A Matter of Context

I'm surprised to learn that Ben Mooney hasn't been doing this for long. Well, not professionally at least. The collecting part started when he was just five years old. It was a Murano glass paperweight at a garage sale that captured the eye of that precocious little boy. There was just something about the way it seemed to hold light and the pleasing weight of the object in his tiny hand. Treasure.

"I think shiny things are a thing to me. I mean, I don't think I'm into glitz and glam, but I do really like things that play with light or have a shine or a sparkle to them," Ben tells me.

Ben's current home and the base for his business is no exception. The way light enters the building at different times of day, changing the character of the spaces and playing with the shiny things within them was a key attraction. It was the discovery of this two-storey corner building in Melbourne's Collingwood that became one of those sliding doors moments for Ben.

"It was really beautiful. I dolled it up and started renting it out for shoots and a lot of people just wanted to buy my stuff all the time. So I thought, 'Let's just start a shop'."

The shop, Ma House Supply Store is on the ground level of the space and upstairs is where Ben and Goody – his handsome Italian greyhound – live. With both spaces available and in high demand for film shoots, photo shoots and events, the pair are kept very busy.

It seems people can't get enough of Ben's aesthetic and curatorial eye. It's so particular. And so pleasing. Objects imbued with whimsy and quirk sit alongside austere antiques, serious ceramics and crystal, contemporary design pieces and flea market finds. As someone lacking Ben's obvious talents, it's hard for me to understand or decipher how all of it works. Because it does. Without question. The spaces Ben curates and styles are spaces in which you want to linger and as you do, they continue to unfurl and reward you with further discoveries of delightful details. There are some patterns that begin to emerge too. In addition to being drawn to glass objects, Ben has "a thing for faces" and metal objects too.

Long before I visited Ben, I fell in love with a metal bowl that I had seen in previously published photos of his space. Its abstracted handlike shape is at once sculptural and simple and it has appeared regularly in photos of Ben's space over the years. Ben thinks it's an early 2000s relic from a high street store. So, nothing fancy. But boy, does it look fancy next to a black terracotta 'Tang' horse sculpture atop a vintage timber bureau with intricate inlay detailing. It's a favourite of Ben's too and incidentally, a piece that prompted him to ponder launching his own line of decorative metal objects. Watch this space. I'm curious to know: where does this natural talent of Ben's stem from? How did five-year-old Ben know a lump of Murano glass when he saw it?

"I think my mum had great taste but I didn't grow up with my mum – I grew up with my dad. He had worked in antiques for a little while and somehow we still had some when I was a kid, but then we lost them," Ben remembers. "We really didn't have much money and I grew up in the country. I really didn't think that there was much beauty where I was."

"So when you're constantly trying to zoom in on beauty and there's not much around, I think it does something to you. And so when you are at an age where you can afford to buy things yourself, you go crazy."

These days Ben's beautiful wares are mainly sourced from vintage markets. Ideally, places crammed to the rafters with furniture, decorative objects, artworks and curiosities. "I love it when there's a lot to choose from. A lot of people get overwhelmed by those places, but that's my happy place," Ben says. "And one thing that helps me in my business is that everyone who works in antiques or vintage is fucking weird. And I'm weird as well. So we all get along." Ben's advice for amateurs is to always look up. "I mean, it's sort of like aisles at the supermarket, if you're looking for the Weetbix, they might be on the bottom shelf – so you start at the top and scan all the way along and down."

Ben gets a kick when people think he sources his pieces internationally. While his personal collection of treasures upstairs includes mementos from his pre-pandemic travels ("I really do have a terrible memory and objects can really spark that memory for me."), everything in the store is sourced locally.

Ben has been a collector "forever". When he sees a beautiful thing that speaks to him with its form, materiality, charm or craftsmanship it's difficult to walk away but the store has assumed a crucial role in servicing his acquisitory desires without risking over expansion of his own collection upstairs.

"I have a bit of a shopping addiction, so it helps with that," Ben says. I proffer that there must be times, though, when Ben feels conflicted: how does he decide what is for the store and what is for Ben? "It's very hard," he admits. "But I don't take things upstairs. That's the rule."

