Maggie and Rosie's Antiques Emporium reopens in Bega, owner Jason Sawaqed excited for future

Her hand slid up the banister made from locally-sourced timber and 100-year-old twisted steelwork purchased from Cairo. Gazing back down, she smiled, while being illuminated by more glass chandeliers than an opera house.

Yet these details were part of owner Jason Sawaqed's three-and-a-half year dream to restore and preserve Bega's history while adding new life to what was once the old Star Picture Theatre.

Mr Sawaqed's antiques store re-opened at its new location on Wednesday, September 6.

He was relieved, yet tense, and asked, "Have I done the right thing? Have I achieved what I wanted to achieve when I started three-and-a-half years ago?"

"[I take] pride in old heritage, I'm proud of the old building, it should be preserved, so people can enjoy what they had back in the day," Mr Sawaqed said, as he stood nervously waiting for the new premises to officially open.

"It's different, unique, classy, and very uplifting, definitely very inviting, you want to explore what's in it."

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Mr Sawaqed said he set out to give local artists and tradespeople jobs to help be a part of the finishing touches to his new emporium.

Richard Moffatt helped refurbish trusses and the skylights in the roof (the only building in Bega using its original light well), and built the infrastructure, the mezzanine floor, and the prominent staircase; repurposed from hardwood timber pulled out of the internal demolition of the old building.

"Jason said 'I've just bought this building and I'd like you to have a look and see what you think,' and he opened the front door and the interior was basically semi-demolished," Mr Moffatt said.

"He told me what his vision was, and I could completely see it. I was like 'wow! what an amazing building, and I would love to do this, I'd love to help you do this, Jason', and it just started from that point.

"[We] have a very similar aesthetic and appreciation for that era of building, and we really wanted to bring it back to life, [like] it would have been done when the building was first built."

Simon Thomas from ChalkTalk carefully hand-painted a 1930s typeface, discovered in a book, on the store's front windows.

"I just redesigned their logo, brought it into this century, by using something pretty old, [in a] really old traditional letter style, and so I just drew it and painted it on by hand," Mr Thomas said.

"There's nothing modern about it, which really suits a place like that."

Maggie and Rosie's Antiques Emporium displays a great wealth of worldly heritage from clothing to jewellery, crockery to cutlery, to paintings and collectables, and historic furniture from France, Italy, Egypt and England, and rugs from the Middle East.

It's located at 219 Carp St, Bega.

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