Blog - Page 2 of 4 - Vintage Matters

Posted on July 24, 2017 by Paul Cody

Our Vintage Furniture Project With Amazon!

Our current project is working with Amazon, to supply vintage furniture for their their new corporate office, opening in Shoreditch in East London, this month.

How excited are we?!

We have been working closely with an interior design studio, who “lead in the strategy and design of built environments, transforming organization culture and enhancing people’s lives”.

Vintage Matters were given the brief to source industrial and Mid Century furniture, including tables, chairs, sofas and lounge seating for their large reception area.

Our popular vintage stacking school chairs, made of plywood and tubular metal frames, were ideal seating for a very large industrial table, adding charm and colour to the reception area.

We spent a lot of time out in the markets and found this old industrial table base, made of cast iron, that was once used in a Belgian brewery to hold beer barrels. Now with a reclaimed timber top, it is perfect as a work station, with some high stools.

We had a lot of fun sourcing some cool and unusual Mid Century pieces, like these lounge chairs above and below.

All the lounge chairs and sofas have needed re-upholstering, to comply with fire regs for a commercial space, so were focussing mainly on finding great looking profiles of the various pieces, to help create an eclectic mix.

We can’t wait to show you the pieces in situ, which is happening very soon!

If you have an upcoming project for a commercial space that requires vintage furniture and accessories, where we can help add personality and character to a space, then please email [email protected]

Thank you!

Posted on July 5, 2017 by Paul Cody

Vintage Matters Commercial Furniture Project London

OUR LATEST COMMERCIAL PROJECT

We hope you are having a good Summer!

Over the past few months, we have been busy working with a London based furniture consultancy, who provide innovative solutions to offices, universities, restaurants and private residences.

Their client, Havas – an award-winning, global advertising and PR company, were moving to a new HQ, called HKX (Havas Kings Cross) and Vintage Matters were given the brief to supply vintage furniture for their new cafe, restaurant and reception area.

We worked closely with the design team, getting a good understanding of their needs and requirements for the various pieces of furniture, as well as timing and budget and then 3 weeks later presented our ideas on what was available out in the vintage markets.

We proposed visuals showing various styles of tables and chairs for the cafe and restaurant, along with guideline pricing and finally agreed on the overall look and aesthetic, the various spaces should have.

Off we went into the markets, sourcing vintage oak and mahogany tripod tables and bentwood cafe chairs. Good, well constructed chairs like these are hard to find these days, as they are in high demand for their vintage look and durability, especially the classic bentwood chairs, designed by Thonet.

Thonet was the pioneer of having light, strong wood bent into curved, graceful shapes, by forming the wood in hot steam. He produced his “Nr1” chair in 1850 and a year later won a bronze medal at the Great Exhibition in London!

We eventually sourced 58 vintage cafe chairs.

An important piece of furniture we had to source, was a very large statement table for the Havas reception area and we found this amazing 3.5 metre limed oak table.

Circa 1880, this table was originally used in the kitchen of a stately home in Bedfordshire and now takes pride of place in the new Havas reception at HKX!

If you have an upcoming project for a commercial space that requires vintage furniture and accessories, where we can help add personality and charm, then please email [email protected]

We are currently working on a very exciting commercial project for a large online retailer 😉

….watch this space!

Thank you.

Posted on June 8, 2017 by Paul Cody

Vintage Furniture London Online

VINTAGE FURNITURE

When we are out in the markets, we are always on the hunt for unusual, beautiful and most importantly, useful pieces of vintage furniture to bring an environment to life for our customers.

We source for retailers, offices, hotels, restaurants and cafes as well as individuals and find that more and more people are looking for that “special piece” of furniture, to add personality to a space.

Vintage Black Chest of Drawer

Recently we sold this amazing vintage school shoe rack (below) to a hotel in Germany. They told us they had been trying to source something like this for months for their lobby and this was just perfect.

It’s so satisfying sourcing and supplying for companies and people when you can find them that perfect piece. It is often really difficult for people to know exactly what they want until they see it, and that’s how Vintage Matters can help. We are regularly sent photographs of spaces or rooms and asked to find furniture or props to work in the space.

Our vintage leather club armchairs that we source from France are hugely popular, as they add such character to a space and are amazingly comfortable. We supply Le Labo Fragrances with these chairs, for their retail stores in the UK and Europe.

We are always on the lookout for those special pieces for our retail customers too, like this old vintage wooden workbench below, which is an ideal piece for displaying product on.

