GOING ONLINE...

Work caries on apace to get the online shop fully stocked. We still have quite a bit of gear waiting to be tastefully photographed, logged and put on the internet which always seems to take longer than anticipated. I’m also going to have to build more backdrops to keep the shots interesting and perky. Dan & Julia (www.mackandme.com), the photographers, however, are doing a grand job and are staying relatively calm with the constant “err….could you just re-photograph that with the thing, maybe across the other, and the bit a different way round” etc. etc. 

IT'S THIS WEEKEND!

Having slept on it, I realise that mention of a stuffed boar head wasn’t very ‘Christmassy’ although I could equally have said that our 5foot battleship now has fairy lights!

There are some beautiful and very different festive goodies to see, such as a large ‘ROBIN STARCH’ enamel sign or a beautiful chalk ware statue of someone…err…religious.

And this weekend there’s our very own recipe mulled wine, mince pies (thanks, Mum!), fairy cakes AND we may even put on some Christmas music…but that’s still up for ‘debate’ amongst ourselves….

CHRISTMAS!

Well – we’re set up for our Christmas Launch weekend. Lots of lovely displays for you to come and look at…although we still haven’t found a suitable party hat for our new taxidermy addition – a boars head!

HAS OLD FURNITURE BECOME LIKE SAND?!

We recently ‘pitched out’ at an Antiques Fair and took a lot of our large furniture to sell there. Having been unable to sell an early Victorian Flame mahogany linen cupboard in the shop I was dismayed that we only achieved £150 at the fair – 10 years ago it would have been £1,000 no problem!

And, at that price, large brown furniture has become like a large bag of sand. It has no real inherent value. It’s a case of how much it costs to move and store, not what it is actually worth. The sad thing is, even at £150 we made a small profit because the dealer we bought it from couldn’t afford to store it!

It’s been predicted for years, but the market for some types of furniture has now collapsed, in terms of traditional retail. This is sad because a large volume of Victorian furniture is now almost certainly destined for landfill.

Here at Nest we have decided it is now economic suicide to handle large brown furniture – see you at IKEA!

PHOTO-SHOOT

We’ve got another photographer on board. Here’s a little snap of her getting down to some work. 

Not seen the results yet but she’s got pretty competitive rates – one large slice of cake per photo…

VAT

Dear Mr Government

If you really want to help small businesses then raise the VAT barrier so that shops like ours don’t have to charge VAT. This will make us comparative with all the internet shops that will eventually put us out of business.

On another note, could you also change the government definition of a small business as having a turnover of up to 5 million? 5 million actually sounds quite large. Perhaps you should create a category of very, very, very small lovely businesses which also happen to carry a 0% VAT rate.

Thank you for not listening.

CHANGING ROOMS

I see ‘Changing Rooms’ is back on TV. I thought the horrific spectre of watching people trying to look happy while an interior designer explains why they chose to do up their lounge in an Amazonian themed MDF way had long gone.

But, no, Kirsty Allsopp’s new show ‘free something or other’ has shown that people can still clearly retain a stiff upper lip when Kirsty reveals the new catastrophe that was their home.

I nearly saw a grown man cry when he saw the pink pastel kingdom his bedroom had become. Just because it’s free, don’t make it right….