Presents from the past

After using all her powers of recall Sally Woodhead is forced to confess that she can’t remember the last time she bought anything new for her home.

Her passion for vintage and clever upcycling has helped to furnish her farmhouse, near Keighley, and has a wonderful effect on visitors, who often get carried away on a tidal wave of nostalgia.

The giant gonk on top of the fridge transports them to the 1960s and is as kitsch as they come, while the Homemaker plates on the shelf scream 1950s finest from Woolies.

The exquisite set of button drawers, now a bedside table, bring back memories of long-gone haberdashery shops and gents outfitters now sadly consigned to retail history.

Giving new use to old items is also a Sally speciality. In daughter Annie’s bedroom, a wooden meat safe has been transformed into a child-size wardrobe painted in pretty pastels.

The wire storage units in the kitchen spark memories of the “baths”. They were once swimming pool lockers and now hold a hoard of toys. The old office filing cabinet is also keeping family clutter under wraps.

Her latest acquisition is a pair of matching 1970s easy chairs and their charms are obvious to those of us who enjoyed the sumptuous seating of that decade. There is nothing so comfy as an old Dralon chair. They don’t make them like that any more.

Sally agrees: “I rarely buy anything new. It’s not necessary and it’s a lot more fun finding old things. I love the history that comes with them and the fact someone else has had them before.”

Her love of all things old is genetic. Her mother Carole, an auctioneer’s assistant, is a former antiques dealer who always arrives bearing gifts, including flying ducks and vintage glassware.

“My mum always bought and sold antiques in Newark and when I bought my first house I furnished it entirely from a saleroom,” says Sally, a former knitwear designer who now organises vintage fairs.

She and her friend Sam Makin began with the Vintage Fashion Fairs at Leeds Town Hall in 2005 and they now have a cult following. They also run the Vintage Bazaar and Handmade Fair in Ilkley.

The next bazaar is a week on Saturday and Sally will no doubt spend a good portion of any profit there.

“I can’t resist and I have wide ranging tastes, so all sorts of things catch my eye,” she says.

Other hunting grounds include specialist shops, charity shops, salerooms and antique fairs. Fortunately, her stunning home, near Keighley, is now big enough to accommodate even more finds.

She and husband Mark moved to the farmhouse, which came with an adjoining barn, seven years ago.

“We lived in Ilkley and had just got our house how we wanted it when we got the chance to have this farmhouse, which belonged to Mark’s family business. It needed work but I’d always wanted somewhere with land where I could keep animals.”

It has taken years of hard work and privation to renovate the house and extend into the barn but the property has transformed their lives.

The couple, who have three young children – Sam, seven, Thomas, five and Annie, three, now have a five-bedroom, three-bathroom home.

Outside, there is a flock of 15 sheep, plus 20 chickens, two donkeys and a pony, and there’s lots of room to play.

“It was quite hard at first,” says Sally. “Sam was only three months old when we moved in that winter and it was freezing. The bathroom had been made out of breeze blocks in a bit of the barn and it was the coldest place ever. I had to put my coat on before going to the loo and the water pressure was so low it took 45 minutes to run a bath.”

They put in a damp course, replaced the floorboards and re-plastered. Then, after having Annie and in desperate need of more bedrooms, they broke through into the barn with the help of creative builder Richard Atkinson from Cowling.

The barn is cosy, with a new heating system partially fuelled by photo voltaic panels, and it has provided an enormous kitchen that leads into an equally large sitting room.

The family spend much of their time in the kitchen. The flooring is outdoor sandstone slabs, which were half the price of interior versions and are warmed by underfloor heating. The kitchen units were made by Benchmark Joinery in Cowling and are painted in Farrow and Ball’s London Clay.

Two large, scrubbed pine tables 
create one big dining and playing space, which means you can shove the Lego to one side and still have room for a sit-down meal.

In the sitting room, a wood burner is flanked by two teak sideboards bringing a retro feel and more useful storage.

Lighting is from local designers Two Material Girls, who specialise in fabric lampshades, while some of the other fittings hail from the 60s and 70s.

“The 70s stuff is really appealing to me at the moment. I love the teak furniture from that era,” says Sally.

Upstairs, the children’s bedrooms all feature toys of yesteryear, though some of the more precious ones are on unreachable high shelves.

“Almost everything can be played with. It’s just the special and breakable things like the Sylvac pottery dogs and an old doll that a neighbour gave me that are out of reach,” says Sally, who also keeps tiny treasures and curios for the children in a locked, glass-fronted cabinet in the bathroom.

“I’m filling it and then they can share it out when they are older and I’m no longer around.

“It’s fun and you never know there might be the equivalent of a Fabergé egg in there one day.”

The Ilkley Vintage Bazaar is on January 19 at Christ Church hall, Ilkley, just off The Grove, from 10.30am to 4pm. The Leeds Vintage Fashion Fair is at Leeds Town Hall on February 3.

Useful contacts

Benchmark Joinery, www.benchmarkjoinery.co.uk

Two Material Girls, lampshades, http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Two-Material-Girls-UK)

Covet, The Back Grove, Ilkley, for fashion and homeware

Living Vintage, Salts Mill, Saltaire

Antique fairs in Newark and
Lincoln

Anthony Hartley saleroom, Ilkley, www.anthonyhartley.com

Bridge Street Stone, Colne, www. stonepaving.co.uk