DOG AT THE DOOR

The Open Weekend sign has gone up outside the workshop (painted by my own fair hand – don’t look too closely..) and Olive has been practicing her welcome pose which we feel needs a little more refining – we were hoping for a small curtsey at the very least...

One stocktake, lots of biscuits and a conversation about Game of Thrones that left Kathryn none the wiser… So now it’s done, we can concentrate on far more important, pressing details….like which cakes we’re going to be serving you at our Open Weekend.

Fortunately we’ve got several people willing to help us make the choice!

STOCKTAKE TRIALS...

Today is the dreaded day in the workshop…stocktake or die. Think we’d rather die…

Still, at least we’ve palmed off the worst (actually, we’re still arguing about whether it really is the worst…at least it’s near a heater) job on Scott…counting and checking every single printers block…and there are thousands…!

SPRING HAS (SORT OF) SPRUNG!

Well...we decided to give our website a bit of a spring

makeover…gone is our little ice-skater, replaced by a very chirpy little birdie. Plus Mack&Me have done a lovely load of new photography and we’ve got tons of new pieces on there. But you already knew that, because you’ve received our newsletter… What? You’re not on our mailing list?  Best do it quick (either via facebook or our website) – then you’ll be one of the first to know, next time!

BOATS ON A BOOKCASE?

Handy little bookcase which also works well as a plinth for some sort of lovely piece of art. Maybe one of my driftwood boats?!

GORGEOUS GIRLS!

We picked up these two lovely concrete beauties the other day.

As you can see they've been tarting around outside a while and are beginning to age rather nicely. Anyhoo… we're pimping them out at £75 each which makes them a cheap date!

LOOKING LOVELY!

Vintage American mason jars. For no other reason than they looked so beautiful against our old map wall, with the sun (albeit briefly!) coming in the window…

DRIFTWOOD DESIGNS!

Some of the first driftwood boats of the year – it’s taken a few months for the driftwood to dry out but I should have a nice little armada ready for the Open Weekend!

HOUSEMAIDS CUPBOARD

Very, very, useful tall cupboard.

We’ve just finished painting it, so now it’s in need of new family to fill it with clutter!

Look… it’s teasing you with an open door…(filling up with your stuff make cupboard happy!)…

CARRY ON COLLECTING!

We watched 'Collectaholics' on BBC 2, last night, specifically for the guy who had over 500 stuffed animals. Well, as they correctly pointed out, the better examples are actually mounted (hide stretched over a form) rather than 'stuffed' crudely with sawdust. 

Fascinating watching Mel’s reaction and incredulity at taxidermy being in vogue - but it is, and has been, for a number of years.

So there they were at Spittalfields selling excess animals to raise money for a giraffe (you probably needed to watch it!) and what was one of the pieces they sold? A little bambi. Hey presto! We have on our website a lovely Victorian example at a very competitive price! Imagine how I shouted at the television…..

SHELVES & SODA CRATES!

We love this old pine set of shelves! I loved it so much that I waxed these soda crates that we just got in to show it off (books are too obvious….and still upstairs…and still heavy!).

DISTRESSED DARLINGS!

Two very distressed wooden filing cabinets. 

Strong statement pieces. 

You could be really brave and have them as bedside cabinets!...

BREAD & BUTTER

In every business you have a bread and butter item, some even have a bit of jam if they're lucky! For us, it’s chests of drawers!

This particular one is a tasty Victorian number painted in a lovely blue grey…

WORKING ON THE WORKSHOP!

Inspired by the lovely weather and the thought of our imminent Open Weekend, we have finally, after many, many years, made a start on painting the outside of the workshop.

What was that? Oh, OK, well….after many, many years procrastinating we got Scott to do it - but Matt did give all the windows and doors a distress and varnish!

COLLECTAHOLICS

Watched the first in a new series on BBC2 called 'Collectaholics'. Obviously we enjoyed it - especially the guy who had a huge collection of railway signage. But Matt most enjoyed the trailer for next week when a huge collection of taxidermy gets shown. This means we get to show a picture of a stuffed owl (£30) now living upstairs at the workshop and next week he gets to shoehorn in some other taxidermy link as well!

BEEN OUT BUYING!

Err… here is a picture of a plaster Jesus and a leaning tower of toy blocks just to demonstrate that we never know what we may buy on any given day (we’ve been out buying again)

......and that's what makes our business so interesting!

MANY MIRRORS

Crickey! We are building up a large collection of mirrors. This is a somewhat fancy example that would look brilliant at the end of a hallway…

LETTERPRESS LOVE...

Our very beautiful letter press storage/layout thing is now resplendent in the workshop entrance hall. All bow who enter!

SUMMER!

Summer is coming – no, really!

Just in, some very lovely vintage fold up bandstand/cafe chairs. Two of them have at least three different paint schemes showing through and are beautifully distressed - we haven't done anything to them! 

We also have a metal fold up cafe table plus a fold-up wooden slatted top table with two matching chairs. 

Because let’s face it…it has to stop raining at some point!

BEAUTIFUL BOOKCASE!

This post is just an excuse to show a lovely picture of a bookcase that came in the other day. Sometimes less is more with these pics and all the vintage books for dressing furniture were upstairs so…err… less is more when you just can't be bothered to walk that far!

SUNSHINE!!

Upstairs at the workshop when, bless my soul, the room was suddenly illuminated, as if by magic!

After recovering my senses I realised it was the sun making a rare appearance…  Anyhoo it did show off some of the new display space and the rapidly accumulating treasure ready for the open weekend.

STRIP, PAINT OR LEAVE?

The everyday conundrum at the workshop! This cupboard has us a bit stumped. We quite like the paint it has already and we always like to keep old paint on if possible.

However it is green and green can be a hard sell. Grey however always sells! Then again it’s made from good quality pine so maybe we should strip it! It would look awesome but it’s a hell of a lot of work. Back to square one!