The last post

As a business, our sales are split between online and in store (with a few at fairs and other events). Our online sales are mostly of large items of furniture, which we deliver ourselves, for the price of our fuel expenses.

In store, at Finders Keepers, we can sell a range of furniture as well as vintage accessories.  We’ve never really got into selling the smaller items online because 1) we don’t have the time to photograph the items, edit the photos, upload the photos, write accompanying text, edit the text, wrap the item, weight the package, get to the post office (which, like banks, should really be open on Sundays and on weekday evenings)  – all for a sale of a few quid, and 2) things tend to get broken in the post.

But, while trying to make some room in the store room at RVHQ this week, we found a few items we’d taken to assorted fairs and not sold, so decided a Facebook flash sale was in order.

We priced them up to include postage and offered them on a first come, first served basis.

The reaction was great, with seven of the 12 pieces snapped up by people from all over the country.

 

Our Facebook flash sale

Thing is, when I took these pieces to the post office, I had seriously underestimated the postage costs involved.

One parcel, which contained four shot glasses and had been bought for £5 cost £2.60 to post. Fair enough.

The next box, which contained a flask and a candlestick (combined price £10) cost £8.90 to post and the largest parcel (price paid to us £13.50, contents: candlesticks) cost £12.92 to post.

Now, I asked the lady at the post office for the cheapest option – and I have to trust her to have given me that. She even told me off for not charging our customers enough postage!

But there’s the rub – would anyone have bought those items if we’d said they cost, say, £3 each, plus £8.90 postage? I don’t think so. As a customer, I’d certainly be put off.

It’s absolutely crazy that we can pay a courier less than £10 to deliver a small table anywhere in mainland UK, but to send five candlesticks by post costs £12.92!

In future, we’ll avoid sending anything by post – and when we do, we’ll use courier firms rather than Royal Mail.

The flash sale was never about making lots of money, it was about clearing out some old stock, giving our Facebook friends a bit of a bargain and raising a bit of brand awareness (yes, I realise that makes me sound like a marketing pillock). But we could easily have lost money on this, because of our underestimation of Royal Mail’s prohibitive parcel postage costs.

Do you run an online business? How do you get around these exorbitant costs?

We’d love to hear your tips/grumbles/all-out rants.

And so this is Christmas

Christmas is a funny old time of year for us, business-wise.

Last year, when Laura was doing fewer commissions, we had a bit of a run on dining tables - presumably bought by people wanting to enjoy a family Christmas dinner at a traditional farmhouse table.

At the start of this year, we were ready and bought several unpainted tables, putting them to one side, ready to get them painted up and on sale in time for the festive rush. Except things don't always work out the way you had planned. With Laura taking on a lot more commissioned work than ever before, she just didn't have time to paint the tables (and asking me to do it would be as much use as asking a child to do it) and so they still sit in various parts of RVHQ, waiting to be rehomed.

2013 was the year when the commissions took over. Commissions are good in that they are a guaranteed sale, but the pressure of making sure you do a good job is multliplied by about a thousand – these are people's possessions – you can't mess them up (and, thankfully, Laura hasn't, yet...).

All the commissioned work for 2013 is now finished, and 2014 has a few jobs already booked in, for returning clients, both businesses and individuals, and a few new customers, too. The plan, though, is to scale back on commissioned pieces to give us more time to be creative with interesting pieces of furniture and to prepare some stock for our new sales venture for 2014 (more to come on that).

We'll also be looking at diversifying into new areas, collaborating with some of our talented chums and trying to regain some kind of work/life balance!

How was your 2013?

Just checking in

I’m doing one of those ‘I’ve neglected the blog’ posts that I hate, but it’s this or nothing, so what can you do?

We’ve had a busy couple of weeks, travelling to Oxford, Kettering, Birmingham, Nottingham and Lutterworth collecting and delivering customer commissions and, in Nottingham, attending the Pretty Dandy Flea.

The Flea was really well organised, despite an unavoidable eleventh hour change of venue, and was a new type of event for us, as we continue to decide what, if any, genre of event is best for us.

The venue was Nottingham’s Creative Quarter Pop-up Shop – a brilliant initiative that we we’d love our local towns and cities to follow. Read more about it here.

