The Home Edit: 12 considered finds worth bringing home
The Home Edit returns with 12 considered finds, from Italian glassware and intelligent plant care to embroidery, olive oil and sofa technology.
From Italian glassware and intelligent plant care to embroidery, olive oil and a surprisingly elegant piece of sofa technology, these are the objects that make a home feel more individual.
The most interesting homes are rarely assembled all at once. They evolve through objects accumulated gradually, some chosen for usefulness, others for beauty, and a few simply because they possess enough character to make everyday life more enjoyable.
That distinction matters. A well considered home does not require every object to belong to the same collection or subscribe to a single aesthetic. Often it is precisely the unexpected pieces, the unusual glass on a shelf, the beautifully designed kitchen tool or something made by hand, that give a room its personality.
This month's Hinton Home Edit brings together twelve such finds, spanning design, food, craft and technology.
1. Plant Parent, £74.99 from Plant With Willow
Keeping houseplants alive remains one of domestic life's more unpredictable responsibilities. Too much water looks remarkably similar to too little until, often, it is too late.
Plant Parent approaches the problem with considerably more information. Three sensors and a WiFi hub monitor soil moisture, light, temperature and humidity, providing guidance tailored to individual plants.
Up to three can be monitored at once, making it particularly useful for households where an innocent purchase of one monstera has quietly developed into a collection.
It does not remove the pleasure of caring for plants. It simply replaces some of the guesswork with evidence.
2. Krafted Couch, £39.99 from Krafted
Technology is at its best when it solves a small irritation without becoming another object demanding attention.
Krafted Couch is a wireless charger designed specifically for the arm of a sofa, using a flexible silicone pad to keep a phone within easy reach while it charges.
It is MagSafe compatible and Qi2 certified, supplied with a two metre cable and available in Deep Blue, Matcha and Latte.
The concept is straightforward, but persuasive. After all, the sofa is where a considerable amount of evening phone use actually happens. It seems slightly peculiar that so much charging technology has been designed around the desk.
3. Boho Butterflies Crystal Art Hanging Decoration Kit, £17.99 from Craft Buddy
Craft becomes considerably more satisfying when the finished object has somewhere to go.
Craft Buddy's Boho Butterflies kit creates a decorative hanging piece finished with crystals and feathers, with everything required included in the box.
Once complete, it works particularly well beside a window or somewhere natural light can catch the crystal detailing.
It is part decoration, part afternoon project, and an appealing alternative to buying another finished object for the wall.
4. Ichendorf Milano Glassware, from £15.99 at Sous Chef
There is no particular reason every glass in a cupboard should match.
Indeed, Ichendorf Milano offers a persuasive argument that they should not.
The Italian glassmaker has become known for pieces that combine delicate craftsmanship with an unusually playful imagination. Tiny lemons, cats, geese, turtles, flowers and other forms appear within otherwise restrained tumblers, coupes, mugs and jugs.
Individually they are charming. Collected gradually, they become considerably more interesting.
These are glasses designed to be used rather than simply admired, but they possess enough character to make even water feel slightly more ceremonial.
5. Wild Salmon in a Tin Corkscrew, £13.99 from Sous Chef
There are objects whose appeal requires little intellectual justification.
A corkscrew disguised as a salmon and presented in its own tin belongs firmly in that category.
It performs an entirely conventional task while looking nothing like the utensil one expects to use for it. There is something pleasingly eccentric about that.
Kitchen tools spend much of their lives hidden in drawers. This one deserves to remain visible.
6. Olio Guglielmi Tales Terra Pregiata Extra Virgin Olive Oil, £29.99 from Sous Chef
Good olive oil is less an ingredient than a finishing decision.
Produced in Puglia from native Coratina olives, Olio Guglielmi's Terra Pregiata has an intense fruit character with notes of almond, artichoke and tomato, followed by the bitterness and pepper associated with the variety.
The Guglielmi family has produced extra virgin olive oil for more than sixty years, and this is a bottle best appreciated somewhere its character is allowed to remain visible.
Pour it over grilled vegetables, aged cheese, soup or pizza, or keep things even simpler with good bread and a shallow dish.
There are few kitchen luxuries that justify themselves so quickly.
7. Cherry Blossom Hoop Kit, £25 from Paraffle
Inspired by Edinburgh in spring, Paraffle's Cherry Blossom Hoop Kit turns one of the city's prettiest seasonal moments into embroidery.
The design is detailed without becoming overly sentimental, and guidance is included for those still becoming comfortable with needle and thread.
The attraction extends beyond the finished piece.
Embroidery demands patience in a way few modern activities do. Progress occurs slowly and visibly, one stitch at a time. When the work is complete, the hoop itself becomes the frame.
It is decoration with a memory attached to its making.
8. Botanical Rum Infusion Kit, £19.99 from Sous Chef
A drinks cabinet becomes considerably more interesting when not everything inside it arrived ready made.
This Botanical Rum Infusion Kit contains spices and botanicals intended for experimenting with flavour at home.
The process is deliberately open ended. Ingredients can be adjusted, combinations changed and infusion times varied until something resembling a personal house rum emerges.
It introduces a little craft into the drinks trolley and makes an appealing gift for somebody who would rather create the bottle than simply receive another one.
9. Cookut Miam Easy Pancake Shaker, £22.99 from Sous Chef
Pancakes are simple. The washing up they generate can feel strangely disproportionate.
Cookut's Miam Easy Pancake Shaker removes much of the usual apparatus. Ingredients are placed directly inside, mixed in the container and poured from it into the pan.
The attraction is not culinary innovation so much as intelligent simplification.
Fewer bowls, fewer utensils and less time between deciding breakfast should involve pancakes and actually eating them.
Good design occasionally consists simply of removing unnecessary steps.
10. Crystallise Me Crystal Art Canvas Kit, £29.99 from Craft Buddy
Our phones contain thousands of photographs. Our homes contain surprisingly few of them.
Craft Buddy's Crystallise Me offers a different approach to the conventional framed photograph, turning a personal image into a Crystal Art canvas to complete by hand.
A photograph can be uploaded and interpreted in Vintage, Black and White or Pop Art styles before being converted into a personalised pattern. The mounted canvas, crystals and tools are then supplied as part of the kit.
Wedding photographs, holidays, children, pets and favourite places can all become the subject.
The finished piece is personal twice over: first because of the image, and again because somebody has spent the time making it.
- Bee Embroidery Kit, £25 from Paraffle
There is particular pleasure in doing something slowly when almost everything else in the day encourages speed.
Paraffle's Bee Embroidery Kit has been designed with beginners in mind, providing the materials and guidance required to work through the design gradually.
No previous expertise is necessary. The point is precisely to acquire some.
Once complete, the bee can remain in its hoop and be displayed directly on a wall or shelf.
The result is modest, but the satisfaction is considerable. There are few objects in a home quite as personal as the ones somebody can truthfully say they made themselves.
12. Serax Carte Blanche Espresso Cup and Saucer, £28 from Sous Chef
The morning espresso may disappear in minutes. The object from which it is drunk does not have to be forgettable.
Belgian design house Serax gives this 90ml ceramic cup and saucer a restrained monochrome treatment, with graphic detailing creating far more presence than its small scale might suggest.
It is sufficiently distinctive to remain beside the coffee machine rather than disappear into a cupboard, yet practical enough for everyday use.
That balance perhaps sums up the most successful objects in this edit.
A home becomes interesting not when everything in it is extraordinary, but when the ordinary things have been chosen with a little more care.
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