With The Grain was set up in 2010 by Lucinda Edmonds, but started growing more quickly in 2014 when her husband Richard joined full-time.
Our aim is to provide a local & personal service to all our clients, however small or large the project. We love our work and take pride in everything we make and restore. We have worked with clients all over the UK, and have some quite well-known and prestigious names on that list. They all have in common a love of good furniture, whether that means design and build, or restoring an older, much-loved piece. Wood is a very robust material and can last many centuries, so it's always worth a bit of Tender Loving Care!
Budgets don't have to be huge. We price realistically on every project. Obviously, for a new item, it's not easy to compete on price with cheap, poorly made imported furniture that won't last; but we ask you to consider the lifetime value of furniture and to think about its near immortality!
Lucinda
"My love of wood came from my childhood days when I remember my dad's favourite hobby of carving walking sticks. I went on to do my City & Guilds in Wisbech and Ipswich - I'm a Fens girl at heart!
At 18, I made my big move to the bright lights of High Wycombe - then the vibrant centre of the English wood furniture tradition to study for my Bachelor of Arts degree in furniture restoration. This covered a huge range of techniques to add to my foundation skills, like gilding, traditional polishing, French polishing, boulle work and marquetry.
After working briefly with an Oxfordshire-based restorer, I went onto be a veneer matcher, and then onto Stewart Linford in 1997 as a chairmaker.
That's where I met Richard, and after our third child, I made the decision to set myself up as a restorer working from my small workshop and started meeting many local clients in the High Wycombe area."
Richard
"I'd actually done some part-time work at Stewart Linford's factory from the age of 15 and I decided to take on an apprenticeship there at 16. I started off making Windsor chairs, so I suppose you could call me a typical Wycombe chair bodger!
A broken arm gave me the chance to show Stewart that I could organise a thing or two, and I took the opportunity to become involved in production planning and finance. This took me away from the shop floor some of the time, but I always stayed involved with the more bespoke work.
The company grew with contracts for major retailers like Harrods and we were recognised with the Queen's Award for Enterprise in 2004. This growth helped us expand our range to include tables, cabinet making, and some commissions for some very wealthy and prestigious clients.
I looked after the timber selection and purchase across UK, Europe and America, and became experienced in ancillary processes such as steam bending, upholstering, polishing, sliver work, caning, rushing, even glazing and stained glass windows.
I became involved with several museum projects including Stewart Linford's own museum at the factory, plus Wycombe Museum and the Geffrye Museum in Shoreditch, London
Finally, in 2014, I knew the time was right to join forces with Lucinda and focus on developing our local business with everything I'd learnt."