I’ve had to Repair my DIY disasters
JAY LOSES £24,950 ON A TABLE!
THE REPAIR Shop’s Jay Blades admits he has had his fair share of DIY disasters over the years.
One time, the show’s breakout star found himself in a right fix after transforming a seemingly unremarkable table. Jay, a furniture restorer, said: “I decided that I’m gonna rub it down, paint it all black… one of the young people I was working with pulled out a drawer and went, ‘What’s this on the side?’ I was like, ‘Oh, I dunno what it is, there is a sign… I’ll check it out.’
“They were savvy with the internet, ‘Jay, I think this is worth some money. Do you wanna ring someone because they’ve got a table just like this one.’ And I said, ‘Well, it won’t be worth anything.’”
He added: “I rang this guy in Scotland, and he said to me what the actual thing was. It was some really expensive table… without doing anything to it it was worth £25,000 – and I had painted it black!
“I told the guy… and he goes – what he said to me, this antique dealer – he called me a couple of names… effed and blinded, and then he said, ‘Well, look, all seriousness, that table is probably worth about £15 now. We sold it for £50, actually – still, it’s not good.”
Speaking on Nick Grimshaw and Angela Hartnett’s Dish podcast, Jay also addressed his unlikely friendships with King Charles and Judi Dench, both of whom have appeared on BBC’s The Repair Shop – the latter in a Comic Relief special.
Jay said he and the royal got on “like a house on fire” before sharing that he once almost stood up Dame Judi for lunch!
He said: “The traffic was bad, and it was raining. We were over an hour late… but she welcomed us with open arms.”