News Archive

The Forge ‘Shapes’ Bathroom Range

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Famous for its design potential, the bathroom provides homeowners with a chance to be different, an opportunity to reveal a playful side. You might say that bathroom design has very few rules so feel free to break all of them. For example, what might look out of place in any other room, may be perfect for the bathroom. Some bathrooms I’ve visited had an on-it-side, old fashioned trunk as the under-sink cupboard which not only works surprisingly well, it’s a nod to the past which is practical and somewhat distinctive. A lot of show business folks like to adorn their smallest rooms with any awards they may have won. Often you will find autographed photos of famous people in people’s bathrooms. On any other wall in the house, it may be seen as not the done thing, a sort of visual namedropping but in the bathroom, it’s forgiven and enjoyed.

But what if your own bathroom could do with a bit of design, pieces that fit together as a range but also stand alone as desirable bathroom accessories? As a small family business, it’s always a thrill to work with talented, award-winning British designers. We are welcoming back Chris Eckersley who has designed a number of pieces for the bathroom. Titled ‘The Forge Shapes Bathroom Range’, it consists of five pieces and each is linked by the design of three shapes that reoccur throughout the range. Small, metal circles, squares and diamonds all feature on each piece providing a subtle theme if any are placed together. 

The range includes a towel rail, loo roll wall brackets, single hooks, a combination set of 3 hooks and a toilet roll ‘Butler’.

Each will be hand made by our expert team at the Forge. The pieces will gift your bathroom with a ‘contemporary designer’ ambiance, that is wholly practical but also visually arresting aspect, a merging of the modern rustic with an up to date sensibility.

For this bathroom project we also worked with the interior designer Jane McIntyre to create a space where there was a calm practical overall theme. Jane suggested a large mirror and a French style curtain pole for the window opening. Also long, light weight curtains for privacy and peacefulness and lots of hooks to hang dressing gowns, towels and clothes on. It all works beautifully and is such a joy when in the space.

With a little creativity and care, you may want to spend more time indulging in beautifying your bathroom. We like to adorn spaces with useful items that last. All the pieces in the ranges are designed and made to last a lifetime so once purchased thats it other than treating yourself to some beautiful towels and gorgeous products to make your space truly luxurious. Perhaps now is the time to ‘shape’ up your bathroom.

 

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Introduction to the ‘Ten Steps’ Initiative

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The recent COP 26 conference in Glasgow, uniting world leaders to find immediate solutions to the runaway climate change problem, yielded mixed results. At Made by the Forge, we feel that we each have a responsibility to do our bit to offset carbon emissions both at home and at our business. We started our own offset efforts 13 years ago, aware that making our products requires energy that produces carbon, something unavoidable in fashioning ironwork. Since 2009, we have stood by our pledge of planting a tree for each order received. In the early days, we did this by hand by ourselves and as the business grew, we relied on the Suffolk Wildlife Trust and teams of volunteers to plant thousands of trees. We have now formed a relationship with Houghton Hall Estate and contribute to the extraordinary environmental work that’s an ongoing project in Norfolk, planting trees for hedgerows and creating specific areas for wildlife.

With all the media coverage of global warming issues reporting on so many floods and fires that just over three decades ago were rare, we have reached a tipping point. We now want to step up a gear and aim at the holy grail of environmental responsibility –  emissions as low as possible before a set date. But what exactly is a carbon footprint? Well, you’re adding to it right now by just breathing out. But industry and manufacturing companies emit a great amount of CO2 and that’s where the principal problem lies. To this end, we have made a commitment to the SME Climate Hub (Small and Medium Enterprises) to follow the ‘Ten Steps To Net-Zero’ plan. We thought that a series of blogs explaining these steps might help people to understand the importance of what the individual is capable of. Add those people up and making a huge difference together is possible and to be frank, urgently needed.