Our stall at the Pretty Dandy Flea in Nottingham

While we were at The Flea, Stamford’s Christmas market was in full swing. By now we had expected to hear back from Stamford Town Council about our second complaint about their slow handling of our bid for a free stall at the event (their deadline to reply was December 29) but we are still waiting... (EDIT: They replied! Still not giving in to us - they seem to be missing the point)

On a more positive note, it was great to hear people at the Flea saying they had heard of Reloved Vintage and already Liked us on Facebook. This was in a city about an hour’s drive from our Rutland base.

Proof, if it were needed, that social networking is a brilliant free tool for marketing your small business, which is why we’re continually amazed that so many local independent shops don’t have a Facebook page or Twitter account.

One large, well-known-locally shop near us has a Facebook page that has only been updated once, and that was in 2009. Another, which sells painted furniture and is well established, has no Facebook page whatsoever.

We’d kill to have their high street locations, staffing budgets and established reputation and we think their lack of social media presence must be down to either arrogance or ignorance.

Hopefully, one day we’ll be in their position – and then we’ll have to put our money where our mouth is…

Marketing your town - why retailers are better than councils

We love Stamford. It’s the nearest town to RVHQ, we love the pubs, the shops, the restaurants, the hotels, the architecture. It’s a lovely town and you can see why it was named the best place to live in Britain, by The Sunday Times (though they didn’t mention the, ahem, rougher parts of town and flat-roofed pubs).

As well as some great independent shops and pubs (Paradise Found, Snow Designs and Interiors, The Fine Food Store, TheTobie Norris), the town has big name, but higher-end, chains like White Stuff, Fat Face, The White Company, Cook and The Cosy Club. All these are big draws to Stamford for people who live outside the town and they promote themselves well, with a touch of style befitting the general feel of the town.

This year, a group of business owners have got together to arrange two late night shopping events, with a prize draw on each night. It’s a great idea and the poster (designed independently) for it is prominent around town and on social media. It’s simple but stylish and gives a great feel of what the town is about.

The late night shopping poster - thumbs up

Also this year is the town council’s official Christmas festival (we may have mentioned this in earlier posts…). The poster for this event is, well, not exactly in keeping with the town’s image.

We’re hesitant to criticise the designer – we don’t know who did it and they may have had their hands tied – but is this really a classy, sophisticated poster for ‘the best place to live in Britain’?

The council's poster - we're not impressed

One local business owner told us they felt the festival was completely geared – and marketed – towards the wrong audience for the town’s retailers and that it did not benefit them in any way.

It’s just another example of why we feel the powers-that-be are out of touch with the way the town – and life in general has moved on. And it’s not just Stamford Town Council – the district council, South Kesteven, recently produced a video to attract investment into Stamford.  To us, it feels terribly dated, with a stuffy voiceover, 80s graphics, shaky camerawork and a general lack of flair and imagination. Again, we don’t know who filmed it, so we really don’t want to be ultra-harsh, but it’s not good when you compare it to the work of some local freelancer videographers who we’re sure would have made a much better job of it. Take a look at the work of Chris Rigby, or this video recently unveiled by Rutland’s best restaurant, The Olive Branch.

Maybe the poster was designed for free, maybe the video was done in-house. We understand that taxpayers' money has to be spent carefully (like councils have ever wasted our money…) but surely it’s better to invest in a quality product (and they’d probably be surprised at how reasonably priced most good quality freelance designers and videographers are) and give off a better, more modern, vibrant image of the town, than to do it on the cheap.

What do you think? Are your local councils the same? Can you find examples of councils getting it right when it comes to design and marketing? Comment below.

Where are all the men?

Take a look at the Facebook pages featuring painted furniture and shabby chic* stuff. Notice anything?

What’s that? They’re all great and very talented? You’re not looking hard enough. Try again.

Yes, that’s right, the vast majority are run by women.

And it’s not just on Facebook either, pop into a shop, or search online for an interiors company. Women, women, women.

So what’s the deal? Why do more women than men seem to pick up a paintbrush and set about a piece of furniture? Or, perhaps more to the point, why do so few men do it?

It’s not like it’s a particularly unmacho thing to do. It’s pretty much like DIY. A bloke will spend hours in the shed, bashing stuff around, but paint a chest of drawers? Get lost.

