Sunday 12 May 2013

You Gotta Roll With It


And so we began to build....

What started as a kitchen and ground floor revamp, soon became the whole house - well if you're goanna do it, just get the hell on and do it I say. (I've never actually said and I don't usually sound like an old man from New York but you see what I'm getting at). 

Many important decisions to be made, much sourcing to do, many fags to be smoked (again, the builders not me). 

My natural inclination to mix reclaimed with new, junkyard bargains with statement investment pieces was a shared vision with my lovely clients. So I set too... trawling the internet, junk shops, the streets (the actual streets) by way of artisan makers and the odd concept design store (a refreshing treat) to bring the house back together piece by piece. 

Whilst I stand by this technique whole-heartedly, for both aesthetic and ethical reasons, do not be fooled into thinking it's an easy option. It isn't.. it is long, arduous and painstakingly laborious, but, but my friends well worth the effort. Apart from anything else, I'm Northern and we Northerners love a bargain and a spot of make do and mend!

Make no mistake, it's getting harder, we're all at it and prices have rocketed, but with enough digging it's still possible to snap up a gem. Cut to a weekend in March, dilapidated village hall in the rough side of Burnley (that's the North), a literal blizzard is raging outside but what they lack in heating they make up in fabric. Rolls and rolls of the stuff piled from floor to ceiling, all abandoned off-cuts from high-end producers, now packed in tighter than proverbial sardines in a can. It's nigh on impossible to actually see the stuff without brute like strength to free a roll from its squished up neighbours. But with patience, sweat inducing effort and a spot of sweet talking the perma-tanned shop assistant, Karl, it is a veritable treasure trove of quality fabric at bargain prices ranging from 50p - £5 a meter for the very top end stuff! Now, that, folks, is how I roll.

So it was.... piece by cast-off piece, a home began to emerge from the rubble.