I have a bit of a thing for the unexpected and quirky and An Angel at my Table is an absolute delight, filled to the brim with beautiful and unusual finds and I wanted to relay my recent experience with them.  But first I want you to feast your eyes on some of the gorgeous design pornography that awaits you on their website.

What transpired during my experience, which could have led to me never ordering again, has instead made me quite happy to not only purchase again but tell my readers (all 3 of you) about them as well.

Oh, hang on, one more for good measure… isn’t this just breathtaking?

Sorry, moving on…  Despite perusing their site for probably a year or so, it had been the very first time I had purchased an item from them.  And what I chose was this rather stunning white sunburst mirror to grace the wall in my living room.  It was to have pride of place, on the chimney breast and the first thing to catch your eye when you walk into the room.

I finally placed my order after a little convincing to W that it was exactly what the room needed – while he trusts me, sometimes he does wrinkle his nose about my choices!

I received my order about a week later and was absolutely gutted to find this when I removed it from it’s rather enormous box:

In fact, four of the ‘rays’ on the mirror had broken off due to what appeared to be mispackaging.  Ya see, it was obvious from the foam inserts that the mirror had been placed into the insert upside down.  As it wasn’t correctly positioned within the foam, it moved around in the box and broke.

With heavy heart, I weighed up my options:

Option One:  I return the mirror (which due to it’s weight would be very expensive) and ask for a full refund.  This would also entail me looking for another mirror that wasn’t going to cost me £250 and that I liked equally as much.  Hmmm.  Considering I’d been looking for months and had my heart set on this one and it was only just in my budget, that didn’t look likely to happen.

Option Two:  Return the mirror (again, major hassle and cost) in exchange for a new one.  This option entailed both waiting around for another mirror (have I mentioned how impatient I am?) and hope that the second mirror would get to me unscathed.

Option Three:  I keep the mirror as is.  Use a bit of glue, perhaps a touch of filler and some white paint and see if I can get a bit of reimbursement towards the delivery charges from An Angel at my Table.

So Option Three it was.

I wrote them a detailed email that evening and attached images showing the packaging and the broken mirror and asked if there was any way we could come to some arrangement as I really didn’t want to have to go through the hassle of returning such a large item.

At just after 9am the next day, I received a phone call from a delightful lady called Patty who first and foremost apologised for the problem.  She explained that they had sent out many of these mirrors in the past without any problem.  They are packaged directly by their manufacturer and she went on to reassure me this was an anomaly in their normal stellar service.  She was so kind and so helpful that I almost felt bad about complaining which I’m sure wasn’t at all her intention but it was obvious this was a small company and their customer base meant the world to them.

Not Patty.  But she sounded like she would look exactly this nice.

After a very friendly chat with Patty, she assured me we could come to some compromise but that she would need to speak with the owner of the company which just happened to be her sister in law (love a family-run business, don’t you?).  After about an hour, Patty kindly called again to let me know that they were happy to offer me an incredibly generous discount and that my card would be credited back.  Again, more apologies and with such a nice lady, it was easy to accept.  In fact, it was much more of a discount than I had imagined I would get and the item was already marked down in clearance so I got a real bargain in the process!

A couple of weekends ago, we set about gluing the mirror back together and it’s barely noticeable that it was ever broken at all.

I’ve got a heavy discount on a stunning mirror due to a bit of diy on our part and it now holds pride of place in my living room.  W has also admitted that it looks rather wonderful in it’s new home (*cough* toldyouso W *cough*).

Thanks to the convex mirror, you can actually see the ENTIRE ROOM if I took this photo straight on and the room isn’t ready to be seen yet! So apologies for the awkward angle…

Go and buy lots of stuff from Angel at my Table.  They have beautiful, unusual things and their customer service, at least in my experience, is second to none.  And no, I’m not being paid to write this.  (My blog is not very famous yet so yeah, still waiting for those kinds of offers to come rolling in… ahem.)  In the meantime, it’s a family-run shop with gorgeous items and great service and I will most definitely be purchasing from them again.

Any fabulous online shops that you’ve come across you want to share?  Go on then, spill it in the comments.

Image credits:  Images 1-5, Angel at my Table;  All other images my own except for Imaginary Patty Image courtesy of www.callcentrehelper.com