So we’ve painted and plastered, hammered and hoisted, drilled and dusted. We’ve been snowed in, rained on and stripped paint outside on the pavement, on the coldest day of the year. We’ve laid floors, discovered boarded up doors – and best of all uncovered stunning tiles not seen for almost 50 years.
We’ve had help from Luke the plasterer, Roy the builder, Pip the carpenter, Rob the sign painter, Sarah the typesetter, Simon the electrician, Russell the floor layer, Clive the light display creator – not to mention Justine, Tracey and TJ, who’ve been moving the shop, bit by bit.
And Any Old Lights new shop is almost ready to open!
So many people have dropped in to give us the history of the place. Favourite fact so far : the alley which runs down the back of the shop (which our mysterious boarded up door opens out onto) used to be called Blood Alley – from the butchers which formerly stood here.
Hard to believe this is our third shop in Fowey. Just three years ago in May 2015 we moved into South Street, the oldest shop in Fowey, and while we loved being there, we just outgrew the place. The size of our lights on stands and huge old searchlights meant that we didn’t have space to show them off properly.
Before that, we were in a pop up shop in Lazy Jacks, for the winter of 2014/15. This is where we first realised how much customers enjoyed picking up and being able to handle our beautiful old maritime and industrial pieces.
Little did we know when we got the keys to the shop on 1st February that we would be opening our doors to customers on St Piran’s Day, March 5th _ the day which celebrates the patron saint of Cornwall. We’ll be raising a glass on Monday (a small one – after all, it is a school night) to a small Cornish business getting a little bit bigger.
