About Us
Grand
Illusions was created by Nick Ronald and David
Roberts in December 1987, initially with just one small store
in St Margaret's, Twickenham. The mission was to promote gifts, cards
and accessories of good design and taste at an affordable price -
still very much the core business ethic to this day.
Shortly afterwards, they discovered and developed a paint range that
was to transform their lives. In those days, painted furniture was
something of a rarity, and a twenty two drawer chest painted in one
of the new paints caught the eye of 'Homes & Gardens'
magazine - the small feature resulted in over a thousand
telephone calls and the seeds of the highly acclaimed furniture collection
were sewn.
This also led to the publication of three Grand Illusions
books on decorating techniques and design inspiration, published in
five countries by Ebury Press and accompanied by guest appearances
on BBC2's Home Front and various local BBC radio
stations.
They published their first mail-order catalogue in 1990 which was
immediately voted as one of the top 200 catalogues
in a new worldwide review and several issues later, they were awarded
the contract to operate 'Country Living by Post' on behalf of the
magazine, in addition to their own unique programme.
Today the company's activities are concentrated almost entirely on wholesale – most of the products are designed in-house by the duo and mostly predominantly made within in the EEC. These are supplied to some 500 outlets across the UK and Ireland and as far away as Australia/NZ. In 2011 they launched their first small textile collection and this will be expanded over the seasons ahead.
The company are also the exclusive UK & Ireland Trade Agency for the highly successful Danish company House Doctor and distributor for Mr Plant of Sweden and Tierlantijn of Holland.