You may think that some environmental initiatives by food companies and manufacturing firms are ‘green washing’, paying lip service to needed changes by providing money to soothe consciences and then just carrying on business as usual. But at Made by the Forge we want Net-Zero (in a few years) to actually be business as usual. It’s going to be challenging, a word we use when we want to put a positive face on ‘hard work’ but in the 21st century, we want to be a company that takes its responsibilities to our customers as seriously as we need to take our responsibilities to the planet. Join us on the journey.

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New 16mm Curtain Pole Range

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Windows are very idiosyncratic. There’s no such thing as a standard window. They need to let the light in but also have the curtains drawn to keep the cold winds out and the dark at bay. They can be huge in some interior spaces and all windows however large or small are going to need a curtain rail to compliment that size. Made by the Forge has been quietly but determinedly urged by our customers to make a thinner curtain rail and corresponding finials available. We listened.

Let me introduce you to our 16mm range. Of the six finials now available, three are familiar designs and three are new additions. Rather than name them corresponding to their shape as we do with the 25 and 20mm poles, we thought we’d associate them with our tree planting pledge. Each finial bears the name of a location in the UK where we have planted trees. So while the Alexandra may look like our best-selling cannonball finial, it now has a name to remind us of what we must put back into the environment as do all the others. There’s the button finial now christened the Bradfield and the mini take on the Honey Dipper now known as the Carlton.

Even the standard bracket has had a makeover. It now projects from a flat disc and encompasses the whole pole.

The three new designs are striking in different ways. The Houghton is a large button design, very simple and proud. The Levington is a three button finial with the larger one sandwiched by the two smaller. The most eye-catching is the horse bit design known as the Offtonian. This was chosen to represent the equine foundation of farriery. It never hurts to be reminded of the craft’s roots.

I hope our 16mm range is to your liking and as ever, all the details of the new range are here…

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Circular Door Pole and Café Curtain Rods

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There are few things more satisfying in our business than finding talented interior designers who understand what we do and how and why we do it. Knowing that our products are gracing interior spaces all over the world gives us a warm glow of satisfaction. Professional respect in a mutually beneficial relationship makes everyone feel good. Both Nicolas of Boxx Creative (Nicola Keenan and Nicola Lindsell) understood Made by the Forge’s spirit immediately. Our work and commitment to both excellence and the environment complemented their own design philosophy to a tee. One look at Boxx Creative’s project page tells you all you need to know about the company’s skill, creative flair and fine taste. We are thrilled to be in collaboration with them.

We were delighted to provide café rods, bespoke brackets and a crescent door pole for a most dramatic tartan curtain that greets you as you enter The Hunter’s Moon pub and restaurant in South Kensington. Its interiors look really stylish and inviting.


Photography: Annabel Moeller. Design: Boxx Creative.

Café rods or café poles are now becoming quite the ‘in-thing’ in restaurants, pubs and homes across the land. They attach halfway down either side of a window allowing light in but maintaining privacy from the drawn half-curtains. The poles are very slim with a diameter of 12mm and look very sleek once installed. We offer two different styles of brackets; the first is on a flat wall plate which can be discreetly attached to the recess of your window. The pole then sits inside the cup. The second is a small round bracket which is attached to the outside of the window frame (we call it face fix) and the pole fits neatly through it. To keep it simple, there is the option of no finials or one very small button end. We now have a new dedicated page offering these café poles so it is easy to order them from our website. Take a look here >

Nicola Lindsell commented on our collaboration. In her own words…

‘At Boxx Creative, we’re driven to find suppliers who align with our ethos of ‘consciously creating’ and who’s products complement our interior design schemes. Having been referred to Made by the Forge by another interior designer, and after further investigation into their set up and background, we knew we wanted to collaborate with them on our project.  Their passion for their craft, personal service, and friendly team delivered a high quality product, on time and to budget. 