Personally speaking, I find it boring. Not the business, or the product, or the idea of upcycling, but the actual process of painting a piece of furniture – it’s just so bloody dull. If you want to do a good job, you need a perfectionist mentality and patience by the bucketload. I have neither. Just ask Laura.

There are, or course, some exceptions – I’ve come across some very good male furniture painters, but they are definitely in the minority.

It seems the women have definitely got a stranglehold on this particular industry, but some just take it a little too far. I’m talking about ‘mumtrepreneurs’. Good god, just typing it makes me feel dirty.

These are the members of the cutesy, mumsy wishy-washy brigade, who want to exclude anyone who has so far failed to produce a tiny, screaming person from their innards.

Why make such a fuss about being a mum? It’s hardly an exclusive club. And you don’t see any movements founded by dads who also work.

It’s almost like they brandish the ‘mum’ badge to excuse their largely unspectacular work. Yes, their Disney rip-off beanbag looks like it was assembled by a thumbless lunatic in the dark, but it’s ok, hun, cos ur a gr8 mummy to ickle Wilson or Johnson or Fairie-Lil-Let-Tinkabell-Boo-Boo or whatever horrendous name you’ve saddled your poor offspring with.

I was recently tweeting Rutland-basedblogger Lisa Batty who, as far as I can discern from her name and her avatar, is a woman. She told me: “I run a beauty blog & was asked to contribute to another blog, I agreed but then they asked me to confirm I had kids, I said no and they then rejected me! But the article they wanted was about make-up.”

Mental.

I get that, traditionally, the world of business has been male-dominated and it has been a long, hard struggle to get to the stage where women are even considered for top roles at major organisations. I get all that. I’m all for equality. I’m a feminist, I guess.

But I fail to see how the mum squad are helping, with their discrimination of non-parents, making women without kids feel excluded and inadequate and basically telling all men they’re of no interest.

I’m a dad. Laura’s not a mum. We both look after my daughter. Where’s the Facebook group for us? We don’t want one, of course, because we want our work to be recognised on its own merits, not because we need to lean on a child-shaped crutch.

I’d love to hear your thoughts (unless you’ve given yourself a middle name on Facebook that’s something like ‘Mumsy2MasonandKyesha’. Then I couldn’t care less, obviously…). 

Am I missing something? Am I just being a bit of a dick? Or do you agree? Does the mum mentality hold women back?

*By the way, in the coming weeks I’ll be blogging about why I hate the term ‘shabby chic’, miserable old grouch that I am.

**DISCLAIMER** All my views are my own and not necessarily shared by Laura, who is the real brains (and beauty) behind Reloved Vintage

Stamford Town Council 2: The Reply

Well, we got a reply...

Dear Mr & Mrs Harvey, (Good start... we're not married and my surname is not Harvey)

RE: Complaint – Stamford Christmas Festival 2013

Your complaint received on 31 October 2013 was examined by a complaints panel on Tuesday 05 November and its findings are as follows:

{redacted}

On examining all the paperwork and associated correspondence relating to your complaint, no reference to the alleged free offer made by Alison Hawley Smith could be traced, other than the copy you forwarded from Alison Hawley Smith which was dated 31 October 2013.

Stamford Town Council has identified Alison Hawley Smith’s communication to Reloved Vintage of 13 December 2012 re-stating the responsibilities of all traders participating in the 2012 Christmas Festival with a reminder of the requirement to hold valid insurance.  As per the Terms & Conditions of the (signed) contract no refund should have been made; however it is evident that a full refund of £75 was made by bank transfer on 20 December 2012 by Alison Hawley Smith as an unauthorized ‘goodwill gesture’.  

The delay you experienced in obtaining a response is regrettable but was unavoidable and we wholeheartedly apologise for any inconvenience.  However, such matters must necessarily follow due process, which I am sure you can well appreciate.

Stamford Town Council does not accept any liability in this matter. However, the offer of a 50% discount on the cost of a stall at the 2013 Christmas Festival remains and Stamford Town Council will ensure that a stall is held available for you until 15th November latest should you wish to take up the offer.

I trust that you find the above answers the points raised.

