Still lots to do!

I don’t know about you my friends but I am ready for the home stretch! Not sure we are quite there yet as there is still lots to do but here’s a little update for you to whet your appetite.

We are still drying out the plaster after the burst water pipe on Garnett Street back in April which we really could have done without as this has knocked us right back with our schedule of work sadly.

It is taking its time to dry and you can’t rush these things but it is rather frustrating.  We had to have a re-shuffle of works so that we didn’t get too far behind  so everything is a little out of sync!

Our new floor is down but it’s hidden under these sheets so they don’t get damaged as this should have been our last job before bringing in our salvaged (but renovated) old furniture and some lovely new pieces.

The prep has begun on the walls and ceilings by our fab team of contractors, West End Joiners and Builders … affectionately called my West End Boys!

But it’s now the Bank Holiday weekend so time for a chill before getting back on it and hopefully making up some much needed ground this next week.

Please dip in to this blog again for another wee update and perhaps next week I can announce the opening date … fingers and toes are crossed right now!

Talking Dirty!

Just a quick little post here to talk about dirty windows!

One of the indirectly affected businesses after the flooding on Boxing Day was our local happy chappy, window cleaner! All of a sudden in Hebden Bridge, there were no windows to clean as there were not many businesses open so it was the last thing on our minds!

I’m not sure everyone has fully appreciated how much this awful flood has impacted on others and how long it will take to get over it and get back to some sort of normality financially.Finally though, over 5 months later, I made that call ‘Dave, I need you!’

Dave was round straight away to start scraping all the grime off my beautiful big windows and Dave and his pal took over 2 hours to do 5 windows inside and out.

It really wasn’t an easy job but these lads never complain and they just took it in their stride and cracked on.

At last I can see! (The garden will be another big job ….. Michael, I’m calling you soon!)

They will need doing again just before I re-open but what a difference. Job well done Dave, thanks and welcome back! x

 

Conscious choices

Hello my friends. I have held off writing this difficult post for most of this month but after a little of my own story was shared on the Just A Card blog recently and passed on to so many via social media, today just felt the right time to write this post somehow.

Kate Hamilton-Hunter – Artist and Jeweller

When I opened in 2006, Kate was one of the first designer/makers I worked with and over the years she has become a dear friend too. I was hoping to bring you a fab new jewellery collection at the end of June when I re-open, all designed and made by Kate and her bunch of talented staff based in Wales but sadly Kate has made a very difficult decision recently to close the doors of her studio. I really do know how hard this decision was for Kate as she and her staff have put so much energy and effort into creating jewellery with a difference from recycled materials for about 12 years.

Kate and her team

By using biscuit, sweet and cake tins and upcycling them in to various collections including Hearts, Butterflies, Leaves, Birds and putting them on sterling silver findings and chains with beautiful Swarovski crystals and pearls Kate’s jewellery was truly unique and loved by many of my customers.

Sadly, which is what tends to happen, factory-made cheaper products from the Far East is squeezing unique little businesses like Kate’s out of the market by copying work and reproducing it at a fraction of the price. If people continue to buy cheaper products without making that conscious choice to understand then more and more small businesses will close their doors too.

Please think about where you spend your hard-earned cash, how you spend it and who you spend it with. If we make a conscious choice to Shop Local, to buy British Hand-Made, to support those small businesses on our doorstop, the stronger our economy will be.

Here at Heart Gallery I am proud to support small, support local, support British and support independent. By supporting small independent British designer/makers and creative companies I feel I play a very small part in changing the high street in one carefully curated and carefully created, beautiful space. 

I am feeling really sad bringing you this awfully upsetting news (you may already have heard) and without ramming the message down your throat please do make conscious choices if you can … they really do make a difference.

I will work with Kate again one day in the future which I am really looking forward to. In the meantime, all of my customers who still own, love and adore Kate’s jewellery enjoy wearing it with joy knowing that it was made by Kate and her team by hand and with love and sold by me with love and pride. Read all about Kate here.

Just another reminder of the Just A Card campaign that is encouraging people to appreciate just how invaluable EVERY single purchase is …. thank you for listening x

Just A Card

Have you heard about this great campaign?

We are great supporters of this, now more than ever, as it is so crucial to our towns and cities that people support the small independents with a purchase … however small and even if it is just a card! Please remember that a small purchase makes a huge difference.

Our pop up at the Hebden Bridge Picture House is only there another 2 weeks (at the most) so please call in, say hello, and support us in any way you can until we re-open back in our beautiful building on Market Street.

Please look out for a full length feature on Just A Card alongside some sad news next week on this blog, thank you.

Render, Plaster and hard graft!

So a little update for you my friends to keep you posted on our beautiful building. Slowly stitching it back together is actually the right way to do it to be honest, as frustrating as it feels at times!

The sand arrived … and there was so much of it I felt a castle coming on but I refrained! My castle will be once more but for now it is just in my head … and on bits of paper in my notebook!

Some serious kit was needed as well to get around the space safely.