Researching the provenance of a vintage piece is always fun and interesting. We found that this workbench was used by a company called Frederick Pollard, who were established in 1911 in Leicester and were the makers of high speed drills.

Old bakers racks, factory shoe racks or fruit drying racks, like the one below, are really versatile pieces of furniture and can be used in so many rooms within a house. They provide a great deal of storage space and are also ideal in a retail environment providing a great display piece for visual merchandising. We think they look pretty cool too!

We are excited to be working on a large commercial project, sourcing numerous pieces of industrial and mid century furniture pieces for a huge reception space, opening this Summer in Shoreditch, London. We can’t say who it is right now, but we think you will know them!

We have found some pretty cool pieces, which we are being reupholstered, so they comply with all UK fire regulations.

Our vintage beer table and bench sets are now back in stock! These are authentic pieces, originally used at various beer festivals in Germany and are perfect for al fresco dining or outdoor entertaining, this Summer.

The orange painted pine table is heavy duty and sturdy, with two wooden benches with folding green steel legs. It has a very simple but effective design, that has stood the test of time, that makes each piece quickly and easily fold flat for storage.

We have to mention our vintage school chairs on this blog, as people really connect with them, reminding them of old school days! These authentic chairs were hugely popular in the 1950’s and 1960’s, not only in schools, but in hospitals, community centres and church halls, as they took up much less space when stacked.

These vintage stacking school chairs are ideal for the home, a cafe or restaurant, or office, wanting a vintage look and with lots of different styles and coloured frames to choose from.

So, if you are looking for a special, unique piece of vintage furniture for your home or business, please email [email protected] with a description, approximate dimensions and your budget and we will happily source for you and send you photos when we are out in the markets.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Posted on May 3, 2017 by Paul Cody

Reclaimed Letters | Competition | London | Vintage Matters

WIN A RECLAIMED VINTAGE LETTER!

As I am sure you all aware we have a thing for letters!

We personally, have been collecting vintage, reclaimed and salvaged letters ourselves for years and then we started reconditioning them to sell at Vintage Matters. As I’m sure you can imagine our collection just keeps growing, as we can’t resist a bit of beautiful or unusual type.

We source our letters globally, which gives us a fantastic variety – from illuminated to non-illuminated and in a variety of materials, from metal to wood to resin.

Like so many of our products we wonder what life they had previously and how they were used – most are reclaimed from shop fronts, pubs, railways and demolished buildings.

We love to know the provenance of our letters – some you instantly recognise like the red T.G.I Friday ones above and some stunning Mercedes Benz letters that have just come in.

Sometimes we just hit a blank though, like we did when we found a number of blue and yellow letters at a market – then in a light bulb moment, realised they were from Blockbuster Video stores!

We still have some of these letters available at www.vintagematters.co.uk/letters/

Mostly we have our letters for purely decorative purposes, lovingly scattered around our home, but they can also be used for branding or signage in bars, cafes, pubs, retail stores, offices etc., both inside and out, to make a real statement.

The image below shows a mix of vintage letters and letter lights that we sprayed red, for a commercial project, showing the company’s name in their reception area.

Some of our favourite reclaimed letters we stock are these amazing large illuminated ones that we get from the US – everything just seems bigger and bolder from there!

When they arrive though, they certainly need some serious tender love and care. Most of them would have been exterior signage, so have been out in the elements for most of their lives, which gives them great character and also means they need some work before we can get them online.

When they arrive with us, the first job is taking them apart and giving them a good clean. Even though we are aware they have been used outside, we are still amazed by the amount of dirt and tumble weed that has collected inside – maybe they were formally lighting up the strip in Vegas?!

When we open the channel letters for cleaning, we strip out all the old glass neon tubes and wiring, which is not a particularly fun job, but very necessary.

In order to return them to their former glory and for them to be electrically safe, we recondition them with new LED’s and a UK 3-pin plug.

This has taken a certain amount of practice to get the lighting correct and also takes a fair amount of patience, fixing the LED’s around all the serifs and bends that our letters tend to have. Once we have wired them up and checked we have a good even glow, they are ready for photography, though sometimes we have to cut new light omitting acrylic fronts, if they have too many marks or cracks and replace any trims that are too worn.

It’s always a fine balance with vintage pieces, just how many character marks we allow before replacing or cleaning it up. We one have one simple rule or question that we ask ourselves – would we be happy buying that piece and having it in our house? If the answer is “yes”, then it is good to photograph and get online to find a new home.

Our letters look fantastic hung on a wall or on a book shelf and make for an amazing personal gift for someone, or start collecting your initials.

