restored furniture and antiques. She is pushing the message that just because it's old doesn't mean you have to chuck it out, and that there is so much lovely old furniture out there besides flat pack furniture that we all buy these days. One thing she said in last nights show was how we all have lovely collections of things packed away and we should bring them out on display, and let our homes speak out about what sort of people live there. This really struck a cord with me. I love seeing houses where everything is just so, vases of twiggy arrangements, special ornaments on display. But some houses don't look lived in, there might be nice decorations but it doesn't let you in on who actually lives there. Sometimes when I look through magazines I feel deflated because I think gee I wish my house looked so perfect but hearing what was said on this show made me feel better about my house. Ok, it's an eclectic mix of old and new, overloaded with trinkets, books and random collections of things but it is who we are, and that's ok.

Another thing they were talking about on the show was rag & bone men, who used to go around with a horse drawn cart collecting peoples junk. But of course back in the old days junk was few and far between because nobody threw anything away because they didn't have the money to buy new things. One old lady was saying how she remembered that in war times if you had a knitted jumper that didn't fit or was in need of repair they would unpick the whole thing and make it into something else. I mean who would do that these days? Times have changed so much, and not necessarily for the better.

So I'm on a bit of a mission now to hunt for more old bit's and pieces, things with character, things with a past. aussiedolls  I need you to come antique shopping with me!

A couple of months ago I did my first sort of furniture restoration. I wanted an old chair for the doll room. So I found this little Victorian bedroom chair on ebay. I cleaned it up and gave it that shabby look with some paint and recovered the seat. It's not the comfiest chair in the house but I do love it and it fits in the doll room perfectly. Plus I had the satisfaction of doing it myself and giving it a new lease on life :o)