Furniture trove offers vintage beauty

NEW LOOK: Sarah Gibb, from Gladstone, in her new Greytown shop, Vintage European Furniture. PHOTO/LYNDA FERINGA

In a corner of Greytown, Sarah Gibb has opened a treasure trove selling antique and vintage furniture sourced from Europe.

Vintage European Furniture, at the Northern end of Main St, opened two weeks ago and boasts original pine pieces and industrial-style goods.

Mrs Gibb said she tried to stock items not found anywhere else in New Zealand and she was keeping her overheads down to maintain low prices.

The store is an expansion of the business Mrs Gibb had been running from a large shed at her Gladstone home, through a website.

She said, despite opening in the midst of winter, in two weeks the store had seen more sales than she would usually see in a whole month.

Mrs Gibb, who is originally from England, describes her furniture as robust and full of character.

Her store offers a range of tables, desks and chests, authentic club chairs and vintage enamelware and glassware.

"[The furniture] could fit into a contemporary house and a family home. Kids could knock it around but it's still lovely heirloom furniture."

She also sells pottery, vintage fabrics from which she makes decorative bunting, notice boards, and top-quality linen and oil cloths.

Mrs Gibb sources her stock on an annual trip to the United Kingdom and Europe.

"I usually try and get a bit of history on the pieces so we know a bit about them."

Before trying her hand as an antique dealer, Mrs Gibb was a landscape architect.

"But jobs are limited in that area. I wanted to be able to travel and have always had an interest in antiques."

In the early 1990s, when Mrs Gibb was 18, she spent a year in Masterton tutoring at St Mathew's College.

Unbeknown to her, her future husband, Alastair, also from the UK, had done a "gap year" at Rathkeale College a year earlier.

"I went back to the UK and we both were studying at an agricultural college. I saw he had his Rathkeale sweatshirt on."

Mrs Gibb said she went over to ask about the jersey and the rest is history.

The couple moved from their farm in Scotland to New Zealand in 2004 and have three daughters, Emma, 13, Abi, 9, and Lizie, 5.

After a short stint in Napier the couple decided to relocate to Masterton, the town where they had each spent a year as teenagers.