Retreating to the country and Retreat Home!

OK, well here comes my first blog! A bit of background first I think...

My company Retreat Home is a huge part of my life, and a part that I love and nurture tirelessly.  Having spent years doing the London/blue chip company thing, it was always a dream to move out to the country, with space for a family, to do my own thing. In fact it was having my son, Louis, that made me re-evaluate my life and career and brought forth the idea of Retreat Home. I loved my high profile job at Laura Ashley but once Louis arrived, I found the commuting, the long hours and the frequent business trips just made it incredibly hard for me to be the kind of mum I wanted to be. It seemed the time was right to have a go at fulfilling the long-held fantasy of running my own business.

I did a lot of research visiting independent boutique shops around the country and saw there was a real market for beautiful, unusual, well-designed and well-made home accessories.  I felt there was a customer out there who, like me, had perhaps moved on from a passion for fashion and now wanted to make her home as gorgeous as possible. So armed with an initial collection of designs, a contact book full of manufacturers and a £3000 budget, I got my first samples made up and took a stand at Pulse. And from there Retreat Home took root and flourished.

The Retreat stand at Harrogate last week

Three or four years later, we have nine employees, proper offices and warehousing, but the ethos of the company and the ideas that drive me forward remain the same.  It’s fantastically rewarding and incredibly satisfying, being able to run the company according to my personal philosophy and ethics, and to see that set of values pay off as the company grows.

So that's the story so far...more (much more!) to come....