Don't be afraid to mix styles and ages of furniture as they can often compliment each other. This photograph shows how Danish mid century rosewood dining chairs work well with this round Victorian dining table. Our tastes change over the years and rather than starting from scratch, updating one part of a piece of furniture can work well and save you money. Why buy a new dining suite if you can update your chairs?

The same applies to fabrics for upholstered furniture. Be bold and different. Just because a chair is an antique and traditional, you don't have to have a traditional fabric. This Victorian Arts & Crafts chair was restored and reupholstered for a local artist using a fabric he designed, and had printed onto velvet. Its very bold but I can guarantee you will never see another chair like this. It truly is is one off. Whether its your taste or not, the fabric is a top cover and can be changed. 

Life is too short to to be pleasing anyone but yourself. Buy what you like, and buy it when you see it as the chances are if you have to think about for a while, someone else will have seen it in the meantime and bought it. 

Last week a friend of mine’s daughter went to visit Denmark and Sweden over Easter, what a treat for anyone! Of course, happy though I was, jealousy was also there as I knew she would get the experience that I’d love! Thankfully, she did take a lot of photos and grabbed some leaflets from the Blox Museum of Architecture by the waterfront of Copenhagen (oh to be young and childfree in a museum!). 

A young girl in Copenhagen meant that she was far more excited by the hippie communes and anarchy, however she did find out a lot about Vankundsten for me - they are an architectural firm located, to this day, in Copenhagen. Their ideologies exactly epitomises what I love about design in Scandinavia - ‘low rise, high density’ was a sign she took a photo of. Their idea is also that the people can do anything, and really encourage DIY and using wood as a building material, which is something we love at  A Little Furniture Shop. 

A huge part of Danish, Swedish and general Vandkunsten design is malleability of design and making spaces feel truly spacious and bright (even when they are not), albeit more with the architecture rather than the furniture within it. Perhaps this is because the designers whom I love were already focussed on making the interiors of yesterday just as fashionable as they are today. 

Finally, the idea of ‘re-beauty’ was one which my friend’s daughter learnt about in this exhibition. This is a big Vankundsten idea. They collected 80,000 square metres of parquet flooring and made it into mobile walls for inside people’s homes to be able to partition off areas of homes when and if needed - she said it was ‘very cool’ and they had examples of moving the walls around, I must admit it looked fascinating. Regardless, it fits so beautifully with what we do here, I know we do make some furniture from scratch, but when we restore and reupholster exactly to order for customers I suppose we are following Scandi ideas of re-beauty, and that makes me feel so involved in the processes that I already respected. 

I think what has made me happiest and most proud about her visiting this museum for me is not the fact that we are so fitting with Danish ideas of architecture, but that I heard a 24 year old girl so very excited by the very idea, which is so refreshing - I know exactly who she will call when she buys her first home and wants to fit out her living room in a bright and sustainable way. With a spare 10 minutes today, why not google Vankundsten? You won’t be disappointed! 

What do you class as a statement chair? There was an article in one of the weekend newspaper supplements which was about statement chairs. Quite frankly I found them rather dull and ordinary. A statement chair in my mind is a chair which has the wow factor. It can be a chair which is mass produced but it needs to have style, and be designed to catch the eye. It could be a chair which has a stunning fabric on it which gives it the wow factor. Above all it needs to be different and I couldn't find anything in this article which was different. All the fabrics were also plain and run of the mill, just ordinary.

Maybe I'm expecting too much. Are there enough customers who want a real statement chair rather than a run of the mill chair? Maybe this is why mass produced furniture is ordinary as that is what customers want. Are you scared of having something a bit different and with a wow factor? If so why? 

A statement chair I would say also needs to be comfortable. Why pay money for something you won't sit on, so I would always recommend sitting and trying furniture before buying. Its a very personnel thing. What suits one person, won't necessarily suit the partner or other member of the family. We are all different shapes and sizes so its important to try, and sit for a while to ensure the chair is comfortable and has the support you need.

If you're looking for a one off piece, our Danish and vintage pieces and be upholstered in the fabric of your choice, which means there would not be another chair like this. Our handmade chairs are available to be upholstered in thousands of different fabrics, can you can be as wow as you wish.

If you need some inspiration, this Danish teak arm chair looks so different from when it was upholstered originally.