Wednesday 24 February 2010

Hello Again, this is the 4th installment to the store blog.

Today I want to tell you about a the carpenter who made the screen in the picture. Kate Giljam. I met Kate last year when she had started to do a carpentry course and roped her into working Saturday's in the store. I was soon to discover that she had ambitions to make furniture.

Then I got a client in who wanted us to make her a coffee table out of an existing set of legs and and existing farm door. So I approached Kate with the idea, asking her if she would be prepared to make the table. She jumped at the opportunity and consequently made the coffee table. Needless to say, the client was happy, Kate was happy and I was thrilled.

Then in the beginning of this year we approached her with some designs for screens and some other simple furniture items. We gave her a brief saying that we wanted her to use reclaimed timber and the dimensions and let her come back to us with a product.

The screen is what she came back to us with.

Not bad for a girl of 23.

We plan on doing more work with her if she wants to work with us.

Monday 22 February 2010

Hello and welcome to my 3rd post on the stores blog.

Today I want to tell a little story about one of the stores clients. Last week I had a woman who popped in with 2 friends of hers. They had never been into the store before and they were both enchanted by what we had to offer. They were especially fascinated by the little porcelain birds that I have in stock. The birds are designed by a woman here in Cape Town and she send them off to China where they are slip caste and sent back here and sold locally. The company is called LUNA C.

The woman and her fiernds, all in turn bought a few birds and we wrapped them for her and her friends and they left the store.

The next day the woman was back. She said she was so happy with the little birds that she wanted to buy some more. She said that she had gone out for dinner and had given one of the birds as a thank you gift. She said the gift was so well received that she wanted to have more to use as thank you gifts. She also told me that her friend had called her bird FRED and now she back to buy more FRED'S. So the birds have now been christened FREDS.

Today she popped back in with a whole new bunch of friends. This time her friends were visiting from Durban and they once again bought some more FREDS, plus a whole lot of other porcelain pieces that we have in stock.

So this is just a thank you to that customer for loving our store and bring her friends back to buy FREDS.

WEDNESDAY 17 FEBRUARY 2010

Good morning and welcome to day 2 of this blog.

In our store we have a newly upholstered chair, a Starck wingback chair. When we first purchased the chair we were under the impression that maybe it was a Florence Knoll chair. Then we turned it over and discovered it had a stamp "MADE BY G.H.STARCK LTB".

I asked around and no one seemed to know anything about the maker of the chair. Then we came across 5 dinning room chairs also with the same stamp underneath. Then I googled it. Naturally I got millions of sites mentioning Phillip Starch chairs, but that wasn't the Starch I was looking for.

Eventually I came up with some info. There was a G. H. Starch that left his estate to a trust that would look after the aged. His original home in Durbanville, Cape Town. His name was George Henry Starck and his wife's name was Annie Starck and the old age home is called after his wife. In the text about the home there is a one liner that mentions that George Starck came to South Africa after World War 2 and made his money making furniture.

With a little more investigation I discovered that there was a Starck furniture factory in the Johannesburg area that now makes airoplane parts.

And that seems all I have found out about the man. If any one has any more information please feel free to share it with me.

TUESDAY 16 FEBRUARY 2010

Today is my first day at this. I have never done a blog before but this is about a fun interaction between all of you out there and me here in my store. I want us to talk about the furniture I have manufactured and the pieces I buy in. I want us to say what you like and what you don't like and why. So I the owner of the store can learn about what works and what does not. I of course will get carried away and talk constantly about what makes me excited and that could be both good and bad. So if you get bored just say, "hey Wayne, please talk about something else!" and I will do my best.

But for now it is about the store, what we have in stock and what we are planning to do.

Please feel free to comment all sorts of the stuff. I will try and upload new pictures as often as possible.

love

wayne