Marketplace: St. Jacobs Antiques

I feel lucky to live so close to St. Jacobs. It’s a charming area in the Waterloo Region. The village has cute shops and excellent food. The Saturday market is vibrant and fun…with excellent food vendors. The Mennonite community is so unlike other areas of the region (e.g., the university sectors, the tech community). In addition to all of these great qualities, the antique markets are full of interesting items, and if you’re a collector of just about anything, I’m sure you can find something to add to your collection here.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had a look around, and I’ve enjoying observing what’s “new” in the world of antiques.

I noticed white and non-white collections of:

  • wood dough bowls
  • felt pennants
  • cake plates in every material
  • Cloisonné
  • figurines
  • teacups (do these every go out of style?)
  • pottery (including a lot of crocks)
  • quilts
  • portraits
  • and more!

Design: Mixing Old & New

As I recently mentioned, now that I live in house that was built in 1908, I feel like I want to incorporate some old, charming, refined, beautiful pieces into our interior design. Yes, there will still be a lot of white and modern pieces (like lighting, I hope!), but I just feel like this home should not be filled to the brim with modern and shiny.

I’m not really spending time on one room at a time, but rather I’m going to use the approach of when I spot things we love, that we think will work in a room, and where the timing of the purchase is right, we’ll make the purchase. Slowly, we’ll build each room to our liking.

This approach is slow, yes, and it feels like I’m juggling things in the air a lot, but I also feel like it’s a bit hard to concentrate only on one room at a time. In addition, we don’t actually need anything (combing two houses means you end up with a lot of stuff!), but it’s moreso that we’re trying to add pieces to our existing collections that will enhance function and style in our new old home.

On top of all of this, I’m also practical and we do have a budget to balance. We do have to spend money on less fun things as we get settled – this week’s purchase was a water softener. Not so fun, but very much needed in Waterloo.

So, anyhow, I bought a beautiful antique desk a few weeks ago, which is setting the tone for my office. I think I would like to add a wood hutch/wardrobe to serve as a bookcase, and a new rug and light that keeps the room modern. I’m not yet sure about art. I know a lot of people loved the gallery wall in my first home, but I think a similar installation would overwhelm my new office, so it’s unlikely I’ll be recreating it. Besides this, some of the art has already moved to other areas of our home. The colourful rug is currently in my office, but it, too, feels like it’s overwhelming the space and doesn’t quite match the desk, so I’ll be moving it out soon.

With that, here are two options that I quite like at the moment.

Marketplace: Polishing Silver

I love collecting silver of any kind – jewelry, photo frames, serving dishes, etc. I blame my mom. She has an amazingly beautiful collection. Both of us have built our home collections after many trips to estate sales, antique stores, thrift stores, and vintage treasury shops in Canada and the US. Up until recently, we each rely on products like Twinkle and Silvo to polish up our silver. They’re both good products and have done what we needed them to do. But, I now have a new favourite silver polish.

Let’s go ahead and skip some of the small talk and get right to the before and after photos.

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Pretty incredible, right? Trust me, if I hadn’t tried it myself, I wouldn’t have been convinced. So, what is this magic product? It’s called Universal Stone and it’s amazing. It sort of has the consistency of Twinkle (except it’s harder). It takes zero effort – a couple of rubs and that it. The magic (yes, magic) product and sponge do everything. It’s unbelievable! Universal Stone is also eco-friendly. It took me about 1 minute to clean each of the above items…without even scrubbing!

If you live in Waterloo, you can buy this at Household China & Gifts (that’s where I bought mine).

p.s. Mom, are you reading this? Did you see these transformations? Guess what you’re getting for your birthday. Secret is out!

Sponsor Spotlight: Caviar20

Today I’m so happy to share some of the amazingly stylish products from Caviar20. Troy carries so many exceptionally gorgeous pieces – and they go quickly – so if there’s something you’ve got your eye on, go ahead and get it before it’s sold!

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David Hockney The Older Rapunzel etching, $3000

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Rachel Whiteread “untitled” ditone print, $3000

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Fornasetti “Suns and Moons” ceramic serving tray, $475

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Veca “Fontana arte style” sconces, $1750

 

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