This week was our family Antique Auction!
60 years of memories went under the hammer in front of about 1,000 people from all around Australia.
Rex, my husband’s Dad, was an avid collector, as a young man he collected items from all over Australia. He scrounged through rubbish tips when he went on his goldfield trips. He collected items from the small goldfield ghost towns.
60 years of collecting and restoring, originally on his wheat and sheep farm near Cadoux in Western Australia, later at Katrine, near Toodyay.
By the way; that pedal powered dentist drill was purchased by the staff of a dental clinic for one of their dentists who turned 60 yesterday. He would of received it by now with a card to say where it came from…. how cool is that!
In 1988 Rob’s parents Rex and Chris retired from farming purchasing The Katrine 1832 homestead and its newly subdivided 20 acreas. It was evident to Rex and Chris, Katrine was in need of not only love and restoration but a careful plan for a close to true restoration. A complex mix of buildings included a shepards mud, stone and brick structure, the grand homestead, the barn, a dairy, the inn and of course sheds. Restoring and loving this property along with further collecting and restoring treasures kept them young and active for the next 25 years. Not to mention children and grandchildren’s quality time was weaved into their life web.
I remember when they bought the original Viveash family homestead . We knew they would love the tinkering, fixing and creating that the property was crying out for. This week, now 25 years later, is a bitter sweet experience for us all. Another era is beginning as today one is coming to its completion.
Rob’s Dad has now passed away, the property is a huge job to maintain and up keep not to mention it needs the passion to drive further creativity and love for the ongoing story. Alison, Rob’s sister, has been part of the past 15 years in the restoration and creativity with her parents. Both, Chris and Alison, along with Rob and Alistair ( Rob’s brother) came to see that Rex’s dream has come into reality. It’s time to celebrate his dream and let the collected items go to their next well loved homes.
The property will now go out to the market place for yet another era to begin.
Have a great day everyone
Di
Nice to meet you!
or check out more photos on Instagram
Wow Di, what a glorious property and I wished I could have seen some of those beautiful treasures… I would have bought the Singer sewing machine!!! What a gift to dedicate one’s life to restoration of things that would be long gone by now….. Fantastic job. I will stick to the restoration of people but I admire people who see something and can make it look like new again. IL&G Diane
And Diane is was a gorgeous day with the weather, our gorgeous volunteers and the Auction Company. Everything went smoothly and was fun! Rob’s Dad was a very self driven man and loved what ever he did and always did exceptionally well at it!
What a wonderful story and so glad it all went well.
Yep! all done, the boys are cleaning up cleaning out the empty sheds and barns etc. One big job done!
Hi Di,
Sorry I’m just now making it back around to comment on this post. Been kind of hectic lately but I really did love learning about auction and the homestead.
How sad to see this era come to an end. My grandmother’s home didn’t have near this collection but they had a lot of really old things that ran their far from the late 1800’s so cleaning all of that out and having to sell the home and land after she passed away was really hard.
As kids we had such a great time there way out in the country but all we have are memories.
Where will Chris be going now? Someplace closer to family? I bet that’s a hard change for her too.
Thanks for sharing this with us and I’m in awe of everything you guys did for your family. That’s what we’re all about right!
~Adrienne
Hi Adrienne,
Thanks for dropping by and commenting.
Yep family is everything hey!
The homestead still needs to be sold and Chris hasn’t decided where she would like to live yet. So many choices, she could live in the little town near her or she could come to the city where most of her family is. Tricky decision for her.
Although this was a bitter sweet experience it is a relief to have done it and for everyone to move into the next phase of their journey.
Di