Bountiful Baskets in Interior and Garden Design

With the coming of spring we can open our doors and windows and let fresh breezes flow through our rooms. Spring often elevates a desire to beautify and organize our surroundings. Many of us may have a collection of baskets on hand for just this purpose. A person who loves and collects books is a bibliophile and I am definitely that person, but I would also call myself a “basketophile” of sorts.

We moved here to the Texas Hill Country with cardboard boxes filled with carefully packed baskets, larger baskets filled with clothes and linens, and picnic baskets stuffed with goodies to eat on the journey. Here is the photo story of some of my own baskets as well as those used by interior designers and garden designers to organize, soften, and personalize spaces.

The small basket suitcase in the cabinet is one of my first, originally used to carry drawing pencils, bamboo ink drawing tools, paper, and journals to class at the Glassell School of Art in Houston. It now holds small wood clamps and a webbed clamp for creating picture frames.

Here is a basket on my worktable to hold conte pencils, sketch pencils, pens, and tiny scraps of paper for making notes or trying out a paint color. In the reclaimed wood, glass fronted art supply cabinet are three basket purses whose handles wore off and are now used for specialized glues and archival tape. Underneath the glass topped iron table is a basket filled with aprons and tarlatans to wipe excess ink off etching plates in printmaking. The last is a basket filled with vintage tablecloths and drop cloths ready to be made into table linens.

We each have a basket beside our bedroom chairs; a place to keep multiple journals including a to-do journal, colored pencils, glue sticks, scissors, and perhaps a book or two. The dressing room is filled with baskets on bookshelves we had built years ago. Baskets hold sweaters, lingerie, socks, workout clothes, and so on. It took me a while to remember what was inside each basket. The tall basket has a removeable hard plastic liner and is a great place to put clothes ready to be laundered.

If you visit Comfort, Texas, be sure to stop at Comfort Vintage and Bloom on High Street, a beautifully curated space that never fails to inspire. There is an ever-changing display of vintage garden and home elements as well as new candles, straw garden hats, tea towels, aprons, and more. The people who work in the shop have artfully arranged the wares so they are hard to resist. I found this French laundry basket under a time worn draper’s table topped with garden urns and a mammoth metal lantern. The basket is a perfect keeper of the cut-offs in my husband’s woodworking studio. Also in the studio is a basket filled with interesting pieces of cedar and other woods we pick up on our walks in the wild.

We have baskets in our back hallways where we keep outdoor necessities on hand.  I designed pillows with removeable covers and leather straps you can throw over your shoulder before a walk in the garden. Lingering on a rock ledge or boulder to take in the view may be a more pleasant experience with a pillow.

The other basket holds sand filled canvas bags with cedar handles we made to hold the heavy iron doors to our porch open. The breezes in the canyons are lovely and we keep the doors  open when weather permits.

The space underneath our sideboard is filled with handled shopping baskets. We use them to carry towels or a bottle of wine to the garden. They are also a terrific way to keep sewing or embroidery projects on hand and ready when you want to work on them. Each project has its own basket. These baskets would be wonderful to lend to a weekend guest before taking a road trip to shops in nearby towns or out to the garden to cut flowers if you are able to grow them.

This particular basket is front and center under the sideboard. The handle is wearing thin so it stays here for sentimental reasons and is not carried. This basket, like many, has a story. Years ago, my sister and I took a bus tour in Italy. While hurrying to catch the bus for a day trip outside of Rome, I spotted the basket at a streetside market. There wasn’t time to take a closer look at the basket and take a photograph of the nun with a box of Ritz crackers under her arm. Late in the day we returned to Rome, the vendor was still in his stand and the purchase was made! The basket is pretty large and my sister thoughtfully suggested we pack it full of clothes so we could fit it in the one suitcase we were each allowed on the tour bus. Happily, it is still with me years later! My love for it has never diminished.

Here are baskets in the pantry to hold oils and vinegars, bottles of wine and water, and canned goods in lidded baskets. The pantry is a personal space so appealing to me I often leave the door open when in the kitchen. More on organizing pantry and refrigerator in another post!

This stack of baskets is in the laundry room. They were inexpensive baskets purchased years ago at Michael’s craft store and painted in Pratt and Lambert’s Pelham Gray Light paint. They are now used to transport folded laundry, to gather candlesticks for polishing, to dry leaves and perennials for handmade potpourri, and loads of other jobs around the house.

Sometimes we can transform a basket we already own. This was an orangey colored rather small basket; something you might use to hold sewing scissors and thread, jewelry, buttons, or other little things you want to keep together. There are two of these. Now they have been underpainted in an olive-green color and brushed with gold paint. Each has a vintage mother of pearl cuff link under its woven strap. Transforming the baskets with paint and artifacts on hand was a happy experience as is looking at them each day!

Here are some photos from design books of interiors and exteriors featuring baskets both useful and ornamental.

Antiquarian and designer Rose Tarlow surrounds herself with a museum worthy collection of baskets, writing, “Weekends in France are devoted to antique shopping at all the markets and fairs. There are days when all I come home with is just one perfect basket. Every basket I collect is unique and has a beautifully aged patina and interesting weave and form.”

This is interior designer Steven Gambrel’s kitchen in his home on Glover Street in Sag Harbor. He notes the floors are made of marble originally used in the Museum of Modern Art outdoor sculpture garden in New York and found in an architectural salvage yard. Notice the basket under the island table filled with cutting boards.

Here, Steven Gambrel has incorporated both large baskets and trays to soften a hardworking mud room.

Suzanne Kasler uses baskets on ottomans and book cases she designed to organize beautifully!

Windsor Smith is always innovative; here she located a dining table in this wide entry hallway. Have you ever seen such a wonderful basket tray and cover?

Amanda Harlech, a Chanel muse, uses a double basket to keep logs and kindling separated in her Wales manor.

Emma Hanbury has a basket with reading materials on an ottoman in the sitting room.

Baskets in the hallway and hanging from ceilings in Bunny Mellon’s Oak Spring Farm home.

Trompe l’oeil baskets in a garden room in Oak Spring Farm.

Garden designer Lucciano Guibbilei commissioned artisans to weave baskets he filled with annuals and herbs and interspersed with metal planters to enclose an outdoor restaurant at a boutique hotel.

A basket we lined with a coconut mat and filled with lavender and rosemary – an outdoor tabletop ode to spring. Fill your days and your baskets with happiness!