The Repair Shop’s Jay Blades and former Big Issue vendor Steve Wyatt go way back. Now they are opening a shop together. They tell us how bringing the best out of furniture has brought the best out in each other. 



Restoring furniture is kind of like restoring yourself,” Jay Blades – the face of the BBC’s wholesome and beloved The Repair Shop – tells The Big Issue. The other person with us wholeheartedly agrees. After all, Steve Wyatt is the living embodiment of it. 

Wyatt, 45, used to sell The Big Issue at Pero’s Bridge in Bristol for three years as he battled to overcome his drug addiction. After turning his life around to become a successful furniture restorer, he and Blades will open a new shop together in Poole, Dorset, next week – the latest step on a remarkable road to redemption. So what brought these two men from seemingly different worlds together? The love of restoring scuffed stools, chipped chairs and tatty tables back to former glories, of course. 

“A massive drive for both of us is moving forward and that shared passion for furniture,” says Wyatt.  Blades agrees: “For me the shared experience really came from the love of furniture and seeing that as an avenue to actually pursue and to deal with whatever complications you might have had in your life. I think that it’s underestimated in the sense that restoring furniture is kind of like restoring yourself. It gives a purpose to anybody that’s going along that journey. It’s the perfect focus.”Neither man had a straightforward route to success.

 Like the furniture pieces they work on, it’s taken a lot of hard work to bring the best out of themselves. Jay Blades has been vocal about his difficulties in overcoming dyslexia and told The Big Issue about his own experience of homelessness in 2015 when he briefly slept in his car after splitting up with his wife. Wyatt also knows what it’s like to be without a home. His 14-year effort to overcome addiction saw drugs rule his life. His need to find money to feed his addiction led him in and out of prison and receiving treatment in rehab.

He started to sell The Big Issue during one of his many attempts to kick the habit. Ironically, selling th magazine and the resulting money management gave him business skills he still uses to this day. The Big Issue gave me purpose and it kept me out of a lot of trouble. It kept me away from a lot of bad stuff because it made me productive,” says Wyatt. “It used to be raising money for drugs, buying drugs and using drugs and now it’s looking for the furniture, restoring the furniture and restoring myself. I was once told it was transferable skills.”