Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

Can you take words from one website and use them on your own?

We've all seen the anti-piracy advert at the start of DVDs - all edgy music and grainy images with shouty captions: YOU WOULDN'T STEAL A CAR... Ed Byrne does a good bit about it.
The message is, it's not ok to download films, because it's stealing.

We probably all agree. But then we've probably all downloaded something illegally at least once in our life - an mp3, a film, some software - it goes on.
What also goes on is the theft - yeah, I'm going to call it theft - of images and words online.
I've already blogged about the photos thing, but this week I've been driven over the edge by the words.

I'm a journalist by trade (not that you'd know from reading this blog, right gang?) so I'm a bit more precious about my words than most. I accept this. I also accept that not everyone has had to sit through libel and copyright training many, many times, so I think I try to be quite forgiving when I see some of our original content being used by someone else.

It has happened five or six times since we launched the current incarnation of our website: I've found words, written by me for relovedvintageinteriors.co.uk, lifted wholesale and used to sell someone else's painted furniture on another website. Sure, sometimes they've changed the odd word here and there, but not enough to make the words their own.

"So what?" you might ask. It's only words. To that, I say: "Who are you? Cat Stevens?" (one for the kids, there).

Those words were crafted in my mid-range brain specifically with the intention of promoting and selling Reloved Vintage. They are personal to me and the business. If you just copy and paste them into your website, it says two things about you:

1. You're a bit lazy
2. You don't have anything original to say about your business.

Going back to illegal downloads for a second, if you illegally downloaded a film, and then you got caught bang to rights when the owner of that film showed you proof. You'd admit it and apologise, right? If they then simply asked you to delete that film from your hard drive, you'd probably do it straight away.

Yeah, me too. And I'd consider myself lucky that they didn't sue me or tell my mum.

Most people I've contacted do just that. They apologise and remove the offending words immediately. Some blame whoever built the site for them, which may be a cheap excuse or, more likely, it reveals there are a number of unscrupulous website builders out there.

These people, by and large, are just like us. They run a small business. Some do it full time, some do it in their spare time, but none seem to be vindictive. They've gone about their word-pinching with innocence and act quickly to put things right. They're alright as far as I'm concerned. Decent people doing the right thing.

Which is why it's very strange when something like this happens.

Extract from the Commissions page of another website

Extract from the Commissions page of relovedvintageinteriors.co.uk

I was doing my roughly quarterly check to see if our copy was being used by anyone else (my highly technical system? Pasting phrases into Google) when I found this website.

A lot of the wording has been changed, but key phrases, written especially to reflect the stye and approach of Reloved Vintage were there, word for word.

This was also the case on the About page:

 

From the other site's About page

Extracts from our About page

I sent messages via social media to the owner of the other site, expressing my concern. They replied to say they had never even seen my site and that, most definitely, nothing was plagiarised. I pointed out the similarities. They replied. No apology, just a note that they were off to work and would have a look later. Then nothing. I chased them up a few days later. A full week later, after another nudge from me, they said they were too busy to look at it. I said that wasn't good enough. I've given them a deadline.

The owner of the site has a full-time job on top of the furniture side of things. So do I. So did Laura until a month and half ago. We get it. It's hard. You're always busy, but it doesn't take much time or effort to delete some words from your site.

While all this was going on, I Googled again. I found another website using our words. Seriously! You should try this yourself.

It wasn't word-for-word, but it had definitely been copied and altered slightly. I sent off an email and got a reply the next day. They apologised and said their site had been created for them by an external website builder. It seems there really are lots of lazy website builders out there.

If you're reading this and you have a website you paid someone to create for you - words and all - perhaps you should do a quick check on where those words came from...

I worried that I was being too precious and whingey, but everyone I spoke to about this was outraged - perhaps more than I was. They had no idea this kind of thing went on. Colleagues, fellow small business owners, friends - they were all "Call your solicitor!" "Some people have no shame" "That's unbelievable".

I get it though, not everyone is confident with words. It's easier to 'borrow' someone else's than write your own which might not be very good, or pay someone to do it for you. It's certainly cheaper, and for a lot of people, the furniture's just a hobby, or it's their livelihood and times are tight.

Doesn't make it right, though. Just like that downloaded film.

I'd love to hear what you think. Am I over-reacting? Should we just accept that once you put something online it's going to get stolen? Or does more need to be done to protect our intellectual copyright? Let me know below...

