Pretty VINTAGE STYLE
When Chris Myers’s mother gave her a homemade patchwork quilt for her 16th birthday, little did she know that it would inspire a lifelong passion for collecting such designs. Raised in Canada, Chris learned from her parents the art of creating a welcoming, cosy home full of cheer, so when she settled with her husband Neil, a now-retired dentist, in their Edwardian house in Buckinghamshire’s Gerrards Cross, she was ready to begin homemaking with her simple, joyful country style: “I have quite a few red-and-white quilts, and floral ones crafted from scraps, plus I make tonnes of patchwork cushions.”
Chris’s collections – which she defines as “a set of objects that evoke memories and joy” – range from tiny slippers that once belonged to her sons, Nicholas, now 31, and Stefan, 27, to patterned fabric hearts spilling out of wooden chests. She has a talent for reviving secondhand furniture, whether inherited, salvaged from skips or snapped up at car-boot sales. Fruit crates have been turned into shelving, and old doors are now headboards, cleaned up and painted to give them a new life.
She credits her aunt, who lived in New Hampshire, with kindling her love of antiques and folk art, and her treasures include samplers picked up at Shepton Mallet’s flea market and yard sales in her native Nova Scotia. In the kitchen is a large collection of tinware, from tartlet cases (“ideal tealight holders”) and food containers (“close the lid over greaseproof paper to make them more airtight”) to a drawer full of cookie cutters (“I love that someone used these 50, 60, 70 years ago”), prized for their original use and as trimmings for Christmas gifts.
Seasonal collections help keep Chris’s interior scheme fresh: she switches floral summery bed linen for autumnwinter designs, and tiny gourds and squash decorate the house and veranda at this time of year: “Collecting doesn’t need to cost – displaying a moss-covered piece of bark or a lovely shaped stone with an old book can be very beautiful.”
The Natural Cozy Cottage by Chris Myers (CICO Books, £20).
CHRIS’S OBJECTS OF DESIRE Painted furniture, quilts, heart decorations, old tins, folk art