Our Vision

Our goal at Lydia’s House as a social enterprise is to provide support, training and the confidence to be independent for women with a wide range of needs and backgrounds. We work with vulnerable women by training them in restoration of antique and vintage furniture, textiles, and traditional frame-making, as well as the life skills needed to build a new, stable and fulfilled life. We hope to change lives. Our vision is ‘Restoring dignity, Producing quality’.

Background

Lydia’s House has developed a strong business foundation in the antiques market, selling antique furniture (most of which we have restored), our own framed restored antique textiles, a framing service, curtains and associated interior design items. We currently run a showroom in central Newcastle and have recently relocated our workshops to Sunderland Quayside. We have worked with a number of vulnerable women who had received training and support from us, and we continue to provide informal help and mentoring for many of them.

Education Training & Employment

Our aim is to provide worthwhile job/training opportunities to give these women a chance to improve their chaotic lifestyles, regain self worth and a reason for living, and move on into permanent jobs and settled accommodation.

Transferable skills are gained through real work pressure which keeps focus and a great sense of achievement is gained on finished products. Finished pieces are displayed in the showroom and website for sale.

Our workshop team takes great pride in working to the highest possible standard and all members are encouraged to express creative their ideas and contribute views on how to improve the product. We encourage independence as a long-term aim. This training develops confidence, and could combat future childcare or work needs by encouraging women to work at home at sewing, curtain making, small furniture restoration and many related disciplines.

Sustainability

As members of ‘Antiques are Green', we promote values of sustainability, re-usability and re-saleability and turn from mass-consumerism which contributes so much to the depletion of natural resources. By using natural materials, traditional machinery and hand tools we help to reduce our affect on the environment. In addition, antiques are a wise investment during an uncertain economic climate.

Social Impact

The right help needs the right people to offer it, people who have the training in and understanding of how to help people change their lives without becoming stuck in dependency. The impact that employment has in providing a greater sense of self-worth, self-esteem and security, as well as a reason for getting out of bed in the morning, is well recognised. Indeed, it is the lack of employment and its personal benefits that has often led to the boredom, offending, mental ill health and homelessness in the first place. Our project aims to address these issues.

We believe that with support in the initial stages of an individual choosing to change their own lives and future for the better, there is an improved chance of success. So with enhanced, supported training and with real work opportunities, we can help reduce the number of people categorised as homeless as well as to help raise an individual’s self-esteem, purpose and drive and also to learn basic life skills to make a more positive contribution to their family and community.

Our History

 

Catherine Trillo has worked in the field of antiques since the age of 16. After studying Fine Art in college, she managed the busy London antique shop "Risky Business for five years, working with a range of interior designers, magazines and theatre companies.

Returning to her birthplace, Catherine founded The "Revive Youth Project" in Blyth Northumberland. Creating training and work for marginalised and unemployed youth, the Project restores, and recycles furniture.

Later, Catherine Trillo Decorative Antique Textiles was established as a Social Enterprise, gaining contracts through Liberty & Co, London, Hepple, interior designers and showrooms across the country

Catherine Trillo Decorative Antique Textiles was eventually incorporated into Lydia's House, continuing and expanding its work. At the same time, Catherine began a Pilot Scheme, helping recovering addicts, offenders and other vulnerable women by providing supported living.

Most recently, a new showroom for Lydia's House has opened on the Quayside in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, continuing Lydia's House's proud history of social action, and quality design.