How to Collect: Cabinet, Shelf, Wall, Tray

We spent ten years emptying our houses. The opposite movement is under way: we are accumulating again, with method. This series opens on the how before the object: showing a collection without the house looking like a storeroom.

Why we are coming back to it

In June we described the return of "collected interiors", rooms that tell a life rather than a catalogue. A single object decorates; ten objects from the same family speak of taste and patience. On a modest budget, you are not after the masterpiece, you are after the next one.

The four ways to show

The cabinet, closed, protects: little glasses, fragile ceramics, brass that tarnishes. The single shelf, at eye level, is the safest format to begin with. The wall, for whatever hangs — posters, mirrors —, is composed on the floor before you drill. The tray gathers what lies about: a rectangle of wood on a low table turns six scattered objects into a collection.

The one-family rule

One surface, one family of objects. Vases with vases, candlesticks with candlesticks; mixing is just clutter. Within the family, a single sorting variable: colour, height or material. Light matters more than the furniture: glass against the light, ceramic in a raking light, brass away from the spots. Dust is managed by numbers: beyond twenty pieces in the open, the cabinet.

The houses that did it

On the Rue de Verneuil, Gainsbourg lined up his objects on dark ledges, one family per surface. Carlo Mollino, in Turin, composed an entire flat like a display case; we devoted a visit to these two houses. At Charleston, in Sussex, the Bloomsbury painters covered every surface. You start at €20 with a jug; you keep for thirty years what you chose yourself.

Spotted an object at a flea market? Scan it on Beyit: the family, the maker, the price — the beginning of a collection.