Some serious mixing went on too … it made me start to think of cakes!

The waterproof render went on first as we had already made the decision not to bring plaster boards in unless they were fire proof ones for the ceiling so there will be less to knock off next time!

The waterproof plastering followed once this dried through and then the spaces started to feel real once more. Once the top skim was on then … wow!


The drying process cannot be hurried as we don’t want anything to crack and cause problems so it is a waiting game.


We have got more blowers in to gently circulate the air to aid the drying because after the burst water pipe we are now behind our schedule.


Because the drying process is slower than we anticipated we now have to move everything round to try and claw back some days. So this week instead of the decorator starting we have the new floor going in. This should have been the last job and one of my last blog posts but needs must my friends, needs must!

The guys have worked so hard recently and look … they have had to rebuild our flood shelf which the burst water pipe brought down … they deserve a medal!

It’s all in the detail! Floor blog post coming soon so stay tuned  and thank you for sharing my journey with me and with others … pass it on x

 

Petit Coeur

We have rented a small unit at the Hebden Bridge Picture House for this marvelous month of May only! The Petit Coeur is simply a smaller version of Heart Gallery but it is perfectly formed.

The very lovely Mandy, Emily and Pippa are looking after this for me whilst I work hard behind the scenes sourcing all the lovely new work for our re-opening towards the end of June (date still to be decided after recent hiccups).

Some of your old favourites are in our pop up alongside prints by Kate Lycett, Clare Caulfield, Nicola Taylor, Alison Read and Ross McGinnes.

Our Eco range of diffusers and candles is greatly reduced so come and stock up and the reduced cocktail candles at £8 are proving a big hit at the moment.

Our retro inspired telephones are selling like hotcakes at their new reduced prices so if you are thinking of getting one for home or work then please be quick …. don’t be left hanging on the telephone!

Jane Revitt’s ordnance survey map cushions, tea towels and notebooks are always popular and alongside all the local HEbden Bridge, Mytholmroyd, Blackshaw Head and Todmorden 1947 and 1953 pieces we also have Whitby, Scarborough, Robin Hood’s Bay, Yorkshire, Chatsworth, Windermere, Derwentwater, Suffolk/Norfolk, Totnes, Brighton, York, Settle, Grassington, Bolton Abbey, Clitheroe, Liverpool and Manchester.

There’s a new delivery from Black+Blum including fabulous copper pieces; stylish additions to their great loop range I must say.


There is now limited stock of all our reduced Joseph Joseph pieces so if you are adding to your collection then this is the place to get them whilst you can my friends, great prices for design-led kitchen products.

We’ve got your favourite silver lily and freshwater pearl jewellery by local jeweller Amanda Cox alongside some carefully selected Danon pieces.

We are only at The Hebden Picture House until 31st May my friends so not much time for you to get down and see us but please do support us if you can …. we have a small selection of our much loved greetings cards so even if you just buy a card you are helping us enormously.

To read more about this great campaign please visit their website here thank you.

Water Woes

Good morning my friends, I hope you are all well and enjoying this little glimpse of summer we are being treated to finally. Sorry to have been a little quiet on the updates but we had a bit of a problem to deal with a couple of weeks ago and it’s thrown me off track a bit.

A friend rang me at 6am Sunday 24th April to say Garnett Street had a burst water pipe and it may have affected me! For those that don’t know, Garnett Street is behind Market Street but above us and all that water that began to gush out of the large hole in the pipe around 3am went into the residential property above and through our ceiling!

What was sickening was we were on track with our renovations! On the Friday we had the insulation put into the ceilings and all the fire proof plaster boards for the ceiling delivered along with the bags of plaster ready for West End to crack on with it on Monday!

Instead the boys came to work Monday morning and had to remove all the ruined boards, insulation and bags and tip them as they were water logged and useless! None of us could believe what had happened and it was a very difficult morning for us all to be honest.

The hole was a pretty big one in a pretty old pipe but to be fair Yorkshire Water were on the scene by the time I arrived in Hebden Bridge and had dealt with it as quickly as was feasibly possible. They had been made aware of the problem around 3am when their equipment up at Dodnaze warned them of a leak somewhere between there and Todmorden! Tracked down to Garnett Street by neighbours awoken by the sound of rushing water they had isolated the problem, dug up the road and the new pipe was on its way!

The home above us was thankfully not occupied as it had been sold at the end of March but our new buyers had yet to move in … although there were quite a few soggy carpets to remove! Again Yorkshire Water organised a cleaning company who got onto this straight away and also sent us some blowers to dry out Heart Gallery as our screed was due to be done Friday and the building had to be dry!

I do hope our water woes are now all behind us and if the pipe was going to burst then at least it burst now whilst we are stitching the building back together!

I saw this whilst cleaning up the mess and it really made me smile. There is always a positive in a situation, it may not be apparent immediately but it is always there. That week was another week of stressful situations for us and it has affected our renovations but it’s behind us now and we have all done our best xXx