A 21st Century Way to Arrange your 19th Century Ideas

french 19th century carousel horse

If you're in the middle of re-decorating a new home, or even just a room - you'll know the feeling.  There are millions of ideas buzzing around in your head, it's just pinning them down and pulling them together.  This French mid 19th Century Carousel Horse (due to arrive in our shop this week) might be exactly the decorative item to add to the empty corner in your living room, but you've seen it fleetingly and need to make a mental note.

Well, if you haven't already discovered it (thousands have) www.pinterest.com could be your answer.  It's a new toy for us and a word of warning, you can spend a long time mooching around the images, pinning them to your own boards.  Search for things such as 'rustic kitchen' or '19th century' or 'chandeliers' and a plethora of beautiful ideas pop up which you can 'like' or 're-pin' to your own personal boards.  All pictures are automatically attriubuted to the owner, or if you upload your own or from other websites you need to specify who they belong too - so no hassles over usage.

glazed cupboard  - practical & pretty

One of your conundrums might be storage in a home with very little of its own, we might have the answer.  This glazed cupboard with hand blown glass can be used to display more attractive items in the top (glasses, crockery, cookbooks) and the more visually challenging ones below (ugly files & paperwork).  It is painted blue on the interior and a off white/grey on the exterior.  Pretty and practical.

For kitchens and living space on the rustic side, this grey painted pine table can offer a number of solutions.  Big enough to get the family around or spread out with your lap top and paperwork.

pine painted table - useful & handsome

add history to your home with this early 19th century door

If rustic is your thing, it doesn't get much better than this early 19th century door sourced from a winery in the south of France.  A beautiful item, guaranteed to make an impact. 

Staying with this period, we're also looking forward to the delivery of this Bergere chair, with a nice patina and fully restored.  It is just awaiting re-upholserty in a fabric of your choice, talk to us about good upholsterers. 

Bergere chair ready and waiting to be upholstered

And lastly (you can see things have not been quiet around here) we've found this lamp table below from the same era, it has been painstakingly scraped to restore the original paint. Pop in to have a look or pin it!

For more details please look on www.antonandk.co.uk .   

We hope you've been inspired and your thoughts and would welcome any comments to ensure we keep doing that. 

Thanks for looking, Anthony & Karen 

19th century lamp table

Shift Stuff About A Bit For A Fresh Look

It won't be unusual if you drop into Anton & K, to see us moving stuff around - again and again.  Not only to accommodate new stock but as you'll know with your own home rooms can be transformed just by changing the position of a lamp, trying things in unexpected places or digging out items you'd forgotten about but still love.  Decorative items and antiques can always be given a new lease of life if they're put against a different coloured background or in an alternative light.  They just need a fresh eye or a new context.

Take this chandelier which just arrived in the shop last week - a recent blog from www.thedecorista.com shows how they can glamour-ise a kitchen and work equally well in a bedroom.  A hallway is not always the best policy.  Alternatively, try this stepladder in a kitchen, bathroom or bedroom to stack a multitude of items - very beautifully of course.

Talking of fresh perspectives, keep an eye out for the November edition of Cotswold Life.  Some shopkeepers you'll be familiar with feature in an article showcasing the wonders of Winchcombe and what an individual, interesting and pretty Cotswold town it is - of course we agree with all of that and are only worried that people might find out.  http://cotswold.greatbritishlife.co.uk/
See what you think (page 126-128), but keep it to yourselves.

We're looking forward to lots of new things arriving this week, so keep your eyes peeled. Happy Halloween.

Anthony & Karen

Warm glow of Autumn brings on the action in Winchcombe

It's certainly been a unique few weeks in more ways than one.  The gorgeous heatwave sped up the leaves and fruit until everyone around here is virtually swimming in apples and pears.  The fruit trees aren't the only ones that have been busy, nestled amongst the cosy lull it's been non-stop here at 21 North Street.


If you're follower of ours on Twitter or seeing our Facebook posts you'll notice the stock has been turning over thick and fast.  From industrial chic (trolleys, petrol can lamps) to mid 19th century marriage bread boards.  Gorgeous, earthy pieces guaranteed to enrich any rustic kitchen and any rusty relationships (you never know). 

