There's a growing movement promoting the fact that antiques are green. Furnishing your home with antiques and 20thC design not only allows you to express yourself and build a truly individual look, but it also helps save our environment. Consider the carbon footprint left by a new chest of drawers made from trees cut down in the Far East, transported to a factory, and shipped across the world for sale. When this, or an MDF or chipboard wardrobe collapses, sometimes after just a few years, it causes yet more environmental issues. Antiques and collectables generally have been 'green' for decades - even centuries – without even knowing it! Recycling by shopping at an auction, dealer, or fair, is wiser, more rewarding, and truly environmentally friendly.
So please visit the Antiques Are Green website and sign up to show your support.
This month there are some fabulous pictures in Country Living magazine here in the UK. They are of my friends Gloria and Eric Stewart's home near Bergerac in France. We stay with Gloria and Eric at least once a year and I've known them since we lived close to one another in Kent. Gloria describes her home as "a bit like a museum". From these pictures you will see what I mean. I cannot do justice to the photographs here on the blog so I'd urge you to get a copy to appreciate Gloria's great style.
Gloria used to have an antique shop in nearby Tremolat for a while and it was a reflection of her exquisite taste. She admits that Swedish furniture is her real passion . There are lots of these traditional French 19th century confit pots dotted around the house, they come in all sizes and in green as well as yellow. Ten to fifteen years ago you used to be able to pick up pots 
Beautiful confit pots were originally used in country homes and farms of southern France to store duck confit. Many originate from the 19th century and have long been much sought after not so much as a collectable, but as a lovely decorative antique for use as a vessel for arranging flowers. Twelve years or so ago you could pick them up for anything between £25 and £45 in British antique shops. These days I regularly see them selling in America for between $400 and $500; although they do come up for sale on eBay often at quite a bit less.
