Explore the home of vintage treasure hunter Katrina Carroll

Mary Cate Smith’s imagination runs wild as she visits the eclectic wonderland created by Vintage Irish Kat

Katrina Carroll in her sitting room. Pictures: Moya Nolan

By the time Katrina Carroll had gut-renovated a three-bed semi-detached house in Walkinstown in Dublin, there were limited funds for decoration. Lucky then, the Instagram content creator was a bona fide treasure hunter and had been since finding a second-hand Mousetrap game at her first jumble sale in 1991.

Nothing in Katrina’s house is “just stuff” — and everything has a story. Whether those stories are true or not is still to be determined…

Walking up to this 1962 house, the eye is immediately drawn to the original stained-glass windows in the door.

In the hallway hangs an early 20th-century telephone she picked up from Buenos Aires that may or may not have belonged to the kingpin of a drugs empire; he who shall not be named. 

Or the 1950s cigar box from a “gentleman’s club” in Amsterdam.

The hallway, left, and top right, the antique telephone, and below, the 1950s cigar box.

Oh, the stories they could tell. “Can you only imagine what that box has seen?” says Katrina.

It’s one of many times my imagination runs wild in this weird and wonderful abode.

When Katrina and her husband moved into their home, there was a lot of work that needed to be done. “We had to gut the whole place. 

"It hadn’t been lived in for a few years. We were lucky upstairs. We were able to keep the original floorboards,” says Katrina.

Bar the floors in these two rooms, the couple essentially had to start from scratch. “The rest of the house had to be replastered, rewired. 

The sitting room.

"We put in new windows and new doors, and by the time you do that, the guts of 40 or 50 grand is gone,” she says.

Proprietor of a vintage clothing shop (Preloved by Shay & Jo), Katrina pours her personality into her home decor and she’s perfected a formula for flair.

Adding some Gatsby-esque luxe is a beautifully worn bronze bar cart, its marble top populated with a cornucopia of coloured glasses and captivating decanters, including a grape-shaped azure blue jug. “Do you remember Dublin Flea? I miss that something terrible. 

"We don’t drink that much, but when I saw this drinks trolley, I had to have it. It was only €25 and all my glasses are from charity shops or vintage shops on eBay,” says Katrina.

Every interior design aficionado worth her salt appreciates the value of mid-century design. 

The sleek, streamlined design of a 1950s tallboy meshes beautifully with the arresting design of the room: “My next-door neighbour contacted me and said her great aunt was getting rid of this tallboy from the 50s and would I like it? I just think it has so much character.”

Kat's hallway and top, a cigar box, and below, Kat's vintage cameras.

Switches in Katrina's hallway.

If you don’t follow @vintageirishkat on Instagram, are you even an interior design fan? A flair for the dramatic is evident in Katrina’s reels, taking her followers on MTV Cribs-style tours of the space, doing DIY tutorials and calling out her haters.

Tap dancing into the kitchen, she reads or posts comments from trolls and then frolics around the room to Lily Allen’s “F*ck You”. Sometimes her dad gets involved, too.

Detail in Katrina's kitchen.

Katrina’s effervescent nature is underpinned by a curiosity for the world around her. She lives her life through a lens, documenting her renovating and decorating hacks on social media so it was no surprise to see cameras and phones popping up as a motif through the house tour, some dating as far back as the early 1900s.

Forget spending hundreds on mass-produced prints, a simple hack to create an eye-catching gallery wall is to frame vinyl covers. “I find all of these in charity shops,” says Katrina. “I don’t think people realise they make great art for the walls. They make a great statement wall on a budget, you know. I guess the frames are €8 in Flying Tiger.”

Katrina's bedroom.

Leaning into the golden era of the 80s, Katrina is not averse to a two-piece power skirt suit, taffeta prom dress or retro overalls paired with a jaunty Peter Pan collar. I lock eyes with some true icons of the 80s. My hips feel looser; I’m in Footloose, Flashdance, I’m Mick Jagger for a minute. This is the Vintage Irish Kat effect.

A cheeky Rod Stewart raises a toast with a champagne saucer. Tesla Girls, Diana Ross, Blondie, and Nancy Sinatra album covers are framed, too. Is it a sitting room? Is it a dancehall? Is it a club? No, it’s super room.

A cabinet/TV stand in the sitting room.

As wallflowers recoil in horror from wallpaper, vintage aficionados like Katrina run towards it — in sparkly Mary Janes, of course.

Her living room has palm tree wallpaper to complement the dark forest-green paint from Nordic brand Tikkurila which she bought in Carlow Paint Hub.