19th Century Marriage Bread Boards - domestic bliss

The quest is - as ever - to hunt out new and interesting items ensuring they work with contemporary homes.  Earlier in the month we spent some time at the Battersea Decorative Fair which was great fun, we bumped into loads of friends from the business and marvelled at the beautiful collections that had been brought together for that occasion.  Karen and I also spent a bit of time around the East End, lapping up some of the great energy and creativity that has been exploding in that part of London for the past few years.  Needless to say, some of it rubbed off a bit and we hope some of the ideas too.


So, what have we found? You might have picked up that we are extremely fussy about what works, we only want beautiful, time-worn items that really enrich the home.  I hope you agree that these things do just that.


All these items are French/continental mid 19th century, which is what we love and hope that others agree they're very attractive pieces.

We came across this leather Art Deco club chair, it's in great condition, really comfortable with beautiful curved arm rests and some cream piping to the seats and arms.  Below is another seat, but slightly more feminine (think luxurious boudoir) this delicate nursing chair has been covered in a gorgeous french natural linen .

For more of a country look in the bedroom, this oval table (below) would work well.  It's from central France, incorporates an X form stretcher and a central column support with bun feet.  It's in very good condition with its original pine patina, cleaned and preserved in a wax polish finish.  Great looking.

So, what else is new? Other than a photo shoot in our house (more to come on that in a later blog) and a new project with a local friend - it's calm around here.  So, yes we've got a lot on but we're hoping you like some of the fruit of our labours.

The Anton & K Story: a re-cap

At Anton & K we're fast approaching our one year anniversary at 21 North Street, so we thought it's time to take stock of where we are and where we're going.  Maybe have a bit of a retrospective, a few resolutions (that might be going too far). 
 
You might know that we've been doing this line of work for a few years.  Rummaging around dusty auction rooms, sales in remote fields or brocantes in the depths of France, Spain or Morocco you didn't know existed.  We certainly didn't know them until we followed our noses.  We’re good at that.  After running a successful restaurant for 10 years (I'm the cook in the house), we pursued our passion for decorative items and spent 8 years working in Majorca sourcing pieces for beautiful fincas, villas and sun-dappled holiday boltholes.  Wandering around the markets of the Mediterranean was of course, a delight and many of our clients loved the influences of Morocco and northern Africa.  Fun as it was, we had a hankering to get back home.

So we sold up, moved into a thatched cottage in Gloucestershire and opened Anton & K.  We're very happy to be back and felt instantly at home, picking up with old friends (and not so old), meeting new ones and finding interesting and exciting pieces for our new shop. 
 
So, any ideas for year two? One of ours is to keep in touch more, tell you more about what's coming into the shop and when and what we're excited about.  Come and tell us yours or just pop in to say to say Hello.

Anyone seen any chests of drawers?

I'm going home..

Spring has Sprung

If you hang around a shop long enough, the owners will eventually get a restraining order, or they’ll make the most of you and have a lovely day in Bath leaving all responsibility to the hangers on. So I’ve been entrusted with sitting shop for the day which gives me a rather good opportunity to break out the camera again.

Now the shop and website are truly up and running, we can start this blogging malarkey to keep you updated with the stylings, musings and day-to-day shenanigans of No.21 North Street.

So far all has been running smoothly, I’ve taken a few more pics and eaten half a packet of Hob Nobs. There was a tense moment earlier when a kid with a particularly drippy ice cream was making eyes at a leather armchair but a sticky disaster was averted by a panicked looking dad. 

To celebrate the shop being in one piece here’s some photos to keep you tempted until the pros are back on Monday.

We look forward to seeing you soon.

Here We Go

It is with great pleasure I bring to you the very first blog posting of Anton & K.

The shop has been open for 10 weeks and we are excited to announce that our website is now up and running.

So check back here for updates on buying trips, pictures, news and other Anton & K activities. In the mean time check out the website for some lovely items for your home and garden.