Modern Victorian Tea Set


There is a growing trend of what I'd call "modern victorian" home products. One of my favorites are these tea sets by Christine Misiak. She finds old silver tea sets and refurbishes them:

With this black set, when I sourced it at a car boot sale it was in extremely bad condition. The surface finish was rusty, dirty and scratched, also the inside of the tea pot was very unappealing.
Moreover, one of the little legs on the sugar bowl had been snapped off by the prior owner, therefore it had really reached its end life.
So I cleaned the set up and applied black to it, and now the surface finish is glossy and smooth and the set can actually be used again. The imperfection with the broken sugar bowl leg is still there, but it acts as character and the set aims to celebrate the imperfections.


I think the black one is the most steampunk -- for some reason I can see Mrs. Coulter in The Golden Compass using it.

There are pictures of the entire line on Flickr -- in addition to the black one she has an orange set and 2 green sets.

If you were really ambitious, you could try doing this yourself. Old silver plate (maybe start with just a tray?) is cheap and easy to come by at thrift shops. I'm not sure what kind of paint you'd use, but if I was doing it I would start with light coats of spray paint.