Merrow Sideboard

This stunning Merrow Associates sideboard we sold last year now sits opposite a Mies Van Der Rohe Barcelona chair in the entrance of an equally stunning property in Cheshire.

Needless to say this isn't the only Merrow Associates piece at the property as with most Merrow buyers, one piece just isn't enough.

We currently have a couple of Merrow Associates pieces for sale; the lovely nest of tables and the ultra rare luxurious leather and chrome daybed.

Its always nice to see where the pieces we sell end up. We go on a mini journey with each one from buying to research, restoration/upholstery, imaging to finally offering the finished piece for sale.

The journey end is when we deliver and say 'goodbye'. For the rarer pieces we often drive away wondering if we will ever be lucky enought to find another.

Yellow Wonderwall

We LOVE the lime-yellow wall in our back room!

Three things inspired us to use this zingy shade; the yellow aprons worn by the cooks on Lucienne Day's 1959 design - Too Many Cooks, tea towel; an abstract tile by Ann Wynn Reeves, Kenneth Clark Pottery for H & R Johnson circa 1960 and Designers Guild upholstery fabric - Alchemilla in Brera Linen which we used on the 1950s suite for sale on our website

Even though we had a long old wait before we could finally paint the plaster, it was worth it. Over a year has passed and we still love the colour on this wall!

In Autumn it was mellow and peaceful and picked up the colours of the falling leaves; winter it was warm and cozy ...looked so beautiful with our morso wood burning stove; Spring sprung and it made us feel cheerful and optimistic and when the long hot days (wishful thinking) of Summer finally arrive, it will be cool and calming.

We are just about to embark on a major restoration of our front room...wonderwall will happen there...?

A SLICE OF NICE

Early last week I was inspired by a room shot which featured a very bright yellow 'Slice' chair. Designed by Pierre Paulin and manufactured by Artifort in the early 1960s. It reminded me of the pair we bought a couple of years back. They were original 60s editions covered in a rather drab nondescript not blue not grey contract hopsack - so wrong for these exuberant cheerful smiling chairs. They were in a sad and sorry state from sitting in a dank and fusty spot for years and being the chairhounds that we are, we knew exactly what to do to to give them a new lease of life.

Blessed with our genius upholsterer, they were stripped right down to the bare frame which is shell of pressed peach wood , stainless steel frame and very few fixings. They were rebuilt using fire retardant high density foam core and recovered. We absolutely had to use a typical 1960s orange wool for one and allowed ourselves to get carried away with the other. We chose to pay homage to the fabulous 1960s design 'Circuit' by Barbara Brown for Heals Fabrics Ltd.

They worked our rather well, don't you think?

Both sold rather quick, the Circuit Slice now lives in a penthouse apartment in Taipei, Taiwan, the Orange Slice is somewhere in London.

Thank you to Paul @retrorumage and @obsessilicious for providing the inspiration to write the blog.

A flock of ERCOL armchairs

Hello everyone especially our two new followers. Put on POSITIVE head this morning; done 'work', finally joined chairsmith.blogspot.com - it's a wonderful dose of inspiration which gives me a dose of blog inadequacy every time I read it, but it also inspires me to try harder. Then I decided to show you some of the vintage Ercol armchairs we have taken under our wing. These are just a few, there are too many to show in one go and now I will get told off by Josh for only ever blogging about Ercol...sorry Josh!

Here we go..feast your eyes...I think my favourite is the solid elm seat 503 tub chair upholstered using the tea cups fabric...whats yours?

Ole Wanscher Armchairs - Before and After

A while ago we gave a pair of Ole Wanscher Armchairs the Love Vintage treatment, here are the results.

Before

After

They didn't make it onto the website as friends of ours snapped them up for their lovely flat in The Barbican, where the chairs look completely at home along side the lovely G-Plan Sofa Bed. 

Thought it would be nice to show a few pieces in a more natural environment than the blank studio ...... I will also add a few images of the Merrow Sideboard in situ which ended up as part of a fantastic renovation in Cheshire.

