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

Milking it

If you take a look on Facebook at the many pages dedicated to furniture painting, you’ll see lots of people using chalky paints like Annie Sloan or Autentico or traditional paints by brands such as Little Greene and Farrow & Ball, but one thing we don’t see much of, on this side of the Atlantic at least, is milk paint.

Milk paint is a traditional decorating tool that has been used for thousands of years (you can even make your own), but, what with it being made out of milk and all, it has a short shelf life, so was overtaken by more commercial water-based and oil-based paints.

In the States, Miss Mustard Seed is probably the most well-known brand and there are now three stockists in the UK (one of which we hope to visit very soon).

We’ve been an admirer of MMS for a few years now and love the chippy look the paint gives. So we were interested to hear about Pinebrush Colourman – a Devon-based family business that has been producing buttermilk paints since the 1970s.

Laura gave it a try and was pleased with the results. I caught up with her (who am I kidding, she’s sitting right next to me) to find out what she thought.

J: So, how did you get on with the Pinebrush paint?

L: On the whole, I liked the paint a lot. Besides the fact that it smelt of delicious yogurt, the paint, perhaps unsurprisingly, had a 'creamy', velvety texture to it. One thing I did notice, though, was that it took an extra coat (four, rather than our usual three) to ensure that all the brushstrokes had gone completely, so that's something to consider when calculating how much paint you'll need, or how long something will take you to do. A great thing about the paint, was the texture created during the distressing phase. The paint seemed to be slightly more 'chippy' than regular eggshell paints, which helped to create a really natural looking, well-worn finish.

The finished piece

J: Would you use it again?

L: I would definitely use it again, if only to sample the delicious smell once more! Looking at their shade card, they have some really exciting colours, and I'd love to try out some of the brighter ones. 

J: The best thing about it?

L: The smell, indubitably.

J: And the worst thing?

L: Coverage. The drying time seemed to be slightly longer than usual too, so we had to make sure we allowed a good few hours before recoating.

Laura applies the first coat (and suddenly fancies a yogurt)

So there you have it. A pretty good endorsement I’d say.

Let us know how you get on if you try it.

Getting It Right - #3 White Stuff

So far in this series we’ve focused on smaller businesses, but we can’t ignore our admiration for White Stuff.

Of course, like most mega-successful brands, White Stuff was once, itself, a small, two-man operation – more on that later.

White Stuff is, for us, the perfect example of how to grow your brand into a High Street name without compromising your values or your individuality.

 

Great. Like Laura needs more incentive to buy shoes...

Every branch (and there are now 85) has its own personality – the York, Nottingham and Belfast stores even have their own cinema and some stores have their own sweetshop – with tasty treats available in return for a charity donation.

Charity’s a big part of White Stuff’s philosophy. It has a charitable foundation to help disadvantaged children, to which 1% of the company’s profits are donated (and when you know that shirts cost about £40 each, it doesn’t take long to work out that that is a lot of money…) and the individual stores all have mini campaigns and fund-raising schemes to raise extra cash.

They pre-date Chris Moyles. Which can only be a good thing

But perhaps what we like most about White Stuff is the little things – you can take dogs (or any other pets) into the shop, there are free cold drinks in the summer and hot drinks in winter, there’s always somewhere for me to sit down while Laura’s trying on armfuls of clothes (I think it’s too expensive, but then, I am a tightwad) and the stores are decorated with the kind of top quality vintage accessories that make us go a bit funny. The buying teams must spend days and days sourcing the suitcases, radios, cameras and signs. It’s not the sort of stuff you can uncover on a regular basis at your local car boot.

On top of all this, they produce classic but cool clothes, always seem to be bang on trend and their promotional literature and photography is probably the best around. 

 

More shoes. I spend a lot of time waiting in shoe shops

White Stuff should be an inspiration to all small businesses (and big businesses, too – why can’t they all put out free tea and coffee?). It started in 1985, when friends Sean Thomas and George Treves set up a small business selling ‘Boys from the White Stuff’ sweatshirts in the bars of swanky French ski resort Val d’Isere. It grew from there, with a few shops and an expansion of the range, until, in 2004, the chaps took the canny step of hiring ex-Miss Selfridge brand director Sally Bailey, who helped transform White Stuff from a small skiwear operation into the fashion brand we know today.

What’s not to Like?

Are Likes for the sake of Likes really worthwhile on Facebook?