It's a solid rule. Because once Ben sees a new object in context, in his home, immediately befriending all his other things and somehow assuming this sudden familiarity and sense of belonging, it's hard to let go. And this here is Ben's particular talent and the magic of Ma House Supply Store – it's all about the context. To you or me, a bronze bowl, crystal vase or scuffed statue in the jumbled atmosphere of an antiques store jammed in alongside tea services and tapestried furniture, might read as naff (or might escape our eye entirely). But, once liberated and thoughtfully placed beside other objects (that you never could have imagined would belong together), its full potential emerges.

"It's like when you go to these places and there's shit everywhere and you can't imagine anything in your own home. Bring it somewhere else though and it sort of unlocks itself," Ben says. "I feel like I'm rescuing all these things and bringing them to the right owners. I think a lot of shoppers need context to see things in a different light."

"A lot of customers that started with me when I opened, I've watched their taste develop and it's not necessarily like a copy of mine. It's just that they're seeing things in a different way than they did before."

Ben has a front row seat to this flourishing confidence too as many of his customers become his friends. "I really, I didn't expect this to happen. You always think when you start a business that it'll just be your friends who are your customers, but your friends are not your customers. Your customers are people that you never knew, but a lot of my regulars are definitely friends," Ben reflects.

"If they're buying things from other places, they'll say, 'I've got this great rug.' And I'm like, 'Well done. I'm proud of you. That's a beautiful rug'."

And it's not all vintage in Ma House Supply Store either. Ben supports a select stable of local contemporary designers, artists and artisans by stocking their pieces and products in his store – Sean Brickhill, Hattie Malloy and Christopher Myles, to name a few. Supporting other creatives is a passion for Ben but the combination of new and old also just makes the space more interesting, he says. "I think their style is very refined and contemporary and that for me is a perfect mix for the store and helps uplift everything else."

It does feel like a perfect mix and this harmony between new and old guided by Ben's keen curatorial eye resonates throughout each room within his home and the store alike. For people like me who lack the patience, tenacity and guiding instincts to successfully scour vintage marketplaces for hidden gems, he's done the hard work for us. It's all on a platter, or at least in a context that invites us to imagine and covet.

Ben's tips for styling your home

Styling should be a response to place.

"Think about your base coat – being the room itself. This means considering its characteristics and dimensions and the colours and light you have to work with. In other places I've lived, it's always a response to that place. It's not necessarily like, 'oh, this place is going to have these busts everywhere and these big lights or whatever'. If I lived in a really tiny place, I would not have the same set up. But here I'm working with the dimensions of the room and going, I know it can carry it. And you sort of have to live up to the room in a way. From there, start with your biggest things first, whether that's your couch or dining table."

Favour what you love over styles and trends.

"Whoever said the things that you love will kind of magically go together was right. I think that it's very true. I mean, all the colours that I love in a way are kind of a family anyway. I think you really have to buy what you love and not just, you know, 'paint a style'."

Make it inviting.

Ben strives for the spaces in his home to appear very comfortable – spaces that beckon you to sit and spend time in them. The rooms in Ben's home and store feature clusters or curations of objects that invite closer inspection and reward curiosity.

Make room for happy accidents.

While we all strive for a sense of our homes being 'done' or 'complete', Ben says you've also got to make room for accidents. "A good thing about having the shop and having to style the shop is you're always moving things around and you might have to move everything off that table to clean it. Then you have these happy accidents: 'oh, my God. That vase looks beautiful next to that!'"

Tune into your emotions.

"With every object or every scene that I set up there is something emotional about it for me. While it might never feel complete, there has to be that feeling of 'this is nice'."

Containment works against clutter.

While Ben has an enormous collection, and shelves in the kitchen and living area are jam packed with beautiful things, they are lightly organised into collections that make sense together. But mostly importantly, Ben notes, "It's contained. I think that is the trick. You can't let it spill over everywhere. I always try to keep surfaces like coffee tables and my dining table relatively clear." Ben says he's still a collector at the end of the day and if you are too, "You have to find the best way to display your wares."

Reasons to venture into vintage…

"With so much cheap stuff out there I just think people are silly not to. It's usually high quality as it's already lasted this long. But you have to like things. I don't want anyone to buy something that they don't like. So if you don't like vintage, that's fine. You don't have to like vintage. You do you. I love all periods and all styles, but that's me."