Yet another hat: Historic Carpet Consultation

Some of you may know that besides owning Cooper's Cottage Lace and writing countless magazine articles, for the past 20 years I've been involved with the field of historic carpets, which includes Wilton, Brussels, Axminster, Ingrain and Venetian weaves. During this time, I've traveled all over North America and worked independently, and with another firm, in assisting museums, state capitols, governor’s mansions and private residences in selecting and specifying the appropriate pattern and quality and then overseen their delivery and installation. My new site, Historic Carpet Consulting and Sourcing, has just gone live, and I'll be posting stories here of the various jobs I'm working on.

Adding to Your Italianate

As mentioned incessantly, when I'm not purveying the coolest lace curtains in the world at Cooper's Cottage Lace LLC, I write for a bunch of magazines, one of which is Period Homes. They've just published my latest piece for them, a story about some folks in Michigan who added a wing onto their 1860 Italianate by means of an architectural device known as a hyphen. The story is called "Italianate, Hyphenated" and you can see it here.

Feeling the Love From Down Under

I've been selling historic lace curtains for 21 years now. I learned all of the aspects of the business; not only sales and customer service, but how to select and develop new patterns. I've observed what to do, but more importantly,what not to do. In 2007, I started Cooper's Cottage Lace and it's been going really, really well!

In those two decades, I've shipped almost all of the lace to the United States; I've sent a bit to Canada, some to eastern Europe, the United Kingdom and the Middle East, but that was it.

Until recently, when Australia came a callin'. I've never seen anything like it; we have been receiving fantastic orders from this country, and we've had multiple custom requests for extra large and extra long panels, and orders to provide lace curtains for entire houses! I don't know why it's suddenly happening, but I'm very grateful! It's interesting dealing with the 14 hour time difference (especially when I also have to work with the mill in Scotland) but we've all given up on real-time conversations between the three. It all works out, though, and everyone's been delighted. So thank you, Australia!