It’s our birthday! Let’s celebrate 11 years of secrets…
Oh my, can you believe it? We're turning 11 this month. Time really does fly when you're making beds, dressing tables and sharing smiles. To celebrate this rather wonderful milestone, we thought we'd let you in on some of our favourite secrets from over the years...
1
Before we were folding fitted sheets, Molly and Harriet were folding napkins. We first worked together in a little fast-food restaurant called the Riviera, wearing matching pinafores and frilly aprons. I’m not sure we ever imagined that we would be, not only working together, but Co-Founders of our Secret Linen Store.
2
Speaking of beginnings, we nearly weren't the Secret Linen Store at all – Molly and Harriet originally dreamed up a business selling brollies.
3
Our beloved Teasels Teal Bed Linen has been with us since day one. It was in our very first collection and is still going strong today... it’s a classic, rather like a proper builder's brew.
4
The early days were quite the adventure. Our first "office" was the spare room in an investor's house, where poor Harriet had to lug boxes upon boxes of bed linen up the stairs whenever deliveries arrived.
5
We used to meet on a park bench in Reigate (halfway between our homes) to make final selections for new collections. Come rain or shine, that bench saw the birth of many of your favourite bedding sets.
6
Here's a lovely one – we make our bed linen in Portugal because of a chance meeting in Porto back in 2000. One tip-off led to a jolly good trip, which led to a meeting, which led to the start of a fabulous working relationship and we're still working with those same wonderful people today.
7
Our warehouse has the most delightful nickname: The Bedquarters. Meanwhile, our office is called 'Justin's House' (yes, it's rented from a rather lovely chap called Justin, naturally).
8
Talking of naming our workspaces, we have a meeting space called Scotland Yard. It's named after a small space between rooms as we grew up... though we're still utterly baffled as to why. We also have a meeting room called ‘The Bedroom’ and, quite ingeniously, ‘Meeting Room’.
9
When we say family run business, we really mean it. Both Rosie (fellow Freshwater sister and our Managing Director) and Harriet’s husbands work with us too. One keeps our operations ticking along nicely while the other keeps an eye on the pennies.
10
Our wonderful head of Customer Service, Jodie, was only the second person we ever employed. She's been keeping our lovely customers smiling for 9 whole years.
11
Have you seen our marvellous potato sack packaging? We used to handprint each one individually with a rubber stamp. Labour-intensive, but charming, nonetheless.
Some Bonus Secrets...
And because we simply can't help ourselves, here are a few bonus secrets... We’re the Secret Linen Store after all.
1
Harriet used to be our very own Elle Woods, with a pink car, pink bed, pink phone and mainly pink clothes.
2
When she's not running the business side of things, our MD (and middle sister) Rosie loves nothing more than a proper boogie at big parties in big cities most weekends.
3
Molly has a rather strong opinion about parsnips – they're absolutely not welcome on her plate, no matter how you dress them up.
4
Harriet is quite the artist and rather brilliant at portrait painting.
5
There was that time that Harriet ended up in A&E after taking a tumble down the stairs... on our busiest day of the year. We can have a giggle about it now, but certainly not a laughing matter at the time.
6
We're a family of four sisters: Molly, Rosie, Hatty, and Libby (who's the sensible one, working as a teacher's assistant instead of getting caught up in our bed linen adventures).
From those early days of stamping potato sacks and heaving boxes upstairs, to now having our own Bedquarters, it's been quite the journey. We couldn't have made it to 11 years without all you lovely people choosing to make your beds and dress your home with us.
Here's to many more years of comfy, comfy homes.
From Molly & Harriet x
