Antique & Unique Studio - here you’ll find things that may not be antique, but are certainly unique!

Giving unloved items a second chance.

Part of the reason I have set up Antique & Unique Studio is that I hate throwing things away!

There are many pieces of furniture that nobody wants. Often there is nothing whatsoever wrong with these pieces, but they just aren’t ‘fashionable’. They are the wrong colour, or the wrong finish, or too big, or too dark, or just too generic. However, if the bones of the piece are good, and if it has good proportions and an attractive shape, it can be given a whole new unique identity with a new painted finish.

We have had various pieces of furniture over the years that have either come as a package with something else, or that weren’t quite what I was expecting when I saw it in the flesh (especially during the Covid era when it wasn’t always possible to view an item in person before buying it). A good example of this is the yellow painted chair shown in the photos below. I bought it unseen in an auction because I really liked the shape, but when we got it the finish was awful - a horrible streaky varnish. We stripped it back to bare wood but the timber was distinctly plain and uninspiring. I was very busy at the time so the chair got put in our storage area and forgotten about for a couple of years. I came across it again and still really liked the shape, and just so happened to be itching to paint something. I thought the generously proportioned back rest with cut out detail would make a perfect canvas for folk art style decoration. The snowdrops were out at the time and the cheerful little flowers became the inspiration for the design. It was deeply satisfying to turn a forgotten chair into something beautiful, and it quickly sold to a lady who fell in love with it when she saw it in our shop.