Decorating the Shop

The decorating began, a lovely green was chosen for the interior, a new dark carpet was laid and new lights were installed.

Father Christmas made an appearance in the window for our display over the festive break!

 

The exterior was stripped and the lovely Farrow and Ball, Down pipe dark grey was chosen. As we moved to the exterior the rain came and came! But eventually it passed and before the storms and high winds predicted we managed to complete the outside, pictures in the next blog....

 

Clearing the Shop

The first task was to strip everything out of the shop, we are not going to need any fixtures and fittings as everything on display will be for sale.There was wooden and glass shelving with kitchen worktops. The units were very well made and was a shame to undo someone else's work but it had a good long life and it's time to give this shop a new lease of life!

It was surprising how much wood made up those units. Plenty of kindling and firewood to keep us warm over Christmas and New Year though!  It was great to get the shop back to a blank canvas and this was finished on Christmas Eve, now for a few days of!

Back after Christmas and here is my Dad and me discussing the plans for the shop that Mum and I have come up with! After much deliberation around wallpaper vs paint, sea grass vs carpet, colour schemes etc etc. The decisions were made and the paint bought and carpet ordered.

This is starting to feel like our shop! We had had so many nice comments from peole walking past, first enquiring what the shop is going to be, then how nice it is that an empty shop is coming back into operation on the high street. 

We get straight on with the painting and the shop starts to look so different.....next blog shows the transformation.....

Happy New Year! Happy New Shop.

Well, we are out the other side of Christmas and New Year and its been a very, very busy one! We hope you had a lovely festive time.  We had a lovely time with the family but spent alot of time working on the new shop. Over the next few blogs, I will take you through the work with plenty of pictures!

So, we got the keys to our new shop on 16th December and its been all go since then.

Here is the shop when it was in full operation as The China Shop. Its a lovely looking shop, double fronted with double metal gates in front of the door. It is located on the High Street, Gillingham, Dorset in the older part of the town, opposite The Pheonix.

First day in and the plans start on how we are going to decorate the shop. There is a large shop area, an office area with space to work at a desk and space to work on furniture and a toilet, it is ideal for us. (Ollie excited to get the keys and start exploring!)

An exciting time as we plan for the opening of the shop for mid January 2012. Now the hard work begins!

OllieBobs

A Little Introduction

Welcome to our new blog, we just wanted to start by introducing ourselves and hope this grows as we have some exciting times ahead, we wanted to at least have a record of our story, our journey and memories to look back on. 

OllieBobs, the name, this was simple to come up with, my two children Ollie and Robyn (who we call Bobs)! The idea for the company, again was easy, myself and my husband Nathan were furnishing our house and were always on the look out for furniture and furnishings, at the same time my Mum and Dad were renovating an old house and doing the same, between us we were always on the look out for unusual vintage furniture and furnishings with a shabby chic or country style look. The love of these items led to a barn full of them (we just couldnt stop buying!), and so we began selling at Flea Markets and then launched the website (www.olliebobs.co.uk).

Introductions - I am Billie Osbaldstone, my husband is Nathan Osbaldstone, my Mum is Sue Strong and my Dad is Phil Strong.

We hope you will share our journey with us and we are looking forward to meeting many of you in person, but if not, virtually through the Blog, Twitter or Facebook!