My Relationship with Stuff

"When I buy a place, I'm going to change everything and make it my own hyper colour space," I thought for 12 years of renting and share-housing before buying a small apartment in Melbourne.

When I moved to metropolitan Melbourne from Bendigo in 2009 I had a DVD/VCR combo and a small black TV that would stack up on top of zip-tied plastic milk crates, along with a bed and a desk. I brought nothing else other than some framed artworks¹.

I would go to the library across the road and rent DVDs of the TV show Spooks² and spend summer evenings on a completely destroyed brown fake leather Chesterfield reading books like Victor Papanek's The Green Imperative. In this first share house I would use Blu Tack to attach the artworks to the wall³ and one memorable moment was when the Blu Tack failed and the artwork fell from the wall, knocking a full glass of water onto my laptop and into its CD slot. Goodbye to watching Spooks on my laptop. Back to the DVD/VCR combo.

Despite being a designer myself, I've never been particularly interested in designer-y things for the sake of being designer-y. My wife and I have almost always shopped at charity shops or second-hand stores for furniture and clothing. If I had to unpack this it would probably have to do with, firstly not having 5000 dollars for a USM cabinet, but also us loving the search. This idea of the search⁴ is more interlinked with the value we place on the things we put into our home – if we don't know the person who's made it or the conditions it's made under, we tend not to take interest in it. This may sound like it comes from a privileged position (which it most likely does), but most of the furniture in our home is from second-hand stores or is defect product from my brand, Dowel Jones⁵. Odd segway, but growing up, my dad would say to me "why would you wear clothing with a logo on it? You're just giving free advertising to the companies."⁶

Probably my favourite find (which is still in regular use) is a small rectangular timber coffee table with a striped timber top found at a charity shop in Bendigo for 50 bucks. It's clearly been made in someone's home shed or in a school woodwork class as it's full of imperfections, but to us that makes it perfect. The edges are chipped and machine marks are visible, but we love the idea that it's identifiably handmade. My second favourite find would be a light yellow two-and-a-half-seater couch we found on Facebook Marketplace from a home in the southern suburbs of Melbourne. It had lived in the original owner's 'good room' for a number of decades so had barely been sat on and even had its original owner's manual under the seat.

In the early years of living in Melbourne I knew I wouldn't be able to afford designer-y things even if I liked something, so I started buying vases made by friends and colleagues⁷. These are the objects that take pride of place in my home, not for function, but as a kind of reminder of friendship and creativity. My home may be small but it's full of personalities and interactions over the past 15 years. I see it a little like the documentation of my collaborative work and a privilege to know so many incredible makers⁸.

The single most important object to me in my home is a hand-carved wooden spoon. For 14 years of living in Melbourne I'd been using a bamboo spoon we had been gifted when we moved to Melbourne and over the years it slowly fell apart, piece by piece. My wife knew that I loved using that bamboo spoon to cook with, so she found a local wood carver in Coburg and for Christmas 2024, had the wooden spoon made identically in form but in solid timber. If it wasn't so regularly used for cooking, it would be sitting alongside all the vases in my house as a sculpture. I guess the point to all of this is that my home isn't an aesthetic place, it's a place of memories and values. If it were to be photographed I don't think it would make any sense, I think it would only make sense to write about it.

Dale Hardiman is not only co-founder of furniture and object brand Dowel Jones, he is also the co-founder of Friends & Associates – a platform of collaboration and camaraderie for Australian design practitioners.

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¹ To my horror my wife won’t let me get rid of an artwork I did in year 12.

² This isn’t at all relevant to this article but I haven’t thought of the TV show Spooks in over 10 years – remember Harry Pearce?

³ This was before I studied industrial design.

⁴ My theory is that for every 10 op shops you visit, you’ll find something exceptional at one.

⁵ My wife used to regularly go to our (Dowel Jones) factory and pick out all the damaged products we couldn’t sell for our house – it’s wonderful to wake up every day surrounded by defective things you’ve designed.

⁶ I think this has resounded with me throughout the years in that I’ve never taken an interest in anything seen as a status symbol.

⁷ Vases are small and affordable, and vases are beautiful with and without flowers. I’m also very thankful to have friends like James Lemon who have gifted many vases over the years.

⁸ Little known fact: every year for the past 12 years I’ve gotten a small tattoo related to a project or exhibition I’ve delivered the previous year on my legs. It’s quite permanent but it’s a great way to remember the things you’ve done. Perhaps I’m a little too interested in documentation.

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dale-hardiman.com | doweljones.com | @doweljones