I have always had a love of old, well-made things. The current trend of throwing things out because they’re no longer in fashion is so wasteful and unsustainable.
If I can, I try to reuse and refurbish things. Most of our furniture (our sofas, footstool, dining room chairs, desk etc) are secondhand, and the main reason isn’t cost, but because I think that they’re better made than most modern furniture and I like that things can be refurbished rather than filling up landfill.
A good case in point are my two big Ercol renaissance chairs. They were picked up in London in lockdown for about £50 as they’re big and unfashionable, and I always intended to refurbish them. They’re solid ash frames, and very comfortable, and great reading chairs, as they’re generous enough in width to tuck your feet up if you wish.
They’ve just been re-covered by a local upholsterer on the island in a wool fabric from Abraham Moon, a British mill in Yorkshire.
Once the weather is better and I can drag them outside for sanding down, varnish removal and oiling they’ll be good for another fifty years.
I’ve also been picking up Ercol cowhorn dining chairs where I can.
This particular model from the 1960s has a thick elm seat and a steam-bent beech rail at the top. It may not be fashionably minimalist, but it’s comfortable and solid. It’s older than I am! I think that’s wonderful.
As time went on Ercol made the seats thinner and stopped using elm altogether, replacing it with oak due to the scarcity of elm wood. But I love elm.
Again, a few new seat cushions and a bit of refinishing next spring and they’re good to go for many more years.
Ravencroft Skye 
The older, well built furniture will see a come back one day. All our furniture is of the hand-me-down variety, and amongst the lot there are a few pieces of solid and well built genetics. I keep the ones that can stand the test of time and existing in a chaotic household.
The dings, blobs of paint and glue, scratches and chew marks are evidence of use. I sometimes look at marks on furniture and wonder about the story behind them (or remember when that mark was made). History seeps into the things around us and hides there, waiting for those with eyes to see.
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