Welcome to Tin House Studio, a boutique interiors studio specialising in antique furniture restoration and conservation, upholstery, custom fabrics and furnishings.

We are all about renewal; we restore, repair, recover and re-upholster.

Our aim is to breath new life into old furniture, loved by our customers but past its best and not easy to live with anymore.  We make old things look new and new things look a bit more lived in but mostly we like to preserve as much of the patina of age and gently restore pieces to make them sing again.

We relish a challenge and love to make, we’ve been known to make sofa’s from scratch as well as tables, vintaged mirrors and other small items of furniture.  We adore beautiful fabrics and as well as upholstery we make all sorts of soft furnishings - curtains, cushions, headboards almost anything for the home.

We are creative crafts people and we like nothing better than when a customer comes through the door with a new project for us to get our hands on.

Don’t throw away that old piece of furniture, bring it to us we’ll make it beautiful again.

Alongside a team of talented craftspeople, Julia enjoys working with customers to enhance their home with beautiful, functional objects and furnishings. Drawing on a deep knowledge of antique and vintage furniture and furnishings and with over 40 years of combined experience , we repair, restore and rejuvenate tired and worn pieces. We breathe new life into those items which you cannot bear to part with.

Julia Burton

Having spent ten years in the corporate world, interior design and upholstery started as a hobby against a backdrop of a busy home life and children. Early projects such as the restoration of a Victorian townhouse and a gorgeous Georgian buy-to-let, a cute vintage café and a Scottish mansion turned this hobby into a small business, sourcing and restoring furniture for private clients.  

Continual learning and education has always been important. Julia's time at Christie’s, studying and handling the most exceptional examples of decorative art from the Renaissance to modern day informs everything she does. Knowledge gained at London Metropolitan University has allowed Julia to fully appreciate the importance of time spent at the upholstery bench, constantly honing and refining her skills - skills which are then applied to traditional restorations or new contemporary interpretations of the projects undertaken at Tin House Studio. 

Julia has had a long association with Norway and Denmark and a fascination with the purity of Scandinavian Design, Minimalism and particularly Mid-Century Modern. Her interpretation is however often combined with a little touch of English clutter and vintage eclectic.

 Our History

Tin House Studio came about when Julia, of Chairs on the Street, met Jonathan at London Met in 2016. Jonathan had established his furniture restoration business ‘Jonathan Shirley’ in Stockbridge many years before and had a thriving business and a loyal customer base. Jonathan’s experience and knowledge of period furniture gained from the London School of furniture and West Dean College combined with years of restoration work seemed the perfect combination with my knowledge of the decorative arts gained at Christies, interior design and love of all things fabric and furnishings.

In 2017 Tin House Studio LLP was formed and the partnership thrived for seven years until Jonathan, advised by his doctors, decided he needed to stop lifting heavy furniture and retire. He has now gone on to pastures new but keeps in close touch with us at the studio.

As we embrace the change Jonathan’s legacy lives on in Tin House Studio, we are proud to have the same commitment to quality, authenticity and conservation.  High standards of work combine with kindness to the people we work with and our customers, values that Jonathan embodied.