Now that we’ve dipped our toes into the world of blogging and found that it’s not that scary after all, excitement has kicked in – we can’t wait to share what we have learned over the years.  People use the term ‘learning curve’ … mmm, I would better describe our entry into the world of buying and selling such an eclectic mix of furniture as a ‘learning cliff-face’ … we started waaaaaaayyyyyy down at the bottom.  Forget about getting giddy looking down – our learning cliff face made us quiver in our little boots as we started the tentative journey up.  Boy we stumbled … a lot!  We slipped and slid – at times all the way down again (when I say all the way … I mean all the ‘little’ way we progressed from the bottom!)  - anyway, too many times to count … I think you get the picture.

We thought we knew a fair bit about furniture – I mean, how hard can it be?  What we thought we knew and what we actually knew were two totally different beasts – worse still, the beasts lived continents apart!  

Ok, so it is a lovely piece of furniture.  It looks wonderful, it has character … ooooh, the timber is so beautiful.  Let’s buy it, give it a bit of TLC and then find a new home for it – easy peezy.

Yes, it probably would have been easy if we didn’t care about where each piece came from.  That it has had a life of its own.  A life full of stories that it cannot share; of eras, fashions, and the succession of families who each took their turn in creating every new chapter of its life. 

Yes, it probably would have been easy if we didn’t care about the person who will become its new owner – it’s not just a piece of furniture to them – they love it for whatever reason they do and want to know as much about it as possible.

So here-in was one of the biggest challenges we faced – learning about the styles, designs, timbers, techniques used by craftsmen … the list goes on and on.

We have learnt so much from many wonderful people with much more experience than we have (or will ever hope to have).  They have shared decades of acquired knowledge with us – not just to help us but because they too care – they care about keeping the history of pieces alive.   Dauntingly though, they have all admitted at one point or another, that they are also still learning and will never stop learning … there are just so many variables!

Our passion for researching these wonderful pieces to hopefully work out their age and story is something we truly love to do.  The thing we love more though, is speaking for these pieces and sharing their story with their new owners, so they are informed and in turn can carry the story on for the piece in the future.

We are not experts by any stretch of the imagination and will never ever profess to be – we are far from it.  More often than not, we have so little to go on, that we can only make an educated guess about the origins of a piece.  A lot of the time, that’s all we can do.  When we are sure we will confidently share the information but when we are not, then we say so. 

So where to now?  We want to share some of the knowledge we have gained with you and there is no better way than in future blogs. 

Will it be a daily, weekly, monthly blog – I don’t know!  Baby steps … as they say, you have to learn to crawl before you walk … in our case, we still can’t see the top of that cliff face yet!