Robin Day - Design Hero

Robin Day's highboard featured in Elle Decoration

The highboard in our studio

The lower version may be an even rarer piece

One more Robin Day sideboard blog.....we promise!

Really cool exhibition highlighted in this month Elle Decoration. From March 26 - June 26, you can see Robin Day's rare early pieces and key furniture from the Festival of Britain in the exhibition 'Robin and Lucienne Day: Design and the Modern Interior' at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester, West Sussex. Among the furniture on display will be a very rare highboard on loan from Target Gallery London "The sideboard, dining table and chair are represented in this exhibition, the only examples to survive intact and complete" ... well there's definitely one more highboard and a lovely low version to.

These very rare early designs were Robin Day's first pieces of work for Hille. Very few were produced and I have really struggled to find any detailed information about these pieces. What is clear is they were a little ahead of their time and didn't take off as expected. It's great to see they are being shown and appreciated as pioneering designs.

The sideboards will be available to buy on our website from next week.

Ship Ahoy!!

Thank you thank you to our new blog followers ... not that there will be much ....we are bad bloggers its a case of life interrupts us!

But today I have to made the effort to say a great big thank you to Minimoderns for giving us such a lovely credit on the new opening page of the website....which looks gorgeous, by the way..

We met Minimoderns at Tent last year and our paths crossed again recently. Our furniture and their products are such a perfect fit we were happy to team up our very rare Robin Day sideboard (still coming soon!) and their new Whitby wallpaper.

By the way have you seen the Robin Day feature in this months Elle Deco...there's the sideboard...the other one of the pair we have coming soon ...

ROBIN DAY HILLE SIDEBOARDS COMING SOON...

....coming soon we have a pair of exceedingly rare Robin Day sideboards. Thought you may like a sneak preview of them. They have been fully restored and look simply stunning! What do you think..?

New items in our collection...

This month we have one of the rarest Merrow Associates pieces ever made, the Merrow Associates daybed...

We also have an Ercol modular seating system in various shades of Designers Guild 'Brera' linen...

As well as this unusual de sede design, the DS140 sofa by Reto Frigg...

1950s KITE STRINGs FABRIC - A CLASSIC!

Today I'm thinking about 'KITE STRINGS' designed in 1955 by David Parsons for Heals Fabrics Ltd. It's a gorgeous atomic design with a strong scientific influence and has become something of a 1950s classic! The gorgeous zingy bright colourways this beautiful fabric was produced in , added a real lift to 50s homes after the gruelling war years.

It was produced in at least 3 different colourways; red, yellow and a very rare mauve-grey...here's a picture of the red colourway .

We have all 3 colour ways in stock and will be adding the wall- art and cushions to our new textile collection very soon...

LUCIENNE DAY ALL THE WAY....

Love Vintage Furniture has been collecting ( and adoring) Lucienne Day's wonderful textile designs.... we've had some stretched and mounted as wall art and popped them into our latest collection update...we chose; MEZZANINE; MISCELLANY; LINDEN & TICKER TAPE for starters...

DANISH INSPIRED ...

We had a visit last week from furniture designer and maker Liam Treanor. He came to have a good look around our warehouse for ideas and inspiration.

We both have a passion for mid century Danish design, particularly Finn Juhl and Arne Jacobsen.

The Arne Jacobsen Ant chairs and Egg table (Myran) suite is a wonderful example of design from this period, combining intricate production techniques with amazing materials to create a simple yet beautiful design.

(This suite is available on our website)

One of my favourite pieces from this era is Finn Juhl's Chieftain chair. I haven't found one yet, or even come close for that matter but one day I would love to own one.

You can really see the Danish influence in Liam's designs, have a look at the Alvar Aalto inspired Carabao chair at - www.liamtreanor.co.uk

COMING SOON TO THE COLLECTION

We have some beautiful items for the website next week, including a new selection of wall art.

