Something rather lovely landed on our desk this month. Suffolk Business has run a piece on our partnership with Nigel Tyas Ironwork, and Simon Young has told the story properly, which we appreciated more than we can say. You can read the full piece on the Yorkshire to Suffolk blacksmithing partnership over on their...
If handcrafted ironwork feels at home anywhere in the house, it is in the kitchen. There is something deeply satisfying about a superbly made pan rack, not just for the storage it provides, but for what it says about a kitchen and the people who cook in it. A Made by the Forge pan rack...
Follow a muddy track behind a tiny Suffolk cottage, back in 2006, and you would have found Richard in a garden shed, lit by a single bare light bulb, hammering hot iron into shape. That shed is where Made by the Forge began. Richard is an artisan blacksmith: a craftsperson who heats iron in...
Of all the decisions that go into dressing a window, the finial is the one most likely to be underestimated. It is small. It sits at the end of the pole. And yet it is the detail that gives your window dressing its character, anchoring the look to a particular style and, in the...
The conservatory is one of the most loved rooms in the British home, and also one of the trickiest to get right. As spring arrives and the sun climbs higher, what was a pleasant retreat in February can become an uncomfortable greenhouse by May. The answer, more often than homeowners realise, lies at the...
Walk into the Made by the Forge workshop in Suffolk and you will hear it before you see it. The ring of hammer on iron, the hiss of metal meeting water, the rhythmic focus of skilled hands at work. It is a sound that has echoed through British workshops for centuries. And it is...
Choosing the right curtain poles can make a significant difference to the atmosphere of the room, particularly when dressing large windows or expansive doors such as French or bifold doors. The correct pole not only ensures your curtains hang beautifully but that they continue to hang perfectly for years to come. In this guide,...
Rethinking How We Dress Our Windows Most of us give surprisingly little thought to how our windows are dressed. We choose a fabric we like, hang it on whatever pole or track came with the house, and leave it at that. Yet the way curtains are hung affects far more than appearance. It shapes...
A curtain pole is easy to overlook. It holds the fabric, sits above the window and, once fitted, disappears from conscious thought. Yet the hardware you choose shapes how well your curtains actually perform, and the difference between a single pole and a double pole is more significant than most people expect. This post...
The mechanics of a double curtain pole are straightforward enough. Two poles, two layers of fabric, one set of brackets. But the aesthetic possibilities that open up once you move beyond a single layer are considerable, and getting the details right makes the difference between a window that looks dressed and one that looks...