ABOUT THE HOUSE
• An Esse Ironheart woodfired stove is used for cooking and heats the entire house. esse.com
• The exterior of the cottage is painted in Porter’s Paints Jaguar. 1800 656 664, (02) 9698 5322, porterspaints.com
• Bathroom fittings are from The English Tapware Company. 170 Queen Street, Woollahra, NSW, (02) 9362 4736;
751 High Street, Armadale, Victoria, (03) 9818 1403, englishtapware.com.au
• One of Helen’s favourite haunts for vintage and antiques when in Melbourne is Ingles & Co, 2 Victoria Road, Hawthorn, Victoria, 0481 751 144, inglesco.com.au
“We love it here at Christmas and if it’s good weather we’ll have lunch alfresco. We have fairly rustic decorations with pine, holly and natural things.”
was here but there was no staircase inside. But it was our little refuge and when we first got the house we just camped here pretty much,” says Helen.
At the time Helen was working for a building company based in Geelong. “Rodney would come up here on Friday night. He would hang out here and cook, while I’d work on weekends and get back here on Saturday night and he would be making a curry and would open a bottle of wine — it was perfect,” she explains.
For most of her life, Helen had been collecting old things — architectural pieces, furniture and decorative items — and had renovated various country houses over the years. “One of my favourite pastimes is a stroll through a vintage market,” she says. When she moved to Melbourne, some of that collection went into storage but once they bought the cottage all her things were moved up to Daylesford in containers. An old lab cupboard and sink, now installed in the kitchen, was just one of the things that had been waiting in storage until she found the right house for it. She scoured salvage yards for the rest, including antique floorboards and old timber boards to line the walls.
“We had to change most of the windows as they were plain and ugly, and we replaced most of the doors with beautiful old doors that I found. We had qualified trades in and it took about three months; it was quite intensive. We put in a toilet straight away, then we had a bathroom and a stove installed. Our first day sleeping here was at Easter 2011.”
After years of long commutes to her job in the building industry, four years ago Helen decided to follow her love of antiques and opened Found — a beautifully curated homewares and interiors store specialising in European and Australian antiques, linen and vintage wares. Her daughter Alexandra Box also works at Found, which initially opened in nearby Hepburn Springs, but two years ago moved to Daylesford. “I was burnt out after five years of driving from Melbourne to Geelong, or Daylesford to Geelong every day,” Helen explains. “I’ve had a passion for old things all my life and with the miners’ cottages and small-village houses and farmhouses around here we find that the smaller-scale Australian stuff goes really well, too.”
These days Helen spends most of the week in Daylesford, while Rodney joins her on weekends. They still have plans to build on a contemporary living space, but for now the house is enough for their country fix.
“Rodney has pet magpies and kookaburras that follow him up the drive. He just fluffs around when he comes up, or he’ll have a play in the garden. We grow our own vegetables,” says Helen. “I just love summer and Christmas in Daylesford, listening to the birds and everything here that is in the trees. There are some special bits of architecture in town. It’s pretty amazing — and I need to feel earth, hence why we are here in Daylesford.”
Found, 119 Vincent Street, Daylesford, 0457 234 616.
For more information, visit found.style