Our design for The Hunter’s Moon, the British country pub in the heart of South Kensington, champions comfort and cosy get togethers. As part of the scheme we installed a large double sided woollen  entrance curtain that hangs from a semi-circular wrought iron curtain pole.  Made by the Forge crafted the fixing to look elegant whilst sturdy enough to withstand the job in hand – no mean feat.  Cafe curtains in the front window added to the intimate setting and created a soft barrier between the busy Fulham Road and cosy pub within.  Again, a subtle fixing method that was both practical and refined in design was lovingly created and installed.

Made by the Forge are trustworthy and reliable suppliers who create sustainable and artisanal products.  We’re proud to install and commission their products in our projects and look forward to the next time we will work together.’’

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Forging a Poster

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There is a pertinent phrase attributed to no less a figure than Leonardo da Vinci that most creatives apply to their own endeavours. It is that “Art is never finished, only abandoned.” Deadlines focus the mind and often this is helpful to actually get things done. Being a small business taking care of marketing on a very modest level, we have no deadlines. And so we come to the creation of the second Made by the Forge poster, a work that spanned too many moons to count as we finalised the images, the text and the arrangement of both to create a pleasing whole. You could say that it’s one work of art that was less abandoned than most.

Poster_Blog_03.jpg

Summing up our business and our product line in an eye-catching and modern way is a great pleasure because we know exactly what we stand for. Richard’s own blacksmith grandfather allows us to evoke the timeless aspects of the craft while superb photography shows you how our products fit effortlessly into twenty-first century lifestyles. We are blessed to work on a raw material with such an authentic history and designs that have proved to be evergreen.

On one side of the poster, we illustrate this history together with photos of our products in a variety of environments. On the other side, we state our ethos which includes our commitment to sustainability by planting a tree for each order received and we promote our  work with designers to broaden our range. And for those detail oriented sticklers out there, there is a small error on the poster which managed to get through our stringent checks. See if you can spot it. You get a poster with every order and please get in touch if you’d like one sent out to you.

enquiries@madebytheforge.co.uk

Poster_Blog_07.jpg

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Made by the Forge and Hougton Hall Tree Planting February 2021

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Tree Planting collaboration February 2021

Conservation takes work. It takes commitment. It’s not enough just to plant a tree. It has to be nurtured and tended to. While we at Made by the Forge take our pledge of ‘one tree planted for every order’ very seriously, we know that’s just the start of the story. Your tree begins a decades long journey and it’s as important to know that it’s in good hands. Details mean a great deal. Houghton Hall Estate insisted on buying biodegradable tubes to keep the saplings safe, a gesture that convinced us more than ever that we were working with people who care as we do, like-minded custodians of the natural world.

On a bright but cold spring day in February this year, Robert and company from the estate geared up and began planting.  Made by the Forge donated the trees, which were planted using the previously mentioned biodegradable tubes and cones. The planting conditions were perfect and the task was only completed when the three thousand or more young trees were firmly in the ground. Approximately one kilometre of double row hedge trees was installed across the established beetle bank which already houses over-wintering insects and will provide much needed habitat for the surrounding birds and wild inhabitants.

Established beetle bank, Houghton

There are many advantages to this addition of a hedge across the beetle bank. A number of smaller fields are created and will act as important windbreaks, which will, in turn, help prevent soil erosion. The species already living in the adjoining landscape are numerous and beautiful to witness. They need any help they can get and tree planting gives them so many more options for food and shelter. A few of the birds spotted recently searching for seeds, invertebrates and a suitable home, were corn buntings, yellowhammers, stonechats, wagtails, redwings, fieldfares and lapwings, all of whom are a delight to see.

Soon the growing season will be upon us and the life of the new trees will begin. We are just so pleased and thrilled that we have been a small part of providing a little more shelter, more biodiversity and some extra carbon storage for our wild countryside. Our gratitude goes out to Robert and his team of committed conservationists.

