Antique and Unique’s Blog.
Hello and welcome to our blog about all things antique, vintage, and decorative!
This is the first blog post I’ve written for Antique and Unique, so I feel I should introduce myself and our company, give you a bit of background, and drop a few hints about what future blog posts might cover.
So… My name is Charlotte and I run Antique and Unique alongside my parents and youngest brother. Mum and I do the majority of the buying, with input from the boys when they’re not busy with other things. My dad and brother, who are both experienced cabinetmakers, carry out any restoration or repairs that are required, and everything else is kind of shared out between us.
Antique and Unique is a fairly new business that we started during the first covid lockdown of 2020, when our primary business, Churchwood Design (we design and manufacture bespoke solid wood kitchens and furniture) was forced to go into a state of semi-hibernation by the pandemic. We had long had a little fantasy of setting up an antique shop, so we made the decision to go for it and started buying stock. In due course we set up an Etsy shop, then I built the website, and that was that!
We are incredibly lucky to live in the beautiful Derbyshire Peak District, and both our business’s share a building in the village of Tideswell, which is in between Bakewell and Buxton. If you are in the area then you are very welcome to come and have a look around (though it’s best to call first), just don’t expect a fancy shop!
I don’t like talking about myself, but here is a brief background… I have been designing kitchens and furniture for nearly twenty years, and its a nice way of earning a living - I get to meet some lovely people and see some truly beautiful houses. I love interior design, architecture, art, and, of course, antiques. I paint in my spare time, mainly botanical and floral art in watercolour and oil. I have two dogs who simultaneously drive me crackers and keep me sane, and love animals in general (except spiders).
Antiques have always been in my life. I grew up in a cottage built in 1699 which just didn’t suit new furniture, and have lived in old houses all my life. Being in the furniture industry, my parents have always had a mixture of handmade pieces and antique furniture - I don’t recall ever having had any ‘new’ furniture in our house. Mum has always collected blue and white English china, and various other things over the years as well. When I left home I continued to buy old furniture, though to be completely honest this was mainly because old furniture was much cheaper than new and I couldn’t afford to spend too much, and I’ve never got out of the habit.
My main reason for buying antique items now, other than that I much prefer the appearance of them, is that whenever I look at the new furniture for sale in shops I’m often a little shocked at how badly and cheaply made it is, and yet how expensive it is. I always think that if a chest of drawers is still going strong after one or two hundred years of use, chances are it will still be going strong in another hundred years. Some of the furniture I’ve seen in high street shops I would be amazed if it was still in one piece in five years - it almost seems built to be disposable, and I just don’t see the point of it.
With antique furniture you not only get a unique and beautiful item that will probably out last you, you get better build quality and a much lower carbon footprint compared to a new piece. Seems like a no-brainer to me!
Starting an antiques business has been a real learning curve, and other than a few ‘oh god what have I done’ moments, such as when we bought a three legged table in an auction and found that only two of them were actually attached (more on the highs and lows of buying at auction in a future post!) I have loved every second of it. There is always something new to learn, always something to take you by surprise, always some new detail to appreciate, always a new item to fall in love with.
Some of the things I plan to blog about are tips on buying antique furniture, how to buy at auction if you feel like having a go, how to mix old and new, and tell you about some of my favourite styles of furniture.
This blog is unlikely to be a regular scheduled thing, it’ll just happen whenever I have time to write one. If you’d like to be updated when a blog is published then please sign up to our weekly newsletter (link at the bottom of the page), for which you will receive a 10% discount code to use against your first purchase in our shop.
Thanks very much for reading this ‘getting to know you’ post!
Best wishes,
Charlotte