So look forward to...

An extremely rare Poul M. Volther daybed 

A selection of lovely G-plan stools

An early 1950s Finn Juhl style suite (used in this months Elle Decoration ad)

We've also got together a wonderful selection of our vintage textiles and created some beautiful wall art.

Here's a sneak peak of the 1950s suite....

LUCIENNE DAY 'MISCELLANY' WALL ART

Miscellany - a mixture of various things; a medley...designed by Lucienne Day in 1952 for British Celanese...this exquisite textile lives up to its name indeed....keep on reading the blog...our wall art is coming.....we've had just 4 of these stretched ..available for sale right now...

klassikmobelkunst.com/buy/art/1995/original-miscellany-wall-art-lucienne-day
or:
www.folksy.com/shops/lovevintagefurniture

A pile of pansies....

...and these too......sitting on the very gorgeous Ercol modular chairs we showed off at Tent London a couple of weeks back...

Christmas is coming.....

it's getting all Chrismassy at the LVF warehouse ! I was down there earlier and it was baubles everywhere for styling our half-page ad in the December edition of Elle Decoration....that Merrow Associates Daybed is seriously sexy even though we do say so ourselves!

however - I need to keep my mind on.... cushions! .....we've got ooodles of them in all sorts of fabulous fabric combos; vintage and contemporary designs, tartans, checks, linens , wools and silks.

here's an image of our latest offering - this gorgeous autumnal Liberty of London Ianthe fabric with Titley & Marr check wool back..stuffed with the softest and plumpest feather pad.

you can find our cushions for sale on Folksy - www.folksy.com/shops/lovevintagefurniture - and we will, in the very near future, be adding a page on the website for cushions and our new range of vintage fabric wall art... some very rare lucienne day , barbara brown and david whitehead designs !

BBC HOMES & ANTIQUES MAGAZINE

We're thrilled to see the absolutely beautiful home of our friend Louise Presley (check out her beautiful work at www.hopeandelvis.com) in the November edition of BBC Homes & Antiques magazine....it really is so inspiring and really makes me want to whip the sewing machine out! Delighted that Louise asked us to put some of our pieces in for the photo shoot ...we gave her free run of the warehouse and she decided on the 1950s Ronald Long wing backed sofa and armchair which looked absolutely perfect in her front room.

Happy to say that the Beeb thought so as well and we are loving the full page photo showing it in all it's reworked glory!!

We are delighted to get a mention in their 'get the look' with a image of the Ernest Race DA1 armchair....

...and even better - both the Ernest Race and the 50s armchair are now 'reserved' !!

MERROW ASSOCIATES DAYBED... WORK IN PROCESS

Just thought I should explain the slightly unusual intro page.

We wanted to show different components of the Merrow associates daybed in a kind of factory like production line style. This image visualizes the restoration process each of our pieces go through.

We've been waiting a while for a Leather hide large enough to upholster the daybed with and finally have one that fits the bill. The chrome legs and supports are just stunning and along with the steel framed base show off the strong architectural and engineering roots of the company.

I think we might use the daybed for our christmas Elle decoration ad so should be available on the website early November...

FLORENCE KNOLL & THE PRODIGY

At long last we have reupholstered our original vintage Florence Knoll for Knoll suite and it's looking stupendously desirable. We bought this just over a year ago in rather a sad & sorry state. It was the seating used in The Prodigy's recording studio in Liam Howlett's house - so has Rock Star credentials!

It's been painstakingly and lovingly reupholstered in a sublime 100% graphite grey wool and is ready to take centre stage when we show at Tent London later on this month - here are some 'before & after' shots

Knoll says of this iconic suite " like so many of her groundbreaking designs that became the gold standard for the industry, Florence Knoll\s 1954 lounge collection has made its way into the pantheon of modern classics"

Love Vintage Furniture agrees...

THE SIGN ABOVE THE DOOR

We finally got our Love Vintage Furniture sign made and put up above our warehouse doors!!