Guest blog for Oak Furniture UK

We're delighted to be featuring as a guest blog on Inspiring Interiors for Oak Furniture UK.

You can read what we have to say here

Red Lion - mission accomplished

Reloved Vintage helps with dining room redesign at The Red Lion pub in Stathern, Leicestershire

Last month, I told you about our exciting project with The Red Lion in Stathern, Leicestershire.

Now, after getting through many sheets of sandpaper, several tins of paint, a whole load of varnish and a lot of hard work, the job is complete and the pub looks great.

The Red Lion's dining room before...

 

...and after!

On top of stripping and repainting all the dining room’s tables and picture frames, we were asked to act as design consultants for the whole project.

The owners had already decided on the general colourscheme and flooring they wanted, and Laura was able to make suggestions on which paints would best compliment each other for the walls and wood paneling.

We also suggested a shelf of food and cookery related books – and provided a few vintage pieces to add a little more rustic charm to an already beautiful room.

We’re delighted with how the room looks – the decorators and flooring teams have done a superb job and the owners, Ben and Sean, brought their own ideas to the table and have come up with some really great, eye-catching talking points. Everyone at The Red Lion was a delight to work with and we wish them every success for the future.

It’s a great pub, with amazing food – we very highly recommend paying a visit.

The world’s four best furniture painters*

*according to Mr Reloved, who freely admits he’s only seen a fraction of the world’s furniture painters and there are, most likely, lots of very talented people out there he’s yet to discover and will gladly stand corrected if you send him their details.

There are loads of excellent furniture painters out there. There are also loads of good ones, average ones and terrible ones (like me, for example). I could list loads of people who I think are really good and who run great shops, style their stuff well, come up with bold designs – but for me, four people stand out about the crowd.

I wanted to make this a Top Five, but I genuinely couldn’t think of anyone else I admire as much as these four (except for Laura, obviously, but I can’t put her in here, can I?)

So, here they are, in no particular order…

Hetty by Vintage Betty

Vintage Betty, Carmarthenshire, UK

Excellent choice of starter pieces. Only high quality furniture of a good age is used. Brilliantly smooth finish with top quality distressing. Bold colour choices always fit the piece perfectly. Presentation and photo staging is right up there with the best, too.  

Victorian Chest of Drawers by Distressed But Not Forsaken

Distressed But Not Forsaken, Cumbria, UK

Some of the most natural looking distressing you’re ever likely to see. Pieces full of character that anyone would be proud to own. All photos are staged in a home that is just so much nicer than yours will ever be, but that won’t stop you trying – aspirational stuff.

Chevron pattern drawers by Simple Redesign

Simple Redesign, Michigan, USA

Big, bold, brash colours and the cleanest, sleekest finishes I’ve ever seen. Hardly a day goes by when I’m not wowed by something on Simple Redesign’s Facebook page. Owner Julie is also very generous when it comes to sharing her expertise on her blog.

Green drawers by Knack

Knack, South Carolina, USA

Innovative, creative, consistent – there’s nothing Barb Blair from Knack doesn’t do well. She’s even written a book all about it. And you can’t even hate her for being so good, because she’s one of the loveliest, kindest people you could ever hope to encounter.

So, there you have it. My fab four furniture finders and finishers. 

What do you think? Share your favourites below, or on our Facebook page.

Ooh, Betty

We visit painted furniture expert Vintage Betty in St Clears, Carmarthenshire

Laura and I have a long-standing theory that about 90% of the people who deal in vintage stuff are called Laura or Lauren. 

That might sound like rubbish, but I’ve just had a look through the vintage and crafty people we follow on Twitter and I’ve found 10 Laura/Laurens. If that’s not concrete evidence I don’t know what is.

My second favourite vintage Laura/Lauren is Lauren, from Vintage Betty – we met her recently on a trip to Wales when we visited her really well presented shop in St Clears, Carmarthenshire.

We’ve only recently discovered Lauren’s work, through her storefront on notonthehighstreet, but we were both instantly impressed with not only the quality of her painting and her colour choices, but also the staging of her photos, which really makes the pieces themselves sing.

Vintage Betty, St Clears, Carmarthenshire

With a work/pleasure trip to Cardigan looming, we decided a visit to St Clears was in order.

