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collectingThis Washington artist shares her secrets to achieving show-off style.
By Donna Pizzi
Photos by Philip Clayton-Thompson

Artist Ilona Steelhammer still remembers the very first flea market item that she and her husband, Norm, ever bought. The little pine commode remains on display in their Centralia, Washington, farmhouse.
“The Alderbrook Antique Mall used to hold a flea market every spring,” says Ilona, a longtime collector and the original owner of Common Folk Company, Centralia’s popular country store. “It was $195, and I had to have it.”
But that purchase certainly wouldn’t be her last. Take her aquarium collection, for example. It started the day she spied one filled with old bottle caps. When she told the dealer she wanted the aquarium, not the caps, he was flabbergasted, saying, “I’ve been dragging that thing around for years, and no one has ever asked for it!”

What made that piece special? Ilona. She didn’t just see an aquarium. She saw a pretty glass display case that could show off collections—whether seashells, sisal Christmas trees or her latest passion, Victorian bird taxidermy. “I used to scatter my collections,” Ilona says, “but this is a fabulous way for keeping them contained yet visible.”

buddiesROOM TO GROW
TO GROROW The dining room holds favorite flea market finds. Ilona bought the large cabinet
against the back wall with its original bittersweet paint for $200. "It was in rough shape," she recalls, until Norm sanded down the doors, repaired the drawers and waxed it.

BEST BUDDIES (right)
lona Steelhammer and granddaughter Ava Rose love to spend time together. Here, Ava learns how to create a shell masterpiece.
screen star
SCREEN STAR
While cleaning behind her pine commode one day, Ilona noticed layers of old, torn wallpaper on its back. She used it, along with three or four different old wallpapers, to layer a tri-fold screen that now sits behind the master bed. The beditself, an antique, was purchased right out of a dealer’s truck in Puyallup. “We’d never seen anything like it before,” says Ilona.
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