WORKSPACE TOUR:
Steffanie Ball of En Gold
We went inside the beautiful new En Gold HQ & spoke to furniture designer and founder Steffanie Ball about the beginnings of the brand, what she loves about the new office space and her greatest learnings from the past 2 years.
First things first, how did it all begin & what was that light bulb moment when you
decided tostart En Gold?
We like to say that it all began with $50, an old truck and a baby!
I was on maternity leave with my first baby, Daisy, and decided to re-decorate our small beachside cottage. I was finding it difficult to find anything I liked in contemporary furniture so I was filling my home with beautifully unique vintage pieces. My friend convinced me that I should try on-selling the pieces that I didn’t have room for. I was reluctant but then I found a set of 5 beautiful mid-century armchairs for $50. My husband Matt just bought an old Ford F100 truck, so I sent him to pick them up. I emptied my living room to style the chairs, photograph them and launched an Instagram page. It wasn’t long after that I had designed our first collection of marble plinths, purely out of my own personal disappointment that I couldn’t find any to style with anywhere! This was the beginning of the En Gold brand.
In a beautiful serendipitous series of events, I had also discovered Fossil Stone Furniture during our vintage days. Even back then, we had grown a reputation for selling these uniquely crafted pieces, such as the vintage version of what would become our Arena Table and Tierra Grande. Knowing that this is a traditional Filipino craft, which is also my cultural heritage, I found the original craftsman that produced these designs more than 30 years ago.
It was through our partnership that we resurfaced the old designs, put them back into production again and reignited this craft. We have since grown and generated over 100 new jobs and continue to proudly support and promote this incredible craft whilst supporting a region which is very close to my heart.