We have a huge amount of reclaimed and salvaged letters that are coming online so keep a look out, or contact [email protected] if you are looking for a specific letter.

This week sees the start of a competition, in collaboration with our friends at Warehouse Home, where you can win one of our salvaged letters*, simply by logging on to Twitter, retweeting the competition and following both @mywarehousehome and @vintagematters for a chance to win a letter of your choice that we have online.

You can also follow us on Instagram as @vintagemattersuk or our new feed, which is for fans of fonts and typography, where we have branded ourselves @thelettermenuk !

Good luck in the competition!

* the competition is to win one of our salvaged letters from a shop front or pub and does not include our letter lights

Posted on April 27, 2017 by Paul Cody

Urban Flowers | Carolyn Dunster | Vintage Matters

This month saw the launch of a beautiful new book, called Urban Flowers, by Carolyn Dunster and we were delighted to see that one of our products was featured on the front cover!

We met Carolyn at one of our pop up events at West Elm and she was impressed with all our various storage pieces that we had, that had the potential to work as planters in a small urban space.

Urban Flowers gives help and advice on choosing your style and personalising your space and selecting interesting pieces to give your urban garden character and personality.

Carolyn selected an old vintage suitcase from us, which was first lined and then filled with campanula, so it spilled out, as you can see above, on the front cover of the book.

You can see Carolyn has also used old vintage stoneware pots, as planters – we love the old glaze running down the sides, giving the pots real character!

Look out for these at the many vintage fairs, flea markets and car boot sales around the country.

We think this vintage olive picking basket, at only £45, is a perfect vessel for a small herb garden.

Originally, the small slotted holes allowed the olives to breathe during harvesting, but once planted up, they allow water to drain freely, so the plants do not get waterlogged, which is important.

The aim of the book is to show you how it is possible to have an urban garden in the tiniest and most unlikely of places, which also helps create an urban habitat for wildlife.

There is a chapter devoted to “Evaluating Your Space” and using clever design tricks to make the most of your garden and the use of pots and containers, because for many people this is their only option, as they have no soil.

At Vintage Matters, we have a great assortment of vintage zinc planters in different shapes and sizes, perfect for the urban garden or balcony.

We also carry sets of 3 galvanised planters, which are hugely popular and again, ideal for a small urban space.

Fill with your favourite herbs or annuals to create a stunning display, especially when the pots are grouped together.

We think this set of 3 planters, with aged brass handles are pretty cool! Made of galvanised steel, they are weather resistant, but will age over time which just adds to their character.

This colourful book, bursting with beautiful photographs by Jason Ingram, gives advice on choosing, using and combining plants for small urban spaces, as well as experimenting with colour.

It contains 14 easy projects to decorate your outdoor space throughout the year and lots of helpful hints and tips for cutting, drying and harvesting home grown plants for indoor displays and bouquets.

Don’t forget the use of props to help dress your space too, as these really help bring personality to a space, like old vintage watering cans, which are practical too, or vintage garden tools , like these hand forks below, which are an easy find at vintage fairs and can add a splash of colour too.

Adding a mirror to your urban garden can dramatically increase the feeling of space, whilst creating interesting reflections. We love these old windows that have been repurposed with mirrors.

Read the Evening Standard’s recent article with Carolyn – Grow Your Own – how to cultivate beautiful cut flowers in the smallest city gardens.

“Urban Flowers – Creating An Abundance In A Small City Garden” is published by Frances Lincoln and is available at a special price of only £16.95 plus postage, via the following link:

www.urban-flowers.co.uk/book.php

Posted on January 19, 2017 by Paul Cody

Versatile Storage

A Versatile Storage Solution!

Hello and a warm welcome to the new people who have recently joined our mailing list over the holidays.

Thank you to everyone who visited our pop up event back at West Elm in December – it is always good to meet new people and see our regular customers again.

It’s that time of year when we think about decluttering and organising our homes, so we thought we would share with you, our versatile, vintage wooden bakers rack, which can be used in practically any room in the house!

Cost: £280 including free delivery within the UK mainland

www.vintagematters.co.uk/product/vintage-pine-bakers-rack/

Vintage Wooden Bakers Rack Versatile Storage Solution Bathroom

We have shown it here as a practical storage solution for the bathroom, as it has six shelves, so is ideal for holding a number of towels and toiletries, along with a few decorative pieces.

Vintage Wooden Bakers Rack Versatile Storage Solution Kitchen

This characterful bakers rack would also look at home in either a contemporary or traditional kitchen, for the storage of crockery, glassware and kitchen towels, or even vegetables.

