Introduction
The Scottish Furniture Showroom may soon be situated in the Maxwell Park train station in the south side of Glasgow, a very short distance from the Burrell Collection in Pollokshields Park (voted Britain's best park, by the way).
Network Rail and First Scot Rail are presently considering an application for the use of the station as a gallery space for hand-made furniture. There are other applicants in the running, so the showroom is by no means a certainty. Should it come about, however, the furniture on show will be of the highest quality. There are to be no imports, no factory made pieces. Almost nothing in the Scottish Furniture Showroom will be for sale at any outlet, be it the most tasteful or exclusive gallery. The designer-makers whose work is on show will mostly be professionals, most will be members of the Scottish Furniture Makers Association (link on the left to find out more about the association and its fifty-odd members). However, professional designer-makers from England are also invited to exhibit their work. (If you are interested in exhibiting your furniture, please get in touch. The rental of space, roughly estimated in the present costings, is £40 per month for a large piece of furniture and 10% of any sales.)
Annual exhibition
Many a marketing strategy will be used to promote the showroom without spending a fortune. Once a year (at least) there will be a large furniture exhibition in the nearby (200m) Burgh Hall.
Staffing and opening hours
At the moment, the plans are for the showroom to be open only on weekends and perhaps one day a week. The reason for limited weekday opening times is simply the cost of staffing. And the increased costs would have to be passed on the the exhibitors. It is hoped that the gallery will be staffed by the enthusiastic and knowledgeable. In part, staffing will be undertaken by exhibitors. Some probable exhibitors have already expressed an interest in manning the shop for a weekend, for which they will receive pay. This, of course, helps defray the cost of travelling to Glasgow when dropping off or picking up furniture from the showroom.
We will also be looking for people to staff the gallery. Ideally, the makers would speak for themselves. But the next best thing would be to have an enthusiastic amateur cabinet maker minding the shop. Please note that the present plans call for part-time staff on a rota, perfectly suited for a retired gent or two with a passion for making things and who wished to pass their time agreeably on six to twelve weekends a year. And why not spend the money you make baby-sitting these works of art for cabinet-making or french polishing courses? If you are interested hit the email button to the left.
How to get there
By train, at Glasgow Central just get on the Cathcart Circle or Newton and get off two stops later. You're there. Estimated travel time: 6 to 9 minutes. From Central Station the cost is under £1.50 return. If you are coming from further away, say Edinburgh, then ask for a rail ticket to Maxwell Park. The additional cost is usually negligible, sometimes there is no additional cost.
By car, here are some nearby landmarks: the Burrell Art Gallery and Pollokshields Park, Hutchison's Grammar School, Craigholme School (when the two nearest schools are expensive fee-paying schools, you get the picture of the neighbourhood), and the Tramway. The train station can be reached by Fotheringgay Road or Terreagles Avenue. The latter is much quieter for parking.
If you think the station would make a great bespoke art furniture gallery, email the Glasgow Building Preservation Trust (www.gbpt.org)
info@gbpt.org and tell them!
On-line furniture gallery
All the furniture at the showroom will be featured on this website. But the internet gallery will include all manner of beautiful handmade furniture by designer-makers exhibiting at the showroom or working in Scotland. This key to this virtual gallery is that it is very nearly a shop. The only works pictured will be pieces that are for sale.
This ethereal section of the Scottish Furniture Showroom has a bit of a drawback when it comes to buying furniture. We all like to see it in the flesh (or wood) before purchasing. But from the comfort of the chair in front of your computer (my old chair is decidedly not comfy), you can whizz off around the country, from the Borders to Orkney, and see furniture for sale that you just couldn't see anywhere else. Some of the makers take their furniture to exhibitions and some have their own "showroom" (normally a tidy portion of the workshop) and most have their own website or pages on the website of the Scottish Furniture Makers Association. Despite that, the pieces of furniture on show here remain elusive beasts. Your chances of happening upon even a few of them outside this website are small.
As I said, everything on this website is for sale. The cost and size and materials used and where the piece can be seen is listed. An example of what the internet gallery might look like can be seen below. If you wish to see before you buy, you may have to travel far, however, there is the chance of having it shipped to the real showroom in Glasgow. But for that, you will have to talk things over with the maker.
Description: oak hall table with single drawer. x800mm tall, x1000mm wide, x400mm deep. The back rail is designed to hold post.
Maker: Samson's Joinery, Glasgow, 0141 632 8681
Website: www.samsonsjoinery.co.uk
Viewing: Clydeside Antiques Centre, 121 Lancefield Street, Glasgow
Price: £850.00
Each of the pieces on display here also provides a link with the maker's website, should he or she have one. There you will be able to see other examples of their work and perhaps you will take it into your head to commission a piece to be made just for you.
Commissioning bespoke furniture
A page on how to do it will be added to the website. Remember, the website at the moment is aimed at makers not at visitors. A portfolio for each of the exhibitors will be held at the train station. But it is up to the exhibitor to provide photographs.
Cabinet makers' websites
A link that is already under construction is a list of every single damn website in Britain featuring bespoke handmade furniture. Ideally, everyone listed will agree to contribute a small one-off sum for being on the list. The plan is for the website to be a useful tool for furniture-making students as well as customers. Perhaps, in time, makers from farther flung parts of Britain will wish to enter their for-sale pieces in the on-line gallery if not the actual building.
Contact details
To email use the button on the left at the top.
To write, address your post to Ross Samson, 28 Riverside Road, Glasgow G43 2EF.
To speak in person, call (0141) 632 8681 or 07985 046827
