Island Life Magazine Ltd April/May 2009 | Page 130

life

LOCAL BUSINESS

Furnishing with a
light touch
THE appeal of cane furniture is that its
strength is veiled by its breezy looks. Just
as useful in the conservatory or the sitting
room, it seems to suggest summer frivolity.
Cane Furniture and Basketware, run
by Jinty Brown, is an Aladdin’s cave of
wicker, basket and rattan. Jinty stocks
everything from the smallest cutlery
basket to rattan cupboards, from glass
coffee tables to full three-piece suites.
Not that you have to buy sets of anything
– that is part of the beauty of Jinty’s
business. “Lots of places won’t sell you a
single chair, they want you to have the lot.
But that doesn’t suit everybody.”
The range is extensive. Most of the
furniture is made from rattan – a vine,
Jinty explains, which grows vigorously and
can be fine enough to be intricately woven
while having the strength to rival wood.
Thanks to the sheer variety of styles, cane
furniture is not just for the conservatory.
Chairs, tables and suites are often destined
for the lounge, says Jinty. “It looks
good and is practical too – a cane chair

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can easily be moved for vacuuming.”
Glass-topped coffee tables or lamp tables,
with a subtle inset of French open weave,
are often chosen to compliment the look.
Cane is traditionally used in bathroom
ware. White cupboard units can give a
Victorian bathroom a colonial feel, and
Lloyd Loom-type chairs, also in white,
are a stylish place to drape clothes while
you’re showering. Mirrors with matching
weave edges can give the final touch.
Put a cane drawer unit in the kitchen and
you’ve got an elegant home for all manner
of horrors which don’t easily store, such
as plastic beakers and picnic glasses. And
now that the age of the plastic bag is
nearing its end, it’s a great place to find
the perfect shopping basket.
Indeed there are baskets to hold anything
from your pens to logs. “We’ve got linen
baskets, cat baskets, dog baskets – we’ve
even got raised-up baskets for pampered
pooches who don’t like to be on the
floor.”
Cane Furniture and Basketware, Dores

Hill Farm, Briddlesford Road, nr
Wootton. Tel: [phone]

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