Yours sincerely

Councillor Brian C. Sumner

Mayor of Stamford

Copy to: Cllr Mrs S Sandall, Chairman of Events Committee

So, they've basically said: "Even though you say you were offered a free stall, and the organiser says you were offered a free stall, we don't believe you were offered a free stall."

They also think that taking three weeks to reply to an email, or return a phone call is "unavoidable".

Ladies and gentlemen, Stamford Town Council, where common courtesy is an alien concept.

We have, of course, replied:

In accordance with the complaints procedure detailed at: http://www.stamfordtowncouncil.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/2012-STC-Complaint-Procedure1.pdf 

we are asking you to re-examine our complaint and come to the only right decision, which is to honour the offer of a free stall. As this appeal process will no doubt take the full 20 days to be concluded, we suggest you make your offer applicable to the 2014 event.

We feel it is pretty clear that the weight of public opinion is on our side and that anyone of fair mind and sound judgement sees that the right, decent and proper action for you to take is to honour the offer of a free stall that was made to us by Ali Hawley-Smith.

We should not have had to go through all of this in order to get what was promised to us. We should not have had to email Ali Hawley-Smith ourselves to ask her for confirmation of the offer of a free stall. You should have done this the very moment, on 11 September 2013, that we asked you about the free stall.

The fact that you still refuse to budge on this and quote only the paperwork you have seen, suggests you think that both Ali and ourselves are lying.

Your heel-digging, back-covering and time-wasting stinks of stubbornness.

We accept your apology for your slow response, but strongly disagree that it was 'unavoidable'. It is simply common courtesy to return phone calls and reply to emails - even if just to keep us updated. We think the council needs to address this problem and make changes to the way it deals with communication to keep more in line with the 21st Century.

Also, my name is Thorpe, not Harvey, as has been abundantly clear throughout our unnecessarily long-winded correspondence.

Jack Thorpe and Laura Harvey

We would really, really, really appreciate your support. You can help us to make sure justice is done. On behalf of all small traders who have to deal with witless, feckless, self-serving councils, please email townhall@stamfordtowncouncil.gov.uk to show your support.


You can copy and paste the text below if you like:


We fully support Reloved Vintage's appeal against your ridiculous decision to not honour the offer of a free stall at the 2013 Christmas Market. We urge you to make the right decision and give Reloved Vintage a stall, free of charge, at the 2014 Stamford Christmas Market.

Stamford Town Council

LONG POST ALERT! Please bear with us and read this post – we want everyone to know disgracefully how we’ve been treated by Stamford Town Council.

This is a slightly amended version of an official complaint we have made to Stamford Town Council, after they sold our place at this year’s Christmas Market to someone else – a place we had been promised for free following the collapse of our stall last year, causing us to lose hundreds of pounds in stock and lost earnings.

This event was to be our biggest of the year in terms of raising our profile locally and in terms of sales. That has now been taken away from us, due to the council’s unprofessionalism and terrible customer service.

If you agree with that we have been unfairly treated and would like to support us, we’d really appreciate it if you shared this post or emailed townhall@stamfordtowncouncil.gov.uk to pledge your support.

Thanks,

Jack and Laura

----

We attended last year's Stamford Christmas Market. The stalls, which we believe to have been incorrectly secured and not Health and Safety-checked, blew down. We were lucky not to be injured. We lost hundreds of pounds worth of stock. We could no longer trade on the day.

We were, eventually, refunded and offered a free stall for the 2013 event as way of compensation. This offer was made, verbally, by the then event organiser, Alison Hawley-Smith.

On 11/9/13 we received an email from Patricia Stuart-Mogg, Stamford Town Clerk, inviting us to apply for a place at the 2013 market, now being organised by  Stamford Town Council.

We replied the very same day to say we had filled in the form, but wanted confirmation that Ali Hawley-Smith had told the council about our free stall.

After various emails and phone calls from us it took until 4/10/13 – 23 days! – for Patricia Stuart-Mogg to contact us again, and then it was to offer us only a half-price stall.

We rejected this offer because we were promised a free stall. If the council has enough evidence to offer us a 50% stall it surely has enough evidence to honour the free stall offer. A 50% offer is an insult. It suggests they believe us, but just don’t want to honour the offer. We asked for an explanation.

