A Nod to the Old Bloke

First up, we'd like to say a big thank you to Design*Sponge for featuring us on their 'before and after' page. We thought the computer was having a malfunction when we saw the spike in visitors. Hence I think I've had a touch of stage fright.

We've had lots of emails asking us where we learnt our skills and I thought this an opportune time to introduce you the old bloke, Alan, just in case you thought we'd been studying online DIY tutorials or similar. Katie is Alan's gene recipient (family members are reluctant to use the 'f' word, it was the 70's, it was strict catholicism, it was a small country town, etc). Katie and I were chatting about the awesome Florence Broadhurst one day and the subject of upholstery came up, I said I'd love to learn, Katie said her f#*^er was an upholsterer although she hadn't laid eyes on him in 13 years. So she spoke to her cousin who spoke to her mum who spoke to her brother which was Alan and we received a call for the go ahead to visit him just as the two rivers met in the middle of the road outside Katie's house during the last Lismore flood. We took it as an auspicious sign.

Alan is now in his seventies and has been incredible with imparting his knowledge, sharing his workshop and tools and being on hand to answer all our questions and also do a lot of our sewing. Two years on and the rest is history as they say... in the tradition of gene holder to gene recipient.

Our very first chair, that Alan mostly did, we got it for $3 from the tip, it turned out to be a TH Brown chair, made in Adelaide and a very popular mid-century collectable.