The shop’s a pretty decent size, with big windows and a beautiful wooden floor. In fact, it’s such a good size that, when she first agreed to take it on, Lauren was worried she wouldn’t be able to fill the space, but she’s managed to create a really good looking shop. 

The high level of quality control is evident in everything Vintage Betty does (I was warned not to take any photos of some bits of the shop, because they were too messy – though it all looked great to me!) and listening to Laura and Lauren chat it was clear they were cut from the same cloth – sharing their mutual dislike of working with a certain popular paint brand and their admiration for the work of Tom Hunter at Distressed But Not Forsaken.

Handmade goodness

Lauren’s energy and enthusiasm was infective and she was happy to share her skills and knowledge with Laura, as the two exchanged notes on the best ways to store, sand, paint, wax, varnish and sell vintage furniture.

If you don’t already like her on Facebook, or follow her on Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest, you should change that right now. And if you’re anywhere near Wales, or planning a trip that way, you really must call in to see how furniture painting should be done.

Lauren and Laura

Vintage Betty, Pentre Road, St Clears, SA3 34LR

vintage-betty.com, info@vintage-betty.com, 07811185511

Open: Weds-Fri: 10.30am - 5pm, Sat: 10.30am - 1pm

Closed: Sun-Tues

Welcome to The Red Room

Reloved Vintage teams up with Strattons Hotel in Swaffham

Our dressing table and chair, in The Red Room

We're delighted to have once again teamed up with the brilliant Strattons Hotel in Swaffham, Norfolk - this time supplying them with a dressing table and chair for the popular Red Room.

Hannah from Strattons explained the style of the perfect piece for the room and we set out to find it!

We hope you'll agree that it looks terrific in its new home - and we're delighted to be involved in some small way with our favourite hotel.

Stay here! Call Strattons on 01760 723845

We've previously supplied a chest of drawers for another room, Edie, which we can personally recommend as a wonderful room for a weekend away in beautiful Norfolk.

If you'd like us to relove your hotel or B&B furniture, just drop us a line to tell us what you're after and we'll do our best to exceed your expectations.

As Hannah from Strattons told us: "The dressing table is beautiful and looks perfect in place; the detail is fab, especially inside the drawers... We are lucky to have two of your lovely pieces now. You certainly know how to deliver the perfect item."

Our chest in Edie

Changing Rooms

Those of you who follow us on Twitter or receive our updates on Facebook will have picked up on the fact that our house is a little, let’s say, “busy”.

Laura paints at home and we store our unpainted stock at home. Recently, we realised that there were pieces of furniture in our store room (most people’s dining room) that we’d had for years and my argument was that if Laura had wanted to paint them, she’d have done it by now.

Her argument was that she hasn’t got the time to work through it all.

There’s a good argument to be made for both.

The upshot of it all was that we had a bit of a clear out over the course of a few weeks and reassessed the way we work, particularly regarding storage of stock.

 

Just add doors... My terrible attempt a barbecue is just visible

We have a fairly large outbuilding, which is full of old bikes, broken lawnmowers, unused skateboards – that sort of thing.

One of the largest storage areas outside has no door on it, so we hatched a plan.

An old schoolmate of mine is going to make us a door for the larger shed – this will then hold our unpainted stock. It’s a big space, but small enough to help us be more disciplined in our buying habits. From now on, if there’s no room in the shed, it’s not coming home with us.

An established, secure brick outbuilding will now house all our painted stock waiting to be sold or moved to a sales space.

This frees up our old store room, which will now become the design studio Laura has always wanted.

 

Fabrics and tools now live here

Planks, thanks

While the room will still be used for storage, it will only be the pretty stuff that stays.

• A huge French 44-drawer unit now takes up a large part of the wall space – this will hold brushes, scalpels, glue, paint trays, screwdrivers, hammers and so on.
• Paint will be displayed for ease of use on shelves made from six old scaffolding planks.
• Fabrics (for when Laura finally gets the hang of upholstery) are contained in crates on a cute formica table, including one given to us by Layla when we went to visit her at French Grey Tales.
• A huge antique pine farmhouse table will be home to a new project Laura is working on (more on that at a later date).
• At the other end of the room will be a desk (we’re still looking for it) to house Laura’s computer, printer and associated gubbins.

The first two shelves - they haven't fallen down yet

And that’s not to mention the epic wallpaper stripping that needs to happen to remove the horrible textured paper and border left by a previous tenant…

It’s early days yet, but we hope that by next weekend, we’ll be another step closer and Laura can unleash her creative mayhem in more organised manner

We'll show you the finished room as soon as it's completed.

