Just The Way It Is

How often I flick through a magazine and love a room that's been featured, but wish I could get in there and change three or four things in it, generally to give it a bit more character. Not this time. These two houses below were featured in the Feb/March 2011 issue of Belle Magazine and I'm in love! The perfect combination of antique furniture and architecture with modern design concepts and colours.

These spaces are simply to die for, and so are the antiques. I love that they've used this beautiful settee especially and it reminds me a lot of one that I bought in France on my last buying trip (see below). It's a 19th century Charles X day bed. Mine needs a little TLC and some new fabric.
Click here to view a larger image.

This Paris apartment also featured in Belle below blew me away. The way that they've pulled really contemporary elements and colour in with beautiful traditional space and the most stunning French commodes and centre table.

Check out the pair of French Empire Commodes!

Of Shoes - and Ships - and Sealing Wax

While most people would not freely admit to this, I'm quite happy to declare to the world that Pride & Prejudice, (the BBC version and no other) is without a shadow of a doubt my all time favourite movie. So beloved in fact, that many a weekend is spent parked on the couch at home in front of it. I forced my poor long suffering boyfriend to watch it last weekend for the 6578th time, and drove him mad while I pre-empted every line, true Bridget Jones style. (Although I suspect he secretly felt the urge to recite lines at the television screen as well, he just didn't want to tell me.)

Any other Jane Austen diehards like myself out there will be familiar with my favourite scene where Darcy writes his most amazing letter to Elizabeth and seals the envelope with sealing wax. Since I first saw that I have ALWAYS wanted to do that. AND NOW I CAN!!! In one of the antiques that arrived in the new container, we discovered a beautiful Art Nouveau box of perfumed sealing wax and a box of 1920's Italian playing cards. So, if you receive mail from me, expect it old world style, sealed and smelling spectacular!

New Shipment

Well, another week and a little bit more chaos! No sooner have we recovered from the flood than the new shipment is knocking on our front door! And... except for the fact that I can't see the person next to me for the amount of furniture that's in here, it's all rather exciting. Due to the floods, none of the new stock will go on the website for 3-4 weeks so I've decided to feature a little bit here. Enquire

It's been yet another educational afternoon, as I've realised that I've turned my nose up at something I shouldn't have in favor of something else. This table below, which is a superior quality dining/centre table with beautiful hand done inlays is a stunner, but you wouldn't have known it. Our restorer Lyndon took to it with methylated spirits and steel wool this afternoon and this was the result. I couldn't help but notice my father trying not to laugh as he watched my face fall. Underneath was this. You could barely see the detail on the left side and what you see on the bottom side is purely a result of cleaning.

So it is with tail between legs that I leave work this afternoon. It won't last long though...

On Monday I get to look at the beautiful girl up the top all day!

A HUGE THANK YOU!

So this week is the first time I've been able to throw down my broom and spade and it feels oh so good! The floods - what a start to the year! The photo above is our business about half an hour before the biggest king tide peaked in Brisbane, and we had just finished sandbagging with the help of so many amazing people who wandered in off the street armed with spades, buckets, gurneys, brooms and offered their help to us. To all of those people, many of whom formed a human sandbagging chain to help out, Wallrocks want to say a HUGE THANK YOU!!! The floods brought out a wonderful side of human nature, and on the scale that it was, one you probably only see once in a lifetime. Without your help our business would not have faired so well. The day before the floods hit, we were warned by the council that we were likely to flood and fortunately got all our stock 4m up from ground level. If you've ever moved house, triple this by 100 and that was what this day was like. It was so fortunate that we erred on the side of caution, because despite our best efforts to stem the tide, (by cutting down one of our internal walls and using it as a barricade at the front of the shop), the people who built our building originally in their wisdom added an internal storm water drain, which not surprisingly backed up when the river overflowed.

Suffice to say, we had water through our showroom. However we really can't complain, compared to many others we were incredibly fortunate as all our stock was safe. It's now just the long process of rebuilding walls and bringing stock back downstairs.

To all our clients and friends who suffered in the floods our hearts are with you.