Last day today we are all off to the pub.
Well its finally here last day at Victorian fireplaces, and were all of to the pub!!
Looking back over our year its been very good to us we have scraped and slipped through this very cold and snowy December, our drivers have served us very well and most of our deliveries have got out on time with just a few exceptions caused by the weather, see one of blog our entries beyond the call of duty. Bob and Paul our two Van drivers started with us in the later part of the year and have settled in very well – with very good feedback from our customers.
We have had a very good year for sales with a big increase year on year, we have a new member of staff joining the office team, Paul the workshop Foreman from our manufacturing side Knapp woodworking is joining us when we come back in January. He will be looking after our customers with deliveries, maintaining our health and safety systems, Arranging all aspects of the woodworking side including developing new products but office based rather than being in that cold workshop. Andrei our gentle giant will be taking over from Paul in the worksop and he is looking forward to the challenges which will lay ahead of him.
We will also be announcing some new products and fireplaces in January so keep an eye out for these exciting new developments coming our way in the new year.
At Victorian Fireplaces we spend of lot of time researching and developing ideas for our website, trying to keep up with the latest trends and making sure we have the best technology. I do enjoy reflecting over the changes we have made over the last couple of years for our website and because we do keep on eye on competitors and what they are doing I especially enjoy seeing elements on their websites which were ideas developed by us. Because we are always at the front of technology it is very clear that we do set the industry standard for fireplace websites and I imagine a lot of competitors aspire to be us.
We are going to be building upon what we have and next year we will be continuing our success and we hope you will be coming along with us for the ride.
Merry Christmas to you all and may you have a prosperous new year!
Christmas Dinner
We have Just had a Christmas dinner with one of our suppliers at a lovely old Georgian hall just out side Lincoln, Washingborough Hall in the village of Washingborough surprisingly!!.
Washingborough Hall hotel is Owned by Edward and Lucy Herring. its a beautiful grade two listed 300 year old Georgian manor house sitting in it’s own grounds.
I just had to share these pictures of the fireplaces the first one with its huge stove just belted out so much heat we were roasted, while we were waiting for our dinner in the hall way brilliant on a cold December afternoon.
This other one was in the dinning room a Lovely Georgian marble fireplace, and what a meal all three coarse were fantastic I had the Turkey cooked to perfection and the red cabbage and assorted vegetables was wonderful. followed by the Christmas pudding and custard, Great. No sixpence though.
Washingborough hall hotel definitely is worth a stay in one of its 12 bedrooms or just book a table for a wonderful meal.
Beyond the call of Duty
Well the snow yesterday jumped up and bit us in its severity, typical off me for saying the snow doesn’t fade us – I knew after writing these words it would come back to bite me.
Bob one of our drivers who has over thirty years experience in the fireplace trade was on his way to south east London and Croydon before going on to Kent yesterday (30th November). All was going to schedule until he got on the A23 heading to towards Croydon, the road was just at a stand still no chance of escaping using side road’s due to all the snow and ice so Bob was stuck on the road and had to follow the road with all the other unfortunate drivers. Hour upon hour he just had to go with the flow travelling a few feet at a time, Bob just had one thing in his mind, to get to the customers – by this time he only had two customers left to deliver to. With nowhere to escape and traffic nose to tail with exhaust smoke filling the air behind brake lights flashing on and off as the drivers glum faces peering from behind cold steamed up glass windows.
Bob eventual got to within half a mile of the customer in Croydon at 11.30 pm but now he was faced with a steep hill and with all the snow and ice he decided to park the van up and not risk driving to the customer. This customer was just having a hearth delivered so Bob decided to deliver this hearth by hand, amazingly he walked this hearth half a mile to the customers house. He arrived just after midnight, the customer checked the hearth and thanked Bob for the delivery albeit a bit late at night. Bob got back to his Van, with a load of blankets from the back he swaddled himself up in the freezing cab, trying to escape the cold and get a couple of hours sleep before heading to the next customer.
Bob was awoken this morning by a local chap trying to get his car started in front of Bob’s van. Bob being the type of person he is, helped the man with his car. After this chap had been pushed off Bob decided enough is enough and off he went to the next customer in Kent. He eventually arrived at the customers house at 4.30am, not wishing to knock this customer up at this unearthly hour he decided to have a few more hours sleep in the van outside this customers house. At around 7.30am the customer let Bob in with a smile and Bob delivered their chosen fireplace. Bob would like to say a big thank you to Mr and Mrs Baxter for their really warm welcome and hospitality and especially for the turkey salad sandwiches which Bob says went down really well.