After many emails it took a further 12 days for Patricia Stuart-Mogg to reply, telling us the free stall offer would not be honoured and that Ali Hawley-Smith had “no authority” to have made the offer, despite being the organiser at the time and authorising a refund at the time.

We once more appealed this and had to chase Patricia Stuart-Mogg, Cllr Maxine Couch and Cllr Susan Sandall (members of the organising committee) to reply to our emails and phone calls , as no-one had emailed or telephoned us to let us know what was going on. By all accounts it appeared we were being ignored, as we did not hear back with an explanation as to why the process was taking so long.

In Cllr Couch’s defence, she did at least reply to our emails, but only in a factual manner and to inform us of the council meeting at which our appeal would be discussed.

Cllr Sandall did not reply to a single email.

Eventually, Patricia Stuart-Mogg phoned us on 30/10/13 (the first phone conversation we have had, despite our initial reply to her email being 49 days earlier) to tell us the council had agreed to not honour the offer of a free stall and that the 50% offer still stood, but that in the meantime the event had become fully booked.

We had asked, via email and on the phone to the town hall, if a place was being held for us while this discussion was ongoing. No-one had the decency to tell us that our place – which we had been promised for free – had been sold to someone else.

This is completely unacceptable and we would like the council to acknowledge this.

The behaviour of Patricia Stuart-Mogg in particular has been totally unhelpful and unprofessional and we are now left with the impression that Stamford Town Council is an aging, outdated, groaning bureaucracy, packed with cronies who have no grasp of customer service in the 21st century.

We are a growing business that one day hopes to trade full-time in Stamford Town Centre. We have developed partnerships with a number of local businesses and have always been supportive of the town and its events.

The way the council has batted us aside, wasted our time and all but accused us of making things up is a disgrace and you should all be thoroughly ashamed of yourselves.

Stamford is a beautiful town that deserves a council that supports small, independent businesses, rather than trying to squeeze a few more pennies out of them.

If you want our business in the future, for many, many years to come, this is a very funny way of going about it.

Getting it Right - #5 Simple Redesign

We're big fans of Simple Redesign. Run by Julie, Simple Redesign is based in Michigan, USA and the furniture is simply brilliant.

Take a look at SR's Facebook page and you'll see why we love Julie's smooth finishes, bold use of colour and eye for design (we're a sucker for a chevron print).

What we also really admire is Julie's willingness to share her expertise. We particularly like the tutorials on using thumb tacks (drawing pins to us) to aid smooth running of drawers and how to add casters to raise the height of a piece of furniture.

Another nice feature of Simple Redesign's website is that the online shop allows customers to buy either finished, painted pieces of furniture, or unpainted pieces with their own choice of colour – something that should keep everyone happy.

We could go on, but really we think we should let Simple Redesign's photos do the talking.

Great use of colour and pattern

Love the handles

Look at that finish!

And we want the rug, too

We could have chosen so many more photos...

If you're even slightly interested in upcycling or design, do yourself a favour and like Simple Redesign's page to see more of Julie's innovative, striking work. Is she the best furniture upcycler working today? We'll let you decide...

How to get started in furniture upcycling

How to upcycle and paint vintage furniture

This is a feature we wrote for a local magazine, encouraging readers to have a go at painting their own furniture

Laura Harvey, from Rutland-based Reloved Vintage, shares a few tricks of the trade to help you give old furniture a new lease of life

Upcycling – or simply putting old stuff to a new use – has gone big. TV shows, such as Kirstie’s Fill Your House for Free have brought the idea into the mainstream – and the Government recently encouraged us all to ‘make do and mend’ instead of contributing to the throwaway society.

Here’s how you can begin your own upcycling adventure.

What you’ll need

Paint. There are specialist furniture paints, but any paint will do. We prefer to use eggshell, for a smooth, matt finish.

A paint brush

A screwdriver (for removing any handles etc)

Furniture wax or varnish (if using matt paint, choose a clear matt varnish, too)

Masking tape (a professional decorators’ tape, such as Frogtape will prevent bleeding

Sandpaper – the coarser the better

A piece of wooden furniture – choose a clean, solid piece for your first attempt

Preparing the wood

If your piece of wood is varnished, you’ll need to sand it. If you try putting the paint onto a varnished surface, it’ll just chip right off when dry. (Note, some specialist paints will adhere to varnished surfaces). For tidy edges, use your masking tape to ‘mask-off’ areas just inside any drawers, doors, glass panels etc.

