The art of not throwing things out: Nothing is as it seems

Lindy Waters is as colourful as her shop Lindy Sweet Pea Antiques & Collectables in Taupō. Photo / Dan Hutchinson

After 40 years of travelling and collecting, Lindy Waters has never thrown anything out.

"My children say they will get me help," she says.

That may not be necessary - she has the perfect outlet for her vast array of antiques and assortment of out-of-the-ordinary items.

I caught up with Lindy in front of a roaring fire, surrounded by half-finished restorations and upcycled creations, in her Oruanui St shop in Taupō: Lindy Sweet Pea Antiques & Collectables.

She casts her arm around, pointing out a Marie Antoinette dresser and another piece of furniture dating back to 1517.

Staring down at us are lots of glassy eyes bulging from game trophies, and a selection of mounted, gold-medal trout.

"Men come in and buy a trout and pretend they caught it," she explains.

Up the stairs, past the eerie gaze of mounted animals, a mezzanine floor contains an array of Victorian and other antique dresses.

They are popular with people passing through on their way to the annual Napier Art Deco Festival.

"A lot of people call in on their way to Napier for the art deco weekends. I do vintage jewellery as well, and lots of furs."

If there is a particular theme to the place, it is probably just 'everything that everybody else doesn't do'.

"The motto is: 'The old is the new and the past is the future'. It's my way of doing my bit for the world."

She does restoring, repairing and repurposing, because: "I hate throwing things out".

One customer came in recently to sell her old dining-room table because it was too big for her new house.

"I told her to take the middle out and repurpose it to fit the house.

"And this table was hanging in a woolshed for 70 years, and we are just repurposing it. I just sold another one that was made out of an old shipwreck."

There are antique rugs and liquor cabinets and bars, and things repurposed into liquor cabinets and bars. Bars have been very popular, Lindy says.

"Then you have got the 20 or 30-year-olds who have just discovered crystal."

Lindy is quite clearly a social person, and her latest venture is to connect people through a series of workshops based on repurposing and a new range of antique-effect paints she is selling.

"There [are] so many new people in town and they are dying to meet people, but they don't want to go to the pub.

"With our Annie Sloan Paints workshops, we will be having Devonshire teas. I don't want it to be a booze-up, I want it to be fun and elegant. We have the fire roaring in the winter.

"The main thing is that it is bringing people together. The ladies come in here and they just love it, and I introduce them to other people. I even bought one of them a dog."

She has lots of furniture for the ladies, "or the men, for that matter", to work on, and her workshops will get started this month.

It's been "seven years of fun" so far for Lindy Sweet Pea, and even the pandemic wasn't as bad as it could have been thanks to her close relationship with "the landlord" - her husband Matt. He has a less grand title for himself - "the flunky".

After stepping on a recently restored canvas, I sidle back out of this curious little world of its own and back into the comparatively boring reality outside.