“The trouble with Michael is that he had to buy all his own furniture…”
And so say most of us – in so much as we have to buy our own furniture. Someone I know recently took possession of her elderly mother’s furniture when the grand old lady’s house was sold to pay for her care home bills. The quality of her furniture was fine and well preserved but the sheer size of it meant that it had no place in a bog standard London terrace. Not many of us have hallways that can (even if we wanted to) accommodate a vast Victorian oak hall stand, or a dining room that could comfortably fit a huge mahogany banquet table. In fact these days having a dining room doesn’t even come as standard. So it was off to the auction house with all the big wooden stuff and with the funds she purchased a lovely pair of Edwardian arm chairs. She is currently having them re-upholstered in Morris & Co’s Forest velvet.
This week in the workshop another customer brought in a beautiful kidney shaped sofa that he had inherited from his mother and had it shipped all the way from Canada to the UK. It is lovely knowing that the sofa will be brought back to life to spend another life-time in the same family but equally I see my friend’s purchased bit of history as just as wonderful and I’m sure in their own inanimate way the Edwardian twins are looking forward to their new livery and home.
