IACF Ardingly 22/23 July 2014

 Look at all our new awesome stuff!! 

Showing off a bit now but we've had great fun making loads of new (old) stock, our usual contrast of rusty industrial and sumptuous upholstery continues, mixing rich jewel colours with just the right amount of benign neglect is becoming our signature look. This stock is all loaded up ready for tomorrow's event which is in Ardingly in West Sussex where people of good taste decend from nearby London and Brighton and from as far away as Japan and America.   

 This oversized footstool is on wheels, we love the local vintage sack.

 

Bollywood anyone? We continue to be inspired by colours seen on Indian furniture and buildings- the perfect palette for this glorious warm weather we are experiencing.

We all have a friend we'd like to buy this pice of art for!!

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Collection of coat hooks from vintage spirit levels and bobbins.

Imagine a filing cabinet but better, this hand sprayed beauty comes topped with scaffold board top for the ultimate industrial storage solution.

Hurrah for colour! Multiples of nearly anything look just gorgeous, this would be such a stunning window display.

oh yeah and a trademark Lord Rust horror dolly!!

Hello double industrial table awesomeness, so chunky, manly and Grrrrrrr you'll actually grow a beard and instantly turn into a lumberjack when you buy one!

Beautiful wool makes this chair every bit as luxurious as it is gorgeous , with added pom poms too, Yay!

If in doubt add more, more colours, more textures, more patterns, make it more rusty, add another layer of wax, make it tactile, touchable and most important make it fun! 

Final bit of showing off (we promise)..... We had the pleasure of meeting a lovely lady from Homes and Antiques magazine whilst we were selling at Kempton Race Course,  she was nice enough to include us in her write up of the fair here's what she said http://www.homesandantiques.com/feature/fairs/sunbury-antiques-market-kempton-park-racecourse-kent

Ripley Castle Salvage fair. 17th & 18th May 2014

Just home and still exhausted after Arthur Swallow's Ripley Castle decorative & salvage show http://www.asfairs.com/. This weekend we were t'up North, near Harrogate. Beautiful weather and surroundings. It was a very nice and relaxed but busy and well attended show. I'll go back next time so long as the customers promise to bring more cash.
Here's some photos from the event. See anything you fancy then email me andyphussey@gmail.com for more info.

Our next events are Kempton Park on 27th May from 6.30 am and a new one to us is vintagenostalgiashow which is a three day event in Wiltshire. We are really looking forward to this one and hope to party as much as we work!

Cressing Temple Barns

Just home from the above fair. Not the best we've ever done but not far from home and quite cheap to have a pitch. Not sure if we will bother again because there were half the traders outside this time and if the customers get fed up with it that's a waste of time for us. 

It really is a beautiful place. Well worth a wander around if you're in the area. 

We had some awesome stock for the ladies and gents of Essex. 

Some didn't come back with us.  

I had a good old time Lording it up. 

Oh look he's made a table out of scaffolding. 

Our Temple of loveliness looked great even the Tempelars would have enjoyed it. 

Now back to it and get ready for our next couple of big events. Kempton and Ripley Castle near Harrogate. Watch this space! 

I've never been so tired but so happy

Hello there. Lady Norfolk here.
It's all gone absolutely bonkers,  one minute I'm crying because I'm not selling anything,  Lord Rust was down to his last 60p at one point and now we're selling so much we can't keep up!
Please don't read this as me taking an opportunity to brag or show off, more that I'm kind waiting for my big fat happy bubble to burst! I honesty have to keep reminding myself that this is my job,  it earns me money.  Surely people don't really love their jobs this much? I'm becoming one of those really irritating positive people who smiles a lot, I'm enthusiastic about stuff that use to bore the crap out of me and I'm even being nice to the general public,  it's unheard of!

Back in January Lord Rust and I had a rather optimistic conversation which concluded with us deciding it was to be 'our year', seriously do you just decide stuff and it happens? 

Of course we have masses of fun and thoroughly enjoy ourselves but the reality is we have worked hard,  in rain and gale force winds, had hundreds of pounds worth of stock ruined by the weather,  we both get up crazy early,  often work 10-14 hour days, have relatively no social life and often injure ourselves. I look like dog meat, I can't remember the last time I had a good blow dry and my hands are permanently dry and cracked. Ewwww! But recently all the effort seems to be paying off and now meeting demand has become a juggling act, there's commissions to keep up with as well as making and sourcing treasure for markets,  I've just found another retail outlet for my furniture and last week Lord Rust had a customer buy every single book on his stall! Rewind a year and this was an unimaginable position to be in.

I was upholstering on the floor of the front room of my tiny Victorian house,  Lord Rust was painting things in the family garage and we shared an additional garage to store the trailer we use to carry our stock around. Working from home meant I was lonely, easily distracted and completely cramped, now I share a workshop with the Rusty one and a brilliant lamp maker Bulldog Vintage,  between the three of us nothing is impossible!
Last week we took our stock to Woodbridge,  twenty minutes from home to a market organised by Deben Events which was recently taken over by the brilliant Tim Clover,  being use to a large pitch and a footfall of many thousands we were unsure if we'd do very well. We were instantly welcomed by the other stall holders, completely overwhelmed by the cheery customers who chatted and bought in equal measure,  having been really rather unsuccessful in our local area before this felt amazing,  thank you Woodbridge and a round of applause for Tim for a fabulous first market. 
I'm completely loving the buzz in our little community right now,  it feels like a very cool time to be a part of this industry and with every possible part of my body crossed I hope this continues,  or maybe I should just decide it will......

Road trip to Detling & Ardingly

 Well doesn't time fly when you're having fun. It's time for the Kent & Sussex road trip for the Lady and I. First stop tomorrow afternoon sometime will be Detling that's after we've reloaded the trailer and van after my trip today to rural Sussex where I had a cracking treasure hunt around an old brickyard with the landlord in tow.

 The cabinet came out of the engineers shed. The lamps were locked away in another room. He's caught too many people "Just having a look around."

 For some reason everything was covered in brick dust.

 With just a bit of hot water these came up a treat. I have 11 of this type and 6 of the older smaller shades.

 Years and years of excavation has left this un-natural scenery.

 I thought it best not to!

 Walk this way...

 There are hundreds of these brick moulds. Anybody have any ideas on how to re-use them?

Dita the treasure hunting dog came along for the trip. Coward that she is, she wouldn't come into the dark buildings. She patiently waited outside. I could imagine something going wrong and she would turn into Skippy the bush kangaroo! What the boy's are lost down the mineshaft?

Part 2 of the trip takes us to Ardingly we will be in the blue zone on pitch 112 & 113 near the last of the shopping arcades. Part 2 will also bring re-enforcements in the shape of Bulldog Vintage and Tall Bloke Tim from Deben events. We hope to get chance for a wander around when they turn up.