Macka, The Magician, Chunky and Me
'It all started...' as the saying goes, in 1983. My partner Chunky and I had a small workshop in the country near Melbourne. Here we restored old furniture. Nearby lived Macka, a young wood turner and his family. From time to time I'd ask him to make a missing knob or two or help me out with a task beyond my skills.
One day he came to visit and was looking very worried. I put the kettle on and asked him what the problem was. He replied, "I don't know what to do, I can't earn a living out of being a cabinet maker." We paused and sipped our tea then something went off inside me, "The hell you can't," I said. "If you can earn a living driving a truck, doing tax returns or playing football why can't you earn a living being a cabinet-maker?"
Suffice to say that by August of that year, Nicholas Dattner & Co (including Macka) was up and running in a 19th Century furniture store on the fringes of the city. It was all very rustic and a bit primitive. We couldn't afford a sales person so I rather cheekily put a bell on the locked front door. This irritated the odd person or two but I figured that anyone who was serious wouldn't mind. When the bell rang I'd come out brushing sawdust from my hair, which surely must have impressed the customer.
The origins were humble, but the dream that Chunky and I shared was big (we used to be married a long time ago but have remained committed business partners ever since). We wanted to make the most beautiful tables in the world and we have never wavered once.
The business grew in our quirky old Victorian department store and we did our manufacturing in a windowless ground floor that had once housed, perambulators, duchesse pairs and miscellaneous whatnots. In time we acquired a separate factory and kept on growing, so that today we are a group of 28 people with showrooms in Melbourne and Sydney and many overseas buyers.
Now you will see proudly written on the front of our stores, 'The Most Beautiful Tables In The World'. I swore that I would never do this until we had earned it.
So who was The Magician? Well that's another story.
"... This is just a quick note to say thank you for the wonderful table and hutch that you made for us. You have also made my wife begin to look differently at furniture which is most important for me as it will assist me to retain my sanity ..."
- Ron Lesh
Our extensive range of solid timber furniture and soft furnishings includes Dining Tables, Chairs, Lounge Suites, Cabinets, Mirrors, Bookcases, Sofas and Chairs. It's all on display right now in our furniture section.
Nicholas Dattner & Co are proud sponsors of Landcare Australia.