Now Poor Bob’s woes haven’t ended yet I am afraid, as I am writing this little blog, Bob is trying to get home from his terrible ordeal yesterday. He is now stuck in traffic again on the M25 at Dartford tunnel for the past two and a half hours.
Delivering fireplaces can be a great rewarding time or an awful time like Bob is experiencing yesterday and today a big thank you Bob for what you have done, definitely beyond the call of duty.
Fireplace for christmas
Decorate your Fireplace at Christmas
Victorian fireplaces would like you to think about your own Fireplace and getting it prepared for the festivities.
Yes Christmas is just around the corner 29 day’s to that lovely time, that smell of the Christmas dinner being prepared, I can taste the smell of those mince pies wafting into the lounge where all sanity has gone, wrapping paper strewn all over the floor as children rip away to find what’s inside. Baffled Grand parents with new electronic games, Huge flat screen TVs blaring out the new xbox game,- lost instruction books, – damn no batteries!! – “I am going to walk the dog”.
Its a lovely time and no Fireplaces to think about, well only yours, the one to get decorated. Here is a link to a website I found that you might find interesting. Kirstie Allsopp and decorate your fireplace with these great decoration tips.
Now if you haven’t got a fireplace perhaps now is the time to think about it just in time for Christmas delivery or Even the new year and beat the vat increases, by ordering it now.
This fireplace featured in this Christmas picture is a Large Adam mantel hand carved in solid pine is a fine example of the type of work that is created in the great historical city of Lincoln.
Manufactured by Knapp Woodworking and sold here at Victorian fireplaces.
Now have you thought what’s the best way to decorate your mantel.
Alphonse Mucha Fireplace Tiles
This fireplace blog is to answer some of your questions about the things we do, and the products we supply at Victorian fireplaces, one of the things that I get asked is where do the tile’s come from, and are they from original designs, well I have just picked a couple of our fireplace tiles to show you where there designs have come from.
The Stovax Nocturnal Slumber and Stovax Evening Revere which are very popular at the moment.
About Alphonse Mucha
Alphonse Mucha was born in 1860 in Ivancice, Moravia, which is near the city of Brno in the modern Czech Republic. It was a small town, and for all intents and purposes life was closer to the 18th than the 19th century. Though Mucha is supposed to have started drawing before he was walking, his early years were spent as a choirboy and amateur musician. It wasn’t until he finished high school (needing two extra years to accomplish that onerous task) that he came to realize that living people were responsible for some of the art he admired in the local churches. That epiphany made him determined to become a painter, despite his father’s efforts in securing him “respectable” employment as a clerk in the local court. Like every aspiring artist of the day, Mucha ended up in Paris in 1887. He was a little older than many of his fellows, but he had come further in both distance and time. A chance encounter in Moravia had provided him with a patron who was willing to fund his studies. After two years in Munich and some time devoted to painting murals for his patron, he was sent off to Paris where he studied at the Academie Julian. After two years the supporting funds were discontinued and Alphonse Mucha was set adrift in a Paris that he would soon transform. At the time, however, he was a 27 year old with no money and no prospects – the proverbial starving artist.
For five years he played the part to perfection. Living above a Cremerie that catered to art students, drawing illustrations for popula
r (ie. low-paying) magazines, getting deathly ill and living on lentils and borrowed money, Mucha met all the criteria. It was everything an artist’s life was supposed to be. Some success, some failure. Friends abounded and art flourished. It was the height of Impressionism and the beginnings of the Symbolists and Decadents. He shared a studio with Gauguin for a bit after his first trip to the south seas. Mucha gave impromptu art lessons in the Cremerie and helped start a traditional artists ball, Bal des Quat’z Arts. All the while he was formulating his own theories and precepts of what he wanted his art to be.
On January 1, 1895, he presented his new style to the citizens of Paris. Called upon over the Christmas holidays to created a poster for Sarah Bernhardt’s play, Gismonda, he put his precepts to the test. The poster, at left, was the declaration of his new art. Spurning the bright colors and the more squarish shape of the more popular poster artists, the near life-size design was a sensation.
Art Nouveau (“New Art” in French) can trace its beginnings to about this time. Based on precepts akin to William Morris’ Arts and Crafts movement in England, the attempt was to eradicate the dividing line between art and audience. Everything could and should be art. Burne-Jones designed wallpaper, Hector Guimard designed metro stations, and Mucha designed champagne advertising (at right) and stage sets. Each country had its own name for the new approach and artists of incredible skill and vision flocked to the movement. (more…)