Katrina's antique Singer sewing machine.

The downstairs bathroom’s pink patterned paper is offset by an overhead disco ball. C’est chic, le freak. “I only watched ‘Mad Men’ last year, and it really inspired me,” says Katrina. 

“I started changing my house because the interiors [in the show] were to die for. I wanted a 70s cabin feel for the living room. I get all my wallpaper from Wallpaper from the 70s. They do amazing replicas of retro patterns.”

The hallway in Katrina's home.

That being said, Katrina doesn’t want her home to feel like a relic of times past but more of a love letter to her favourite decades: “I want people to come in and go: ‘Well, she loves vintage’ — but it’s a vibe, you know? “The window shutters are one of my favourite modern pieces. I’ve sash windows on the front, and then the shutters are on the inside.”

Another item Katrina adores is a TV unit she bought second-hand in the UK. “This had so many makeovers, this little TV unit but I bought this when I lived in London on eBay,” she says. 

“My husband and his friend went to collect it from this really rich lady in Chelsea. She was living in this little apartment place, and she was downsizing. 

"She had bought it in a flea market in San Francisco and had to shift it over to London. And then she was like: ‘Actually, I have no space for this.’”

Katrina's five favourite haunts

1. Pete's Antiques

2. Jamestown Market, Inchicore

3. Wild Vintage

4. Bohemian Flea

5. Mother Jones Flea Market

Katrina loved the story but she wanted to make it her own. “I got it wrapped by a new Irish company called Cover Story. They wrap furniture for you,” she says. Coated with gold adhesive film, the wrappings are suitable for different surfaces including walls, doors, and furniture.

Her favourite item in the living room is the tall 1970s vintage ashtray which she picked up from Wilde Vintage in Fairview. It’s home to box upon box of colourful matches. “I won a lot of vintage matches on eBay,” she says. “This person had travelled all around the States with work, and he collected all these matches from every hotel and motel that he stayed in. I’d love to know more about the guy who got them because it seems like you had a really interesting life.”

While it’s commonplace in North America to fish through other people’s skips, it’s less of a thing here but Katrina never misses the opportunity to find vintage gems. “I found my chairs in a skip. I’d wanted them for so long,” says Katrina.

The downstairs bathroom.

A couple of years back, the kitchen was a sage green colour but a commercial partnership saw Katrina change it up to baby pink. Everyone always asks about what her husband’s opinion of it is. “Does he not mind having a pink kitchen? I got a lot of hate for that but he loved it,” she says.

As with any three-bed semi with a family of four, space isn’t abundant so Katrina and Adam opted for built-in wardrobes in the master bedroom.

Katrina Carroll's daughter's bedroom.

The accents of pink continue in the bedroom with a soft blush bed frame and scalloped headboard from Bed World and accessories from Dear Trudy. “I always start with a mood board on Pinterest. I keep it to a theme 70s or Mad Men or something like that,” says Katrina.

Eiffel Tower scissors, hallway detail, centre, and antique telephone.

A non-negotiable for Katrina in her main bathroom upstairs was a high cistern for the toilet and a freestanding roll-down bath. The sophistication is offset by brightly coloured accessories and accents: “One way to create a colourful bathroom is to add a brightly coloured tub and pair it with a similarly bold shower curtain. This one is from Ikea but I change them all the time.”

Creating a softer effect, the master bedroom is probably the most muted of all the rooms in the house with a softer colour palette and art deco fan-style sconces.

A cabinet/TV stand Katrina's sitting room.

The backyard cabin is Katrina’s equivalent of a man cave. It’s where she can drink her milky tea without anyone telling her it’s too weak and it’s also the storage place for the clothes she sells on her e-commerce vintage clothing store. “Eighty per cent of my home is second-hand,” says Katrina. The only new things are the couch from Harvey Norman and my tiles from Laura Ashley,” says Katrina.

“The thing I’m most proud of in my home is that it represents all of us as a family, you can see all the different personalities in my home through my decor and treasures that I have found over the years. Buying second-hand gives a home character and helps you to express yourself and I hope I inspire people to do this to their own homes.”

Katrina’s three top tips for sourcing vintage homeware

Take your time — very often these flea markets are overwhelming so don’t rush, and check in every corner for gems.

Follow the traders on social media — very often they share what they are bringing at the weekend flea. You can request an item and collect it when you attend.

Make sure you eat beforehand — sometimes it can take hours to rummage and if you are feeling hungry and tired you won’t be on top form to find treasures.