Facebook’s a funny old thing. It has undeniably been a huge benefit to establishing Reloved Vintage and through it we’ve met some wonderful people and picked up a lot of work.

The downside is that the well-publicised changes to how timelines work and the move to monetize the site have meant that a smaller percentage of our Likers now see our posts than they would have done under the previous system.

Still, a Facebook Page is a commodity that every small business needs to have and we enjoy updating ours and seeing everyone else’s updates.

One thing we don’t go in for, though, is the whole ‘Like for a Like’ business.

We don’t mean we won’t Like other businesses Pages – as Reloved Vintage we Like literally hundreds of small business Pages from around the world.

What we’re not keen to be a part of are the Pages that are set up to help boost your number of Likes. You know the ones – they ask all their Likers to comment on a post and then follow everyone else who comments in order to give everyone else’s Like count an assisted lift. We’ve visited these pages in the past and tried them out, but it just feels a bit strange – a bit sort of, well, cultish. Like there might be a large crossover with those most rabid of mumsnet posters who probably need to back away from the computer for an hour or six…

Before anyone gets upset – we don’t think these little Like-sharing communities are wrong, or immoral – we just don’t think they’re right for us, so you can put your pitchforks down…

 

That's Reloved Vintage, folks...

We often get Likes from other people who run a Facebook Page, who then Like our Page with their personal account and tell us they’ve done so ‘so it counts’.

(For those not too Facebook savvy, you can like another Page as your Page, but your Like will not ‘count’ – their number of likers will not go up. Only Likes from personal accounts ‘count’ as Likes).

That’s great and we appreciate it – it all helps, but here’s where I stand on it all.

I use my personal Facebook account to keep up with what my friends, former colleagues and people I secretly can’t stand are getting up to. I don’t want my newsfeed to get clogged up with updates from business Pages that I, in all honesty, will never buy anything from.

Instead, I use our Facebook Page to Like other small business like ours. This means that when I’m logged in as RelovedVintage, I can check the timeline and see lots of updates from the Pages we like. Then, if I see something I think Reloved Vintage’s Likers will also enjoy, I share it.

Just this week, we shared a post from the lovely Sugden and Daughters. As a result, Sugden and Daughters had a mini influx of new Likes.

For me, this system works much better than the ‘Like for a Like’ set-up. As it happens, Sugden and Daughters is one of a few Pages I actually Like with my personal account too, but my one personal Like is probably not worth as much to them as the several likes they got as a direct response to Reloved Vintage sharing their photo. These will be likes from people who like what they do and are all potential customers.

As a Page owner, I’d rather Reloved Vintage had lots of Likes from people who had found us through another Page sharing our updates, than double that amount, but largely made up of people who are only Liking us because we Like them.

We’d love to hear what you think about our approach to sharing rather than adding a personal Like – are we right, or do you think we’re wrong?

You can comment below, or on our wall (and if we like what you say, we might even share it…)

Managing Steptoe’s Yard

“You know normal people don’t live like this, right?”

This is not the first time these words have left my mouth. On this occasion, I have just moved a chest of drawers from in front of the fridge, in order to get some milk out, having side-stepped a writing bureau en-route.

Sometimes, the workshop space in our house gets full up and the kitchen is the fall guy.

It’s tough balancing a full-time job with a second job, but Laura does it incredibly well, so it’s hard to get annoyed (long-term, at least. I have my moments) about living in a glorified warehouse.

 

Me and Laura, yesterday

At the moment, our house is not only home to our own furniture, but also four other people’s. One of these commissions was finished last night, another should be done by Saturday, a third by Sunday and then the last piece some time next week (lots of delivery driving for me, then).

After that, apart from two commissions that aren’t pressing and a long-term search for a perfect piece for Strattons, Laura is going to focus on preparing a showcase of her work for the Stamford GeorgianFestival, which should be a well-attended event in the centre of Stamford.

On top of all this, Laura will be keeping on top of her stall at Lollyrocket and trying to add new items to her online shop.

All this while juggling a 9-5.30, Monday to Friday, ‘regular’ job (though, fingers crossed, that situation may soon change).  I don’t know how she does it, and she’ll be embarrassed by this blog entry, but she deserves a huge amount of credit for turning Reloved Vintage into such a success in such a short space of time.

Just imagine how successful she’ll be when she’s doing it full-time. And how many coffee tables I’ll have to sleep under…

Laura's idol, Mr Trebus