restoration | attic.

Boxes have been unpacked, stock has been displayed and shelves have been re-merchandised. Hard to believe, it’s that time of year again…

Christmas is such an important time of year to a small business like ours; more than ever in these unpredictable times! Therefore it’s vitally important to give ourselves the best chance for a good season.

We ordered a lot of our Christmas stock months ago (some of it in January and February) so we always get a little anxious when it arrives, and we start to unpack it. Is it as nice as we thought? Have the collections worked together as well as we planned? And, has what we ordered, actually turned up. Being a small retailer, sometimes what we order isn’t always what we get. The bulk of a wholesaler/makers stock can be swallowed up by much larger retailers, with what’s left, served out to the small independents. Leaving us with a diluted collection!

Anyway – all our fears were forgotten this year. In fact most of the stock we ordered was nicer than we remembered. And the things we thought wouldn’t arrive – did. Result!

So, with just over a month to go, we thought we’d take some photos of Phase 1 – and show you what we’ve been up to. We’re pretty chuffed with how the shop is looking, so we thought we’d share it with you. Hope you like it too!

We’ve photographed most of the Christmas stock, and consequently the website has been very busy this year, with nearly everything being online. So if it’s still available – it’ll be on there. Click through for links to website and product pages…

We’ve also just had in a new delivery of toiletries and skincare products from Priddy Essentials. All handmade in Rutland, England. Beautiful scents with gorgeous packaging.

These metal Christmas trees are probably our favourite product this season.

Every year we sell more and more of the beautiful decorations from Walther & Co in Denmark (probably best known for their little house lanterns) They are becoming quite the collector’s items. People come back year after year to see what’s been added to the collection…We’re open everyday now until Christmas (open Sundays 12-4pm) so do pop in and say hello if you’re near!

Well it’s been a while but after much ado going on behind the scenes we’re back blogging, with many posts lined up, so keep your eye out. If you can’t keep an eye out, watch this space…..Grand Illusions Vintage Paint.

For those local to us, you will be familiar with the Grand Illusions shop that was in St Margarets for nearly 20 years, a few miles down the road from us. For those who don’t know, Grand Illusions Founders, Nick and David were early pioneers of the French Painted Furniture style we are all so familiar with now. They introduced their own paint range back in the mid 90s, to compliment their increasing range of French Style Furniture. They also ran very successful furniture painting courses from their little shop in SW London. Excitingly for us – and hopefully you – they have now relaunched their paint…Grand Illusions ‘VINTAGE PAINT’ is a unique, flat and chalky matt paint, and is designed to recreate the buttermilk paints of the 18th and 19th Century. Nick and David originally worked with an antique restorer to get the right blend and finish. Inspired by an authentic Nordic-French colour palette, these wonderful paint colours are ideal for painting furniture (or mirrors, picture frames, or walls) And we should know – we have tried a lot of different brands over the years! To give you more of an idea of the finish and differences in the colours, we have painted all the colours on to picture frames in the furniture shop, so you can get an exact idea of the finish….. and mix and match if you need to.Having been restoring, refinishing and repainting certain vintage furniture pieces as a business since 1999, it somehow seemed fitting that Grand Illusions have asked us to be the stockists for this part of SW London (their “old hunting ground”) Somewhat serendipitously as it turns out. They approached us, just as we were about to start stocking paint (by another brand) and the various consumables that go with it – i.e. brushes, wire wool, waxes etc. We will now be using Vintage Paint for all our painting projects in the shop from now on. We will be posting pictures of the finished results as and when we have finished them.