Unscrew any handles and put them to one side – it’s easier than painting around them.

Get painting!

Don’t just slap it on! For the best finish you’ll want several thin coats of paint – big drips and splodges are ugly! Try to brush with the grain of the wood. Once you’ve covered the whole piece, wait for it to dry and do it again. With each coat you’ll see less and less bare wood showing through.

After three coats you should be done – now you just need to let it dry (it won’t take long)

Distressing

If you want to, you can distress your furniture to give it a bit more character. For light distressing, use sandpaper, for heavy stuff, you can use a knife or wallpaper scraper. For a more natural look, focus on edges and areas that would get the most natural use, such as handles and keyholes.

Protection

If you don’t protect your furniture, your paint will scratch, chip and stain. Wax can offer a nice finish and feel, but if it’s an item that is likely to get a lot of use – or come into contact with water, varnish is a better option. Apply the varnish as you did the paint – thin coats. 

The next step

If you get the bug, you’ll want to play around with new ideas. Try using a different paint colour for the first couple of coats, which can be revealed at the distressing stage, of paint the inside of a drawer or cupboard in a bright colour for a little bit of happiness every time you open it.

Like the sound of it but don’t have the time or confidence to do it yourself? Reloved Vintage can give your furniture a whole new look.

Laura Harvey is the founder of Reloved Vintage, specialists in painted furniture and vintage accessories. Based just outside Stamford, Reloved Vintage offers free delivery in the Peterborough area.

You can find out more at relovedvintageinteriors.co.uk, follow them on Twitter: @RelovedVintage, or like them at facebook.com/RelovedVintage

A visit to Sugden and Daughters

On Saturday we called in to see Louisa at Sugden and Daughters in their fantastic new sales space at the Red Lion pub in Yardley Hastings, Northanmptonshire.

Our paths have crossed online through their Facebook page and as a result of us both having a space at Finders Keepers at Lollyrocket in Kettering, but we'd never met in person.

We'd watched the transformation of the barn in Yardley Hastings as Louisa and husband Mark turned it from unloved shell to rustic showroom,so it was great to see it in person.

The showroom at the Red Lion

We love the rustic pieces

Sugden and Daughters sell a great range of antiques, painted furniture, candles and other vintage splendidness as well as being a stockist of Little Greene paint. Until now they had been concentrating on antiques fairs - and these will still be a key part of the Sugden and Daughters business - but when the opportunity to establish a permanent sale space came up, it was too good to turn down.

Want!

Close-up of the sales desk - soon to be sold!

Laura would have been in this photo,
but she hadn't done her hair...

It's a set-up that works well for both parties - Sugden and Daughters bring in new customers for the pub and the pub opens up a whole new audience to Sugden and Daughters. We'd love to see more of this going on across the country. We're always hearing about how many pubs are closing in the UK every week - it's a staggering number and a real shame, so we have to take our hats off to The Red Lion and Sugden and Daughters for this initiative.

We were only there for an hour or so, but saw just how impressed the customers were with the showroom. Louisa says the customers have been a mixture of villagers and people who have been following them on social media, so the system obviously works.

It was only their second weekend of trading and things are going well, with plenty of sales and a whole bunch of new customers. Louisa and Mark have been working so hard on getting this right that it can only be a success and we wish them all the best for the future.

Go along and take a look for yourself - and buy yourself something so you can say you owned a Sugden and Daughters piece before they were famous...

Thank you!

Thank you.

Yes, you. Thanks for being great. Thanks for liking us, following us, retweeting us, sharing us and generally supporting us. Even when you're had a really awful day because of that pillock at work and you just want to put your feet up and drown in wine. Thank you.

Without you, we simply couldn’t carry on – and that’s not just empty words, it’s true.

As a small business with no bricks-and-mortar presence on the high street, no huge advertising budget and not even a full-time member of staff, our greatest promotional tool is word of mouth.

