TWO women are combating the single-use throwaway culture by giving furniture a new lease of life.

Narelle Lester Paine and Jenny Leslau run the Juniper Barn in Cane End and believe in sourcing and creating high quality, sustainable pieces which are unique and built to last.

They use dealers across the UK and Europe and employ a furniture restorer and artist who paints fresh designs on to some of the pieces to create something “new”.

Their varied collection includes vibrant glazed 19thcentury pottery from the South of France, cast iron urns from a French chateau and candlesticks and sconces from Italy.

Ms Paine, 65, from Henley, said adapting and reusing was a key part of their offer. She says: “We have factory lighting from the Forties that originated in a British aerospace factory near Bristol.

“These were the lights hanging in the factory and what a restorer has done is to take each light and adapt them for residential use and then have them polished and restored.

“The other lights that we have are from the old Rolls Royce factory in Derby and they’re amazing. We got the last three and have been fixed up and would be perfect if somebody is doing a barn conversion, has a big kitchen island or high ceilings because they’re pretty punchy.

“Previously they would have been lying in a big heap in a factory somewhere and our electrician has picked them up, put them back together, polished and restored them. So, they’re very special and they have such a good history.

“I think what people love is a story behind a piece of furniture and knowing the provenance. For instance, we have a patisserie table that would have been in a pastry shop in France and now somebody can have it in their kitchen or their hallway.

“Every single piece that we have, and that is one of the reasons why we love old furniture and antique pieces, is that we try and find out the story behind it as far as possible.

“With our pieces from France, very often we will know which chateau it has come from and which part of France it has come from.”

There are also tables made from old fruit wood that originated from vineyards in Bordeaux, which were created flat-packed to slide between barrels and used for when there are wine tastings.

Ms Paine, a mother-of-one whose parents were antique collectors, says: “So, they have wine and cheese on them and they are set up as an actual table and then when they are finished it just goes back between the barrels. Of course, all the pieces we would have in our own home.”

The women also employ an artist to transform pieces that are currently out of fashion so that they can prolong their life.

Ms Leslau, 62, who lives in Wallingford, says: “Dark furniture isn’t really that popular at the moment. We had some old Victorian mahogany chests of drawers and we have an artist who does his own design and creates these wonderful pieces of art and so every one is absolutely unique.”

The pair have been friends for more than 20 years and have bonded on their mutual love of collecting beautiful and unusual items at markets around the world.

They both previously worked in the recruitment industry and in 2021 they decided to go into business together, launching the Juniper Barn, named after Ms Leslau’s favourite childhood songs, Jennifer Juniper, by Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan, which was released in 1968.

Ms Leslau, a mother of three grown-up children, says: “I was buying for myself in France and bringing it back and my mother always used to go to the local cell rooms and pick up really beautiful different things.

“Narelle and I actually met in our 20s and we worked together in recruitment in London. I stopped working to have my children and Narelle carried on. When she decided that she wanted to do something different, I was already painting and restoring furniture, although not to the extent we are doing together now.

“When we decided we’d like to do something together the first thing we did was to go to an antiques market and just realised that we had exactly the same sort of eye and we went on from there.

“We started off using a friend’s stable yard at Watlington for storage and we were there for a year and when it got to February we found that we were bursting at the seams with stock and that we needed somewhere to actually showcase everything and that’s when we came to Cane End. This is how we wanted to do it.”

One of their favourite finds was a large French stone statue of the Madonna for a client who was looking for a very special piece for her garden.

Ms Leslau says: “We had been contacted by a journalist who was looking for a statue for her garden, specifically a statue of the Madonna. One of our dealers in France found one, which was not quite life-size.

“It was brought here from France and she completely fell in love with it and has now created a white rose garden around it. She really was thrilled with it and so that created a really lovely feeling for us.

“Another time we had an 18th century wall hanging which we had on display at the Henley Decor Fair in our marquee. It got to the last half an hour on the last day and a couple walked in, looked at it, walked away and then looked at it again. It transpired that they were looking for something to go at the top of a staircase.

“The picture on the wall hanging was an 18th century painting of a chateau and it turns out that the chateau where this painting had come from was about five kilometres from the couple’s own chateau. So, they took it away with the and back to the area where it came from. They were thrilled.”

For more information, follow @thejuniperbarn on Instagram and visit www.thejuniperbarn.co.uk