I’m Neyi Day. I live in St Albans, and my house is full of other people’s things.
I’ve been like this my whole life, and I blame my grandmother entirely. She was the sort of woman who kept things, mended things, and found a use for absolutely everything, and I grew up watching her do it. Nothing got thrown away. Everything got looked at properly first. I never stood a chance.
So most weekends you’ll find me in a charity shop, at a car boot, or standing very still in front of a shelf trying to work out why I want something. Then I take it home and spend the evening finding out what on earth it is, with eleven tabs open and a cup of tea going cold beside me. That’s my favourite part. Not the buying, it’s the digging.
I should be clear that I’m no expert. I’m not an interiors or antiques professional, I haven’t studied any of this, and I frequently have no idea what I’m looking at. I just buy things I like and then fall down a hole about them. A £3 plant pot turned out to be possibly Italian. A picture that spent six months in my garden turned out to be possibly Hungarian. I’m as surprised as anyone.
I’m African, and over the years a few vintage images, cultural objects and pieces of art relating to Black people have found their way into my home. Objects, drawings and art can look like simple things, but there are often real people, places and histories behind them. I’m fascinated by those stories where something came from, who made it, who might have owned it and how it ended up where I found it. When something catches my eye, I want to know more.
I paint and upcycle things. I move pictures around. I put things together because they make me happy rather than because somebody has told me they match. There are some, but very few, expensive things in my home and many things that cost next to nothing. There are pieces I’ve had for years, charity-shop finds, things I’ve rescued, found things from local reuse groups I’ve painted and things I bought without having the faintest idea where I was going to put them.
Somehow, they live together. Sometimes you can bring something home for the very best reason of all: because you liked it.
So this is where I’m going to share those things the things I’ve loved, the things I’ve bought, inherited, found and kept, the things I probably shouldn’t have bought, and the stories behind them.
Pull up a chair but not the yellow one. It’ll tip you straight onto the floor.