 

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Interior Designer Jane McIntyre on Interior Design Part 3

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“So why hire a designer? The myth that designers swan into the house, bully the client into submission to have the latest trends – whether or not it suits person or house, charge a fortune and run a mile when things start to get tough is one that is hard to break. The reality is that a good designer listens to the client and tries first and foremost to truly understand their needs and aspirations. Not everyone wants a state of the art show house. Most want something that suits their lifestyle but they don’t necessarily have the time, the skills or the confidence to organise their ideas into a coherent space.

“I have always enjoyed meeting the client, seeing their home, their current furnishings, meeting the kids and the dogs and really trying to get into their lifestyle. Usually I go home afterwards, write copious notes, head through my vast library of fabrics, wall and floor coverings and paint samples and come up with the basics, ready for our next discussion. This new way of working through Zoom meetings has rather put paid to that and although I can chat forever on line with them it’s not the same as face to face and seeing their reaction when they handle fabrics, which are generally my starting point of any scheme. But one needs to move forward and it has it’s advantages once we get past the embarrassing moments of delay on Zoom, less time spent in travel means more time allowed for research, so it is beginning to become the norm. I have successfully finished a few projects without even stepping inside the homes or meeting the clients face to face, so here’s to a new way of doing things, at least for the foreseeable future.”

We asked Jane a few questions about her work.

How do you manage a client whose taste in interior design doesn’t quite line up with your own?

“I don’t “manage” my clients, it’s more the other way round, they “manage” me as I am working for them and trying to fulfil their dreams. I may gently guide them through the mire of indecision but I certainly never “manage” them.”

How much of your own instincts inform your work as opposed to those aspects in which you have been educated?

“Instinct and intuition are a designer’s best tools. I can’t really remember my education, it was so long ago and I always rebelled, went against the grain, so it was really just a stepping stone.”

In the next blog, Jane answers a few more questions on the practical working life of an interior designer.

Call Jane: 02380 812239
Email: jane@janemcintyredesign.com

Website: https://janemcintyredesign.com

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Interior Designer Jane McIntyre – and Made by the Forge Part 2

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In the second part of our blog on Interior designer Jane McIntyre, Jane tells us how she works with Made by the Forge’s curtain poles.

“Often a whole room is schemed around a curtain fabric so what you hang then on them is very important. There was a time when large, grand windows demanded huge wooden poles or ornate pelmets, but I have hung three metre high curtains on Made by the Forge’s poles in a Manor house and the effect was stunning. Equally, I am about to order some for a teeny cottage with even teenier windows and I will be putting the self same poles up there and know they will be perfect. I’ve also used the French poles once and am contemplating those for another project that requires an absolutely simple treatment.

“One of my most challenging jobs for the poles was in a 16th Century timber framed house in Winchester where the downstairs windows went to within an inch of the very crooked ceilings, leaving no room at all for poles. Persuading the client – who favoured fat wooden poles or pelmets – that the forged poles would work perfectly was a work in itself, then the builder fired off his own directive about the insubstantial lath and plaster walls being unable to hold the weight of curtains, let alone solid metal poles. As the curtains were heavy textured velvet with thick interlining – those houses are draughty however much heating goes in – this was a challenge!

“Not to be beaten, we put a baton all the way along the top of the window and 30cms either side, taking the line from the lowest point of the ceiling – this we fixed with many screws and a lot of Gripfill*. We put the top of the bracket as high as we could on this baton and packed out the base of the bracket to level it. The idea of this exercise was to spread the load across the wall rather than just in the places were the brackets would – or wouldn’t – fix to the wall. Applying my trademark “boofy” headings, or in rather more technical terms a 10cm heading above the tape, which flops away from the pole in a random fashion and in this case crushed in parts against the ceiling, all in all disguising the crooked space. Given enough width in a curtain can create a very dramatic and opulent feel. Four years later the curtains still stand and with the success of that window we went on to do the whole house with Richard’s poles.”

Call Jane: 02380 812239
Email: jane@janemcintyredesign.com Website: https://janemcintyredesign.com

*Other adhesives are available.

