Treasure house

Similar images and objects can be gathered together as a group. Photo / Supplied

British designer Stafford Cliff's gardening and interiors books have become a global phenomenon.

In an extract from his new book The Way We Live With The Things We Love he shares the inspiration behind creating a home with personal meaning:

Maybe you don't even think of yourself as a collector. You enjoy going to flea markets and antique shops, buying things that catch your eye or stir your imagination; you treasure family mementos and unexpected gifts from friends; you stroll along a beach picking up and shells and pebbles. You bring these things home and integrate them with the books on your bookshelf, group them together on a coffee table or a side console, or hang them randomly on your walls. In doing this you are creating your own personal museum, bring things together - be they found objects, inherited keepsakes or carefully sourced collectibles - to tell your own story in your home.

On the other hand, you may have spent a lifetime slowly building collections of things you love. Collecting begins when we are very young, and is driven by our instinct to accumulate. As young children we collect miniature soldiers, stuffed animals, dolls and model cars; older children graduate to paper items such as cigarette-card cricketers, pop-star portraits, autographs, postage stamps and comic books. Food manufacturers frequently produce collectibles and free gifts to encourage children to buy their products.

There are also traditional collectibles that vary from culture to culture: tokens in English Christmas puddings, faveurs in French apple tarts. Later these treasured keepsakes become kitsch items for the next generation to discover all over again. Adults develop passions for fine art, antiques and luxury objects that fetch astronomical prices and drive entire industries (think of Faberge eggs or Swarovski crystal figurines).

A devotee may spend years searching for that one last piece to complete a set; an early bird at a flea market may bag an unrecognised treasure that resurfaces hours later at an expensive antique shop. This is the thrill of the hunt, the source of the professional collector's adrenalin rush.

But the final triumph - and the final challenge - is to display your trophies in a decorative setting worthy of their value, be it intrinsic, aesthetic or emotional.

Similar images and objects can be gathered together as a group; bookcases are another option for domestic display. Properly displayed, a collection of chocolate moulds delights the eye and kindles the imagination just as well as a collection of priceless paintings.

Collecting is not only about seizing one particular type of object and finding as many variations as possible. It's also about giving personality to the home in the same way that you accessorise your wardrobe, using items that cannot be purchased in mainstream stores. Some people's entire homes are collections of things they love; pieces inherited from relatives and friends; restored chairs from junk shops or auction houses; tables and shelves made from recycled wood; fireplaces and doors from salvage yards; rewired lamps and light fittings - but nothing that came new from a shop.

Sometimes a passion for a particular period drives a collection: Victorian, Art Deco, the 1970s and 1980s. A collection can also be focused on a single country or a generic "country cottage" style.

A lifetime of accumulation can be melded into a seamless recreation of the past to fit the period of your house, matched to a single colour scheme, or assembled into a complete themed interior to suit your wildest fantasies.

Alternatively, the whole decoration plan of a room can be arranged around one or two striking personal treasures.

FLEA MARKET

The display and storage of objects found by chance in street markets

Accessible to all and universally popular, the market is the great melting pot of life. Flea markets teach us more about other cultures and people's everyday lives than do visits to any museum. Flea markets (or boot-fairs, jumble sales and antique fairs, as they are variously called) are held regularly in most countries throughout the world and vary in size from small to enormous.

Treasures from flea markets generally fall into two categories: things bought as part of the considered decorative scheme of a home - ranging from tables and lamps to door knobs and brass taps - and things bought on impulse, which can be displayed alone or grouped as part of a collection.

The unpredictability and variety of the flea market attracts the hunter-gatherer in everyone. Finding something beautiful amidst the chaos of a flea market brings a surge of pleasure that far outweights the item's actual value.

ART HOUSE

The domestic display of prints, photographs, paintings and sculpture

Hanging a few pictures on the wall should be a simple decorative task, but often isn't. If the frames, styles and subjects are all different, it can be difficult to create a coherent display. A good display of art considers not only the size and the colour of the works, but also the types of frames, and the negative spaces between them.

Another solution is to line up a row of frames pictures on a single long narrow shelf, or - if the pictures are large enough - simply to lean them against the wall. Sculptures can be placed on unconventional plinths such as stairs or windowsills, and fine-art glass and ceramics also benefit from a "sculptural" decorative treatment. Whichever method is used, the effect is dramatic when art is displayed well.

RUSTIC

The charm of found objects from nature

Nature is one of the most readily available decorative resources, and the most plentiful. A large leaf, picked up in a rain forest and pressed into the bottom of a suitcase, can look like a piece of art when framed and hung.

Likewise - providing restrictions don't prevent importing them - seed pods can be displayed like exotic treasures or abstract sculptures. Nearer to home, things found on beaches or riverbanks - pebbles, seashells, ammonites and driftwood - make unusual and personal treasures when mounted on plinths or grouped together on a shelf or a desk. Natural found objects look wonderful in any home decor, cost nothing, and bring the beauty of the outdoors inside, evoking the smell of the woods and the crash of waves in the wild places where they were collected.

* The Way We Live by Stafford Cliff and Giles De Chabaneix is published by Thames & Hudson.