That has probably always been the case for small businesses, but, unlike our parents and grandparents, we have the wonders of social media to help us. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest all allow us, and other small businesses, to reach our target audience with just a few clicks.

A wink's as good as a nod. Whatever that means.

So many of our new customers tell us “Our friend bought a dresser from you” or “I saw you on my friend’s page”. Your clicks, likes, comments and purchases really do make a huge difference to small businesses like ours and we really appreciate it.

Every time you retweet, tag a friend on Instagram or like, comment or share one of our status updates or photos on Facebook, your friends see it and you open up our fledgling business to a whole new bunch of people who might just become valued customers.

So here’s the deal, we’ll do it if you do too: everytime you see a photo or status you like, from a small business, click ‘like’, or, better still, leave a comment. Even if it’s just to say “Love it” or “Well done”, it means that small business’s post will be seen by many, many more people than it would otherwise. It's a few seconds of your time that can help to literally change the lives of small business owners by giving them the momentum to grow the business into a full-time career.

And isn't that a lovely thing to be able to do while sitting in your pyjamas, drinking tea and thinking about Ryan Gosling?

Getting It Right - #4 Lollyrocket

If you’ve paid any attention at all to our Facebook page, you’ll know all about Lollyrocket.
Lollyrocket is a shop. And a tea room. And a craft and vintage centre. And a record shop. And a bit of a social media monster. The strings to Lollyrocket’s bow are added to constantly. We wouldn’t be surprised if next time we visited they’d opened their own international helipad on the roof.

Tea and cake. Stop drooling!

Lollyrocket – run by Michelle and Hayleigh – started up as a hobby and was essentially just a couple of friends selling homemade candles in their living room. But these girls just don’t know when to quit and within a matter of months have created an under-one-roof empire on Kettering’s Gold Street.
Downstairs is Lollyrocket the shop, stocking a well-chosen selection of gifts that happily straddle cool, kitsch and cute. Sharing the ground floor is the vintage tea-room, which also hosts craft sessions and appears to have been a roaring success.

OMNOMNOM

Upstairs, on the middle floor, is Finders Keepers – where our main showroom can be found. This is a hand-picked selection of craft, vintage and handmade items from local sellers, including vintage clothes, cushions, jewellery, kitchenalia, photography and, of course, furniture.
Upstairs again is newest venture Rocket Records – a vinyl lover’s dream.

Our little slice of Finder Keepers

Not content with working six days a week, making tea, running up and downstairs, ordering stock, looking after their sellers’ pieces and a million other things we haven’t thought of, Michelle and Hayleigh are seemingly online 24/7 (we don’t think they sleep) promoting not only their own enterprises, but working hard on behalf of the sellers in Finders Keepers - updating their Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts with the latest items and arranging sales with people all over the country.
As a customer, you couldn’t ask for better service. And neither could you as a seller. Nothing has ever been too much trouble for Michelle, Hayleigh and the rest of the LR team. They’ve offered support and advice, been generous with their time and promoted our business to their growing army of followers.
It’s hard to see anything but success for Lollyrocket – it’s very rare to come across such a winning combination of hard work, taste, ambition, customer service and all-round-bloody-loveliness.
Even if you’re not near Kettering, make the effort – pay them a visit. You won’t be disappointed.

Taking the plunge

If you didn't know already, here's the set-up at Reloved Vintage.
Laura paints, I lift. That’s about it. Okay, she also sands, varnishes, buys, sells, does all the photography and design, runs the website and looks after the money side of things while I play around on Facebook. But I think you’ll agree, it’s a pretty fair partnership.

We also both have full-time day jobs.

This gets in the way a bit, but that’s the way it has always been. We work together for a magazine publishing company (we actually sit next to each other in the office) all day, then go home and get cracking on Reloved Vintage stuff for the evening/weekend.

It doesn’t leave a lot of time for much else. I have a 10-year-old daughter from a previous relationship – she stays with us every other weekend and every Monday (5 nights out of every 14, if you’re counting), so that’s another commitment that holds up work on the RV side of things.

 

That's a plate-spinner. It's an analogy. Keep up.

