Working-class heroes

Gary Willis and Sue Haldane from The Boiler Room. Photo / Babiche Martens

Most of us drive past abandoned factories and old railways without giving them a second thought, but for Sue Haldane they are forgotten treasures just waiting to be explored.

In 1999, Sue and partner Gary Willis established The Boiler Room - a label that restores and redesigns furniture from New Zealand's industrial and institutional past. And they're making a welcome return to the Auckland retail landscape for the month of December.

After closing their popular Grey Lynn store a couple of years ago, the duo made the move out to wild Muriwai, where they focused on creating commissioned pieces for clients. Their distinctive work is made up of pieces salvaged from small-town plants, railways, closed-down factories and soon-to-be-demolished post offices.

The pair have a deep appreciation for old-fashioned craft, workmanship and longevity, and for New Zealand's pioneering past - something that is somewhat at odds with today's mass production. "In England there's that whole sense of royalty, and I think our sense of royalty is much more into the pioneering New Zealand, making things happen," explains Haldane, who has a theatrical background.

"We are so good at making things happen - and each of us has our own special story about our families. Mine is in the Golden Bay, they made the Pelton wheel up on the hill that brought the water down to make the electricity on the farm. They had to think it all out - and I think we have a lot of pride in the way that we have made ourselves happen here on our own. It's very much about picking up that history that's everywhere."

They have had some interesting purchases over the years, each with their own special story and sense of history - such as the Meremere Power Station store room, a Dunedin Railways waiting room settee, and even a big copper ball that was once used to coat Jaffa lollies.

Haldane remembers one moment when she had been sourcing several great things from the old Central Post Office on Queen St.

"We were on one of the top levels and there was all this beautiful old wood, cubbyholes and stuff. There was a hole in the ceiling, a cut-out that had obviously had a stairway up to the top office - but there was no longer a stair there. It was a terrible moment because I could see all the stuff there but we just couldn't get up; I've never stopped thinking about what was there, I bet there was all this fantastic stuff!"

The stuff that they can get their hands on is often taken and used to create new things - or in the case of the aforementioned settee, left "until it dies its own death and needs to be refurbished".

In most cases, however, the pair will restore and use selected parts to update it and make it modern. "So often you find cool stuff, but it needs a development, it needs to be lifted out of the grunge. And as soon as you do that and put that energy into it, it comes right up," says Haldane.

The Boiler Room's return to retail comes after a few years of making commissioned pieces, but Haldane says they were beginning to get requests to return to the retail scene. "In the last seven months or so we've had people going 'we need to see your stuff, we need to see it again, when are you coming back?' We had a sense of needing to be publicly present again, even if only for a month, it just means that we haven't disappeared."

They'll exhibit a wide range of pieces in an industrial-style space behind Deus ex Machina, including a large-scale steel table with blue factory-sourced legs, a post office sorting cabinet "that's great for CDs or wine", a set of three tables made from key holders from the Ministry of Works, the aforementioned Jaffa-coater and much more.

Furniture from Haldane's other project, Union Furniture, and new artworks by Willis will also be for sale. "That is how these pieces need to be profiled: they are art pieces," says Haldane. "They are one-offs - you won't find anything like them again."

* The Boiler Room, Shed 8, 90 Wellesley St, 10am-6pm, until December 24.