The team and I have been decamped in Birmingham this last week, hence I’ve been a little behind in answering comments – apologies. We launched our new collection (the one I showed you guys last week) to retailers and quite frankly we were and are blown away. We had to close the London store and pull the whole team onto the stand it was so crazy. We had ques 2 or 3 deep at times we were so overwhelmed by the reaction, I’ve never ever known anything quite like it in my life. As for the faux botanical’s – OMG they went down beyond our wildest dreams. I’ve returned home sick as, I’m not sure if its flu but its sure feeling bad, Gem nearly lost her voice and for the last two nights I haven’t slept a wink. I’m not sure if its the adrenalin or what but I just cannot switch off, there is so much to process. Retailers, restaurants, architects, hotels, show homes, garden centres all wanting the range. I’m never on the store floor anymore so for Gem and I to get the reaction we got over this last week and especially with the faux’s was the hugest high. We’ve taken them in such a different direction and had no idea what the feed back would be – well its been beyond our wildest dreams is all I can say. Incredible. Thank you Birmingham for embracing us so amazingly.
Down to biz, its lovely to be back home and with the M’s (there has been quite a lot of snuggling) – so lets talk makeovers. More specifically my cabin makeover.
I keep forgetting to show you guys my cabin, – before and after shots its amazing what you can do if you have a plan. I’ll digress slightly for one sec in Birmingham we also had a cabin theme. A huge metre Japanese black pine stood outside the sweetest little cabin we built. We had an outdoor little garden with all our grasses where people walked through to our cabin. One customer was so in awe she lost control of her automated Zimmer and landed up in the wood chip smashed into the black pine! OMG
Anyways back to my cabin. One Saturday night, late ish I was browsing through eBay in bed (something I never do) so why I choose to on this day is beyond me; anyways I saw this summer house pop up. Orange-y brown and pretty horrid looking I saw an image in my head of what it could look with like with a bit of TLC. I bid on it – got if for £100 and then realised it was miles away (oops – G and David then had to drive for hours and go and dismantle the thing, huge pain and then drive back). See first pic that was its original home.
That slight little glitch over we hit another one. We couldn’t get it through the door in the house so G had to chop it up a smidge. Next problem up it goes in its orange state only for me to realise the whole garden had to change, as it looked too disconnected with everything else. A cabin at one end, a terrace at the other and a big patch of stone in the centre. I started googling forest paths and knew immediately that I wanted to plant up the whole garden like a forest, a path running down the middle, have a deck in front of the cabin and viola!
Bigger project then than planned!
Painting out the inside black wasn’t enough it felt a little too shed like with its quite basic slated walls to I clad it and that as they say was the game changer. My cabin is as small as anything, big enough only really for one (moi) somewhere I go write and think and maybe listen to my new fav radio station, FIP (especially in the evening as they play the best jazz).
Then there is a console in there, a chair (soon to be replaced by a wood burning stove) and that is they say is pretty much that! Happy days. Have a good one, I’m burning hot so I’m going to walk the M’s in a snail like fashion to the coffee shop to get some fresh air. Something I’ve seen nothing off for the last 7!
