An Arundel Antiques Business
An Arundel Antiques Business
There are many months in Nass and my working lives at Arundel Eccentrics that are relatively ordinary.
A few highs....few lows....
...occasionally a lot of lows..without the highs...
Work ticks along.
Sometimes it doesn't.
We have several regular customers.
Trade clients mostly who travel from the US among them...
......thousands of miles to visit us..
which is wonderful..
Being a little off the beaten track in Arundel it's been hard telling visitors to the town where we are...
Believe me..we've tried...
over the 18 years of being in the warehouse, (once part of the Arundel Swallow Brewery BTW)
hidden behind the Coop and chip shop....
..we've done some interesting...some crazy.. things to bring ourselves to the attention of visitors to the town.
A few years ago...Arun District Council wrote and told us to take down the swing sign we had on the bridge or they would fine us...someone locally had complained.....
In my infinite wisdom I thought ...put it up Saturday morning take it in Sunday night....
How would they even know?
But their source must have had a hotline...
I entered us into Arun District Council's
Business Award as a small business to bring us more attention...
....ironically we won it...but it turns out any publicity is down to the business to do themselves...
We did leaflets on cars...
Until the car park attendant turned up at our warehouse all puffing and red faced ...brandishing our leaflets
....oh so cross...
Advertised.
Leaflet dropped the whole town.
Walked around for hours in a sweatshirt with our name and details on.
.....not one of my best ideas...on reflection..
...but preferable to a sandwich board..which was my first plan.
Taken stalls at festival events in the town to show a little of what we do.
So...mostly..now?
..we concentrate getting our name out online...
We open Saturdays...we are open for much of the week...
" by chance or appointment."
If you would like to visit...we are happy to open anytime...just message us.
Nass has MS and after 3 cardiac arrests
well..I don't need to say more..you'll need to read between the lines...
...plus we spend hours restoring furniture in our workshop
Occasionally...in business ...as in life ...something extraordinary happens..
One of those Taaaadaaaa moments...
.....and you can find yourself on a bit of an adventure.
Being invited to take over the top floor of Liberty London in 2016 was high on the charts.
For a small business..just us..husband and wife..it was HUGE.
We stayed 3 years.
Seeing our decoupage tables in Duchy of Cornwall holiday cottage brochures was pretty exciting.
Does that make us " By Royal Appointment " I wonder?
In September I had a fabulous work adventure.
I stayed on the Cholmondeley Castle Estate for a few days at the invitation of Rose Hanbury the Marchioness of Cholmondeley..(pronounced chumlee)
She came to see us in the warehouse a couple of years ago..how she found us...we have no idea....even she can't remember.
She explained she had in mind for us to decorate, in our style of decoupage,a four poster bed in their castle ...
So mid September I went north for a few days ...
...a friend was coming along to help but went down with flu at the last minute....so.....the Marchioness rolled up her sleeves and decorated alongside me.
The high spot of this adventure,
...as well as my interesting assistant....
... was having the 70 acres of historic parklands and fabulous gardens at my disposal early every morning before the gates opened.
Just me.
My camera.
The rising sun.
An atmospheric mist.
Decoupage?
It's a tough job.....
.....but someone has to do it...