7 Reasons Pinching Other People’s Photos For Your Website Is Just Not Cool

The rights and wrongs of photo copyright online

A year or so ago, we noticed a lot of our web traffic was coming from people searching for a shop with a vaguely similar name to ours. Out of curiosity we Googled that shop and found their website – there, right on the homepage, was one of our photos. Taken by Laura, in our house, for our website. The nerve!

The site had other photos that had clearly come from various sources around the web – and the company’s Facebook page was the same (they were also building Likes by offering competition prizes they didn’t have – pictures stolen from US Etsy stores, that sort of thing - but that’s another story – though it did help us to build a mental image of the owners as either unscrupulous liars or simple idiots).

We immediately contacted the owner and asked them to remove our photo from their site and Facebook page.

 

The photo we found on someone else's website

In their defence, they replied within minutes to apologise and they took the photos down (replacing them with a photo lifted from another site…).

Their excuse? “We found the photo on Flickr and because there was a tin of Annie Sloan paint in the photo, we thought it was Annie Sloan’s copyright”

Where do we begin?

1. We couldn’t find the photo on Flickr anywhere, but that’s by the by…

2. How would it be Annie Sloan’s copyright? Does that make every photo of a bottle of Coke the property of Coca-Cola?

3. Even if it was Annie Sloan’s copyright, why would that make it ok for you to use?

Maybe it’s because I’ve worked all my adult life as a journalist and therefore am well-versed in copyright law and avoiding being sued at all costs, but it just seems completely bizarre to me that people think it’s alright to just steal photos for use on their own business website.

Painted by Laura, photographed by Laura, lifted by me

Here are our seven reasons stealing photos of other people's work is not okay.

1. You give a false impression of your business

Customers will automatically assume that the photos on your site are examples of your work – and if you’ve chosen particularly nice pieces of work to decorate your site, it’s unlikely that your work will live up to your customers’ expectations.

One of our most shared photos. Sharing's cool, stealing's not

2. You might get sued

Pinch a photo from the wrong place and you could be in trouble. Big companies take their intellectual copyright very seriously. We once used a piece of wallpaper featuring a well-known design and found ourselves on the wrong end of a solicitor’s email asking us to remove all images from our website and never do it again. Expect the same treatment if you nab the wrong image.

3. Someone else worked hard to make that thing

To you it’s just a photo of a chest of drawers, but to the person who created it, it’s the result of hours of work, financial input and creativity. They worked on it, they photographed it, they put it online to show off their work. And you just dragged it onto your desktop. 

I never noticed that wheelbarrow until now

4. It’s lazy. Quit being lazy.

Seriously, if you’re painting furniture, or making cushions or painting faces – whatever it is you do – how hard is it to take a photo of your work? Not happy with your camera or photography skills? Pay a local photographer to do it for you. Maybe you could even offer them payment in furniture/cushions/face-painting.

5. A great photo is the result of years of training and expense

Swiped a photo from another website because the photography’s great and better than you can do? Why not just break into your neighbour’s house and steal their TV because it’s bigger than yours? Good photography comes from years of practice, investment in a good camera, time spent setting up the shot and than editing it until it is just right... or you could just steal it. Your call.

One of our earliest pieces, complete with mini bunting

6. It’ll probably look a bit crap

A good website has consistent photography. The images all knit together and create a satisfying whole – because they’ve been taken by the same person, with the same camera and had the same post-processing applied. A bad website has images pulled in from here, there and everywhere – different shapes, sizes and resolutions. The site we mentioned earlier had photos lifted from a minimalist  apartment in Japan and a French farmhouse – and tried to pass off the furniture in both as examples of their past work!

7. It’s just not polite

It’s very rude to just take a photo from someone else and use it for your own benefit. Even on Facebook, where seemingly anything goes, it’s just plain ignorant to take a photo of someone’s work and post it on your page without tagging your source. Ask first, and even if you can’t ask/don’t get a reply/can’t tag – use your fingers and your keyboard to type in the name of the page or website where you found the photo. It’s just common courtesy.

What do you think? Have you had your photos stolen? Do you disagree and think it’s harmless to borrow images from other sites? Let us know here or at facebook.com/relovedvintage

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?

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

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

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?

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.