Vintage Wooden Bakers Rack Versatile Storage Solution Bedroom

Here we show the rack used in a bedroom, showing the versatility of the piece, with lots of room for the storage of t-shirts, jeans and trousers, sweaters and space underneath for shoes.

It would work well for a lady too, for storing clothes, belts and bags – or use it just for the huge number of shoes you own!

The rack would also make an interesting display piece in a retail store, or in a cafe or restaurant for storage.

You really do not see many of these out in the markets and good, authentic ones like this are unfortunately getting harder to find.

So good luck, if you are decluttering in January!

www.vintagematters.co.uk

Posted on December 11, 2016 by Paul Cody

Gifts for Him

GIFTS FOR HIM

Hello!

We hope you are having a good Sunday and enjoying the amazing Winter sunshine we have today!

If you are looking for a unique gift for that special man in your life, then have a look at some of our favourite ideas below.

Large Vintage Silverplate Cocktail Shaker

We have a great selection of vintage silverplate barware, like this handsome cocktail shaker, originally from the USA.

£140

For the intrepid traveller, what about this giant vintage wall map of Europe, which is a real statement piece and sure to be a conversation starter in any room or office?

Made in Germany in the 1960’s, this original geographical vintage wall map, at over 2 metres high, is printed on high quality paper and then backed with canvas.

We have other vintage wall maps of Africa, India, South America and the Middle East available.

£240

This would make a fantastic gift for the man in your life – a classic vintage Jielde desk lamp, from the 1950’s where it was used in a factory as a work lamp.

The Jielde lamp is an iconic French industrial piece.

£420

How about a really thoughtful, personal gift, with one of our vintage initials or letter lights?

These reclaimed letters have been salvaged from shop fronts and pubs from across the globe.

Prices range from £20 – £180 dependent on the size

Milton Brooke Extra Large Mortar & Pestle

The only mortar & pestle you will ever need!

Made in Stoke on Trent, by Milton Brook who were established over 150 years ago, this vitrified porcelain mortar & pestle, with a handy pour spout, is incredibly strong, with a very dense structural base for easy crushing and grinding of herbs and spices, to extract maximum flavour.

This high quality mortar & pestle has been used for decades by professional chefs and home cooks alike.

£16 (small) £29 (extra large)

These unique framed vintage prints of boxwood rules are taken from the I & D Smallwood Ruler Catalogue, circa 1912 and mounted on acid-free board, with a simple wooden black frame.

Only £60

Vintage American Fire Extinguisher Brass

This one-off, vintage American fire extinguisher is made from highly polished solid copper and features a brass plate around the exterior with instructions engraved on and was likely to have been made in 1930’s – 1940’s.

£240

Our vintage silverplate champagne cooler featuring the classic gadroon edging pattern, is perfect for chilling bottles of Champagne or wine this holiday season.

£120

We hope you have enjoyed looking at our “Gifts for Him” selection!

We will have a number of unique, one-off gifts at our next pop up event at West Elm, Tottenham Court Road, London, from Friday 16th through Sunday 18th, if you want to come and have a look in person.

Happy Christmas shopping!

www.vintagematters.co.uk

Posted on December 9, 2016 by Paul Cody

Gifts for Her

GIFTS FOR HER

Here are our top favourite gift ideas for that special female in your life, whether it be your Mum, Grandma, Daughter, Sister, Cousin, Aunt, Neice or your BFF!

Great value at only £20, these amazing scented candles are hand made in the UK, using the finest ingredients and have a long burn time of 40 hours.

Choose from one of three fragrances:

No. 1 Green Fig – No. 2 Green Tea & Passion Fruit – No. 3 Pomegranate

These vintage pickling jars from Eastern Europe make fantastic indoor terrariums, when planted up, or they could be used as a pillar candle holder also.

Available in 3 sizes – pricing from £30

This simple but striking, copper frames with an aged finish, have been hand-welded by skilled artisans in India.

These frames with a glass front and back, are perfect for displaying photographs, drawings, or mementos and are available in three sizes.

Create an original gift, with a keepsake or memento of something that you have done together!

Great pricing on our frames from only £14

How about a really thoughtful, personal gift, with one of our vintage initials or letter lights?

These reclaimed letters have been salvaged from shop fronts and pubs from across the globe.

Prices range from £20 – £180 dependent on the size

Our vintage oversized green glass bottles, originally used for fermenting wine or apple juice are hugely popular.

They make a stunning decorative piece in a room, either empty, or with a single stem of foliage in, to create a real impact.

