A FORMER care boss has launched new boutique to help people dine in style.
After 13 years in the care industry, Andrea Poulton, from Barnard Castle, decided to swap careers and launch an interior store, Noon Living, dedicated to creating the perfect dining experience.
Mrs Poulton said: “It’s been a real labour of love, but it has been worth it. The dining table for me is the heart of a family. The table is somewhere you come together as a family and talk together.
“It’s somewhere you spend a lot of time with your loved ones and making it an inviting place is what appeals to me.”
Fittingly, the centre display in the store at The Bank, in Barnard Castle, is a beautifully laid table, complete with bright, but tasteful Summerill and Bishop table linens, dinner services from iconic pottery including Spode and Portmerion as well as designs from Portugal and Japan.
She added: “I have always had a fascination with dining rooms.
“We spend a lot of time around the table as a family. I didn’t want the shop to look like a store. I wanted it to be inviting and more like a dining room that people will feel at home with and I think I have got that right.”
Husband Michael, who has helped get the shop ready for customers, said: “We set up the website business before Andrea sold her care business last year.
“But since then, we have been able to put the time and effort in to getting the shop organised. It’s been a bit of a steep learning curve getting everything set up, but it’s credit to Andrea. She has sourced some great things and is the driving force.
“We did find the perfect quote though from Art Buchwald for the website that sums what Noon Living is about – ‘dinner is not what you do in the evening before something else. Dinner is the evening’.”
As well as providing a “sourcing service” for customers, the couple will create photo cards for each creative setting to help inspire and are looking at creating a wedding registry.
Mrs Poulton added: “We want to be somewhere that people can get inspiration for the table layouts.
“I will be creating photo cards for each different display we create so everyone can recreate the look.
“The idea is that we are going to be somewhere you can get something unusual,” she added.
