Hello and welcome to the very first Lowlands blog post, where I thought I would start off with a very quick introduction to how the shop came about in the first place.
I have always loved design and interiors and was drawn towards mid-century and Northern European design in particular. This, combined with not being a lover of very hot weather and flying, often led to me taking breaks in Northern Europe rather than the Mediterranean or further afield! Throughout my travels, the general idea of good design gradually seeped into my mind and was cemented by an incredible trip to the Bauhaus School and houses in Dessau in the old East Germany.
The whole ethos was awe-inspiring and, combined with other circumstances, it seemed like a great time to think about a change in the direction of my life. I had been a maths teacher in secondary education for 30 years and, while for the most part enjoyable and stimulating, it seemed like a good time to make room for someone younger and with more energy, and follow one of my passions before I got too old.
At the same time, my husband had been designing and fitting out bars and restaurants around Bristol and the South West and had established some great contacts for sourcing lights and old furniture, amongst other items, as well as having leftover lights and furniture from projects.
Everything came together and, combined with the fact that our house on Colston Street, where we raised our three children, used to be a shop, this led one autumn to opening a pop-up in the front, inspired by our trips to Holland and Belgium, called “Lowlands”.
The pop-up was a success and, to cut the story short, we were able to secure the shop next to our house on Colston Street and open permanently under the same name. Although at first, I combined teaching and the shop, it became apparent that the time needed to source the items for the shop, open the shop, and teach were not going to fit into a workable week. Taking the plunge, I retired from teaching and focused full-time on Lowlands. In fact, this led me to one of the interesting things that people always ask me: “Why are you not open more hours?”. The simple answer is that stocking a lot of old items, such as lights and furniture, means the time spent sourcing the stock is one of the major and very time-consuming parts of the job. Although, saying that, it is also very enjoyable to travel and hunt down stock, which is one of my favourite tasks.
If you are simply sourcing new items, you can pretty much sit at home on the computer and order stock, but with old and rare items, the fun is tracking things down and then watching the joy they bring people when you sell them on—or sometimes not!
