2017 UPDATE!!!!
Spurred on by a client who helpfully informed us we hadn’t written anything on the blog since June 2015 we thought it would be a good idea to do a little update on what we’ve been up to!
Life has been busy, busy, busy, probably like most working mothers trying to juggle four children between us and a full time business and generally feeling that we aren’t devoting enough time to either one. We have a massively long to do list of things we want and hope to achieve for The Gilded Cabinet. When we opened in September 2013, having read a Not on The High Street book about starting a new business and completing the questionnaire about our strengths and weaknesses – Boo “Eating all the biscuits!”, Leanne “Inability to say sorry!” , those were the weaknesses obviously not the strengths, can’t remember those answers. Leanne, “What will we do if we run out of money?”, Boo’s helpful answer ‘Raid petty cash!’ but that probably sums up the mix between us, I do the worrying and Boo looks at the big picture and is an eternal optimist so somehow it works and it has worked really well.
I don’t think we had ever dreamed we would be as busy as we have been and we really haven’t had a chance to draw breath and step back and update the website, keep the blog up to date etc. The eternal small business dilemma, there are just the two of us juggling everything although we have been joined by lovely Sophie who is brilliantly efficient and we are trying very hard to release the reins and hand things over but it’s hard when you’ve built every little part of it. It’s really two businesses, the shop and the interior design and the two work very well together but there is always something to do on one side or the other, never a dull moment and come 3.30pm generally a small person needing to be picked up and taken swimming / running / hockey / training….the list is endless.
However, we are in the process of putting the shop online, a monumental effort and it has taken us ten times as long as we thought it would but we are so nearly there, feels like climbing a never ending mountain but that will be a MASSIVE tick off the to do list. Followed, swiftly we hope, by adding an interiors portfolio of some of the projects we have been working on, a big thank you to all those clients that have very kindly let us photograph the finished rooms.
Anyway, backtracking to the beginning of the year…..The highlight of our year is a little trip to Paris in January to Maison et Objet, an amazing trade show that fills us with inspiration and we return full of enthusiasm and a little extra weight in our suitcases from a shopping research day that we now squeeze in. Bonjour Paris!!!
The Jonathan Adler stand is a fantastically riotous mix of colour and pattern and quirky furniture, we love it, although a cloud sofa might not be everyone’s cup of tea.
Lighting is always a showstopper at Maison and these lovely chandeliers, handmade in Belgium, have made it back to the shop and are looking fab in situ. They are a beautiful update on the classic chandelier using brass metalwork and glass in a more contemporary style.
We now build in a day to do some shopping research around Paris, seems a shame to be there and only see the inside of an exhibition centre for days! Boo is in charge of all travel arrangements, researching hotels and restaurants, and I have full responsibility for the shopping day. Five years in and we have it down to a fine art now. Merci is our starting point, a fabulous mix of inspirational displays and the slightly weird and wonderful. And we made it to the Astier de Villatte store for the end of the day – sheer heaven. A few pitstops in between and TOP TIP of the year – eat at Albion an amazing wine shop with a small restaurant at the back (closed on Saturdays) Rue du Faubourg Poissonnière, best meal we have had anywhere in ages.