It’s to Laura’s credit that her hard work and perfectionism have made so many people think we’re bigger than we are. Her work is of such a high standard and her self-designed website so professional looking that we get emails from students wanting to do work experience with us (we actually were able to offer a virtual placement to one student) and people saying they’ll drop into our shop next time they’re passing.

I’m obviously very biased, but Laura’s painted furniture is among the highest standard of any I’ve seen. It is certainly of a much better finish and with far more quality control than that of some furniture sold in some well-established shops. But, I digress…

We know we’re not alone in having two jobs – there are plenty of people who work in our office who go off and earn money in other places when 5.30pm comes around – and we know that a lot of the Facebook pages we really love are run by people who paint furniture in their spare time.

There are also lots of people who paint furniture full-time. These people have either taken a big risk in giving up a reliable source of income (good for you), or have found themselves out of work for one reason or another (good for you), or perhaps don’t actually need to work, but enjoy the painting as a hobby and a few extra quid (want to swap?).

Our day jobs aren’t particularly well-paid, we don’t own our own home and neither of us has any money to fall back on. If Laura gave up her job and had a very quiet month on the furniture front, we’d really struggle to get by on my wage alone.

If we both gave up our jobs the rent probably wouldn’t get paid and we’d have to start hunting squirrels for dinner.

Squirrel: probably tastes quite nutty

These scenarios can be seen two ways – as motivation to do well, or as a sign that the risk is too big.

If one of us is to go full-time on RV, it will be Laura (she does all the work, so it makes sense) that way I’ll still have a steady income (though I wish someone had told me, 25 years ago, that there’s no money in journalism, so pay attention in your maths lessons instead) and I can still offer my delivery/selling services for evenings and weekend events.

I’m certain Laura could, given all week to source, paint and sell furniture, make a good living. Probably good enough for me to give up work and join her a few months/years down the line, so we can grow the business.

So why not do it? Why not just take the plunge?

Because it’s scary. Very scary.

The thought of having no money is an unpleasant one – we’ve both been there before, in different ways, and it’s not fun.

Have you been in this position? What did you do? Should we just man up and go for it? We’d love to hear your advice and experiences.

French Grey Tales, Bedlington

Last week we found ourselves in the north east of England. Not by accident, you understand – we meant to go there. We didn’t just wake up there in a state of confusion, wondering what had just happened. That would be most unusual.

No, we drove up the A1 for three hours to stay in a yurt near Newcastle upon Tyne. This was far too much like camping for Laura, who was lost without a telly, wifi or a hairdryer. Girls, eh?

Ahead of our visit, we’d had a look for any interesting vintage or painted furniture shops to visit  - and one really stood out: French Grey Tales in Bedlington.

French Grey Tales, Bedlington

Layla: "I've got no make-up on!" Laura: "I haven't done my hair!"

We found FGT because it’s listed as a stockist of Miss Mustard Seed milk paint and Laura’s really keen to try it out (we particularly liked some of A Cupboard Less Ordinary’s recent milk paint pieces).

French Grey Tales is run by Layla, whose enthusiasm is infectious and inspiring. The shop’s only been up and running for a few weeks now but it looks gorgeous. From her workshop at the back of the shop, Layla paints furniture to sell and also takes on customer commissions.

This beautiful chest with owl handles sold in a heartbeat

I love the chippy paint on this cupboard

There's just too much to look at...

Owl + bureau = win

Great mirror at a bargain price

More owls...

Chalkboard wall gives details of workshops

Painted steps with glass bottles are a nice touch

You just can't have too many owls...

These were brought in by two lovely ladies while we were visiting

She supports local artisans and craftspeople by selling their products in store and, upstairs, French Grey Tales runs a variety of workshops, which are being well supported.

As well as MMS, FGT now also stocks Autentico chalk paint

It was great to meet Layla, because she’s a terrific example of how grit, determination and a big dollop of talent can make all the difference in starting up your own business. She gave us loads of great ideas and advice on how to take a little of the pain and stress out of opening up a bricks and mortar shop and even gave us a beautiful crate to take away with us, because it came from a farm just down the road from where we were staying – a great little memento of our mini holiday.

Our great crate!

If you’re anywhere near Bedlington (or even if you’re not) we’d recommend a visit to French Grey Tales. If you can’t get there, you’ll have to make do with following Layla on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest or Facebook