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Interior Designer Jane McIntyre talks to Made by the Forge Part 1 of 4

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Jane’s professional life is as colourful as the fabrics she loves so much. She’s been an entertainment promoter working with the UK’s top comic talent, as well as organising Torvill and Dean’s ice shows. She spent time in the fashion industry and is now running her own interior design company. We’ve had a decade long relationship with Jane so we first asked her how she found us…

“I found Made by The Forge quite by chance, long before the joys of social media were constantly sending us new links and feeds. I think it must have been a mention in a magazine where our paths crossed. I had been using forged poles for years, but when my current blacksmith (happily, also my partner) retired and moved to carpentry I couldn’t find anyone local who could come up with anywhere near his standard. Forging is one skill, but adding the design element is quite another and I was immediately impressed with the way Richard had interpreted this gap in the market. There was an abundance of metal poles around, but none capable of hanging the heavy velvet curtains which I was favouring at the time while still remaining sleek and simple.

“Another very important aspect of my choice to now only use Made by the Forge is that even if I could find a local artisan blacksmith with a great eye for design, of which I am sure there are many, I would be surprised if they had the overall ability to interpret my needs and meet my deadlines. Tying in all the finishing touches of a refurbishment can be tricky at the best of times. Knowing that Richard and his team will have the order on site exactly when it was promised, will jump to instantly and pop extra rings in the post if I have miscalculated and if I suddenly need another last minute pole, will do everything in their power to whizz that order through, is very reassuring. The prices are excellent, there are no hidden costs and I have no idea how they can offer such good shipping rates for such heavy items! And so the relationship was born, why would I look elsewhere when this works so well!”

Call Jane: 02380 812239
Email: jane@janemcintyredesign.com Website: https://janemcintyredesign.com

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Made by the Forge and Houghton Hall tree planting plans

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Our pledge to plant a tree for every order taken is something we take very seriously at Made by the Forge. While the Suffolk Wildlife Trust has recently turned more to rewilding areas, restoring them to their once natural state, we were alerted to a major tree-planting initiative in Norfolk. To date, Houghton Hall Estate has already planted 14 kilometres of hedging and is committed to planting for many years to come. We were taken with the idea of supporting the Estate by sponsoring the planting of trees to reinstate lost hedging. The hedging would be interspersed with oak trees left to mature thereby mimicking how the landscape would evolve if we’d not controlled it for our own needs for centuries. This in turn will encourage more nature to thrive making available different habitats for a whole variety of species.

In terms of working the land, the Estate is completely organic and provides the majority of organic carrots in the UK’s supermarkets. If you buy organic carrots, the likelihood is that they come from North Norfolk. A completely organic countryside is rare for nature so we felt very drawn to this enterprise. The owners farm the Estate in a considerate and responsible way. So while we pay for the trees, the estate is paying for the tree guards, canes and the actual planting. Each of our customers has a tree which is planted just for them making this country just that little bit more natural.

Our trees will be planted across a beetle bank the Estate has established (image below). Beetle banks are refuge habitats for predatory insects and spiders. These banks can exist mid-field or at the field’s side. They don’t interfere with normal farming practice. The creatures they home in winter significantly reduce pest species in crops as long as they are able to spread out over the fields from the banks in spring. The field we are planting across will gradually become a smaller field joining open farmland. The tree planting will improve the beetle bank and will consist of mixed hedging plants and the scattering of oak trees. The planting is planned for February 2021.

The benefits to nature are plentiful; many more species of birds will be encouraged to make their nests nearby with an abundance of food available. The area is already home to numerous pairs of Turtledoves. This, in and of itself, if you know your birds and their conservation status, is already an extraordinary achievement. There are Yellow Hammers in abundance and the banks encourage Corn Buntings and older declining farmland birds to make their nests nearby. For all the right reasons, the Estate is creating a haven for a great many species while still working the land. It’s a win-win situation and we are proud to support it. We hope you will be too.

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