Prices from £65

These glass and copper keepsake boxes, are hand-crafted and each piece is individually welded together.

These practical and stylish decorative storage boxes, can be used to hold a variety of small items, from stationary items in the office, to jewellery, keepsakes and momentos.

Prices start from only £18

Our ceramic white Gluggle Jug, was originally made back in the 1870’s!

When filled with liquid, air is trapped in the fish’s tail and as the liquid is poured out again, the air is gradually released and produces a surprisingly loud gurgling or ‘gluggling’ sound, which makes for a great conversation piece at the dinner table or at parties.

This versatile ceramic white Gluggle Jug can be used for water or wine, to hold utensils, or as a vase.

£29

Our vintage silverplate candlesticks and candelabra would make a lovely gift for someone who loves to entertain.

At Vintage Matters, we like to mix different styles and sizes of candle holders together, to form an interesting, eclectic collection!

Prices from only £28

We hope that this has inspired you to think of something a little unusual, whilst looking for that “Gift for Her”.

Don’t worry – “Gifts for Him” will be out this Sunday!

For those of you who may be in London next week, we will be back at West Elm on Tottenham Court Road for another pop up event, from Friday 16th through Sunday 18th, where we will have a number of unique gifts available to buy.

Happy Christmas shopping!

www.vintagematters.co.uk

Posted on December 2, 2016 by Paul Cody

Christmas Shopping at Vintage Matters

CHRISTMAS SHOPPING AT VINTAGE MATTERS

December 1st has now passed, so it is officially time to start your Christmas shopping!

We would like to share with you our latest unique, one-off vintage pieces that we have found at the various antique markets, along with some new homeware, which would make ideal Christmas gifts.

Here is a view of part of our new homepage, featuring a wide selection of our vintage gifts, to whet your appetite…

We recently changed the layout of our website, making it easier to browse and shop.

All our latest finds are now featured on our homepage, or you can view through four categories:

We have hundreds of gift ideas online and hope that you can find that unique, personal gift for your family and friends.

For those of you who may be in London later in December, we will be back at West Elm on Tottenham Court Road for another pop up event, from Friday 16th through Sunday 18th.

Happy Christmas shopping!

www.vintagematters.co.uk

Posted on October 8, 2016 by Paul Cody

Vintage Matters – One Year On!

VINTAGE MATTERS – ONE YEAR ON!

Here we are – October 2016 – one year on from our online launch and first pop up at West Elm, London!

What an amazing year it has been and we thought we would share some of the many highlights.

We have travelled far and wide searching for unique pieces to bring to your home or workplace and met many amazing people along the way, who are all as passionate about vintage, as we are.

West Elm have kindly hosted 5 pop up events for us, which have been extremely successful, giving us great brand exposure on Tottenham Court Road in London and we now have customers returning to see what new finds we have.

Among the many pieces we have sold there, one was a scientific instrument that a gentleman bought to train his performing fleas on…

And just last week, someone bought a lovely cast iron window mirror for the garden, solely for the use by William – the pet peacock!

We are back at West Elm for a Christmas pop up event, 16th -18th December.

Our vintage letters and letter lights continue to be hugely popular, as people really connect with them. We have over 100 letters in stock and more on the way.

If you are after a specific letter, drop us an email at [email protected] and we can send images, costs and dimensions of those that are currently being reconditioned, that are not yet online.

www.vintagematters/co.uk/letters

Vintage Matters has been featured in The Metro, Warehouse Home, Reclaim Magazine and in various blogs.

In April 2016, we were delighted to have our home featured in “25 Beautiful Homes”, which has become an ever evolving showcase of product for Vintage Matters.

You can read the article via the following link: www.vintagematters.co.uk/blog

We have been active in the commercial sector too, including a brief to supply vintage pieces of furniture and accessories to a new office in Old Street, London, which resulted in a great feature in INEX Magazine.

Furniture and accessories have been supplied to prestigious brands like Le Labo Fragrances , Shinola through Michael Veal Design and Hawksmoor Restaurant, as well as a number of props for the current TV show,”Taskmaster“.

We have been busy posting and tweeting on various social media channels and now have over 700 followers on Instagram and over 500 on Twitter, along with a growing presence on Facebook, Pinterest and G+

Our mailing list is growing rapidly too and you can sign up quickly and easily on our home page.

Currently, we are searching for a retail space in South East London, to open our first store which we are very excited about and we are out in the markets sourcing some special pieces for Christmas.

We would like to say a huge THANK YOU to all our customers and followers for your support and we look forward to an exciting year ahead!

[email protected]

www.vintagematters.co.uk