We restored Anne Pritchard’s 1930’s style wingback fireside chair to its former glory live at this year’s show at the NEC. Mrs Pritchard’s chair was reupholstered in one of our beautiful fabrics – Opulence Floral – Cream, with Anne herself in attendance to see the transformation first hand.

To enter the competition, we asked entrants to submit an image of a chair they would like reupholstered, with the winning chair receiving up to £1000 worth of reupholstery, with a choice of fabric from 30 different options and full reupholstery live at the show earlier this month.

Mrs Pritchard said: “Winning this competition was a complete surprise and I’m absolutely delighted with the result. My chair has been completely transformed and it was a fantastic experience to watch the incredible skill of the Plumbs reupholsterer at work.”

Before and After Images:

From all at Plumbs, we hope Anne gets many years of joy from her restored chair.

Congratulations to our very own Chris Plumb, on completing, what can only be descried as a gruelling and painful bike ride.

Although “bike ride” doesn’t seem to do it justice, the long slog of cycling from Lands End to John O’Groates took Chris and his cycling partner Andrew Broomby just about 10 days to complete.

Well done from everyone at Plumbs. We’ve got a very soft cushioned chair waiting for you!

In conjuction with the BBC Gardeners’ World Live 2010 on 16th – 20th June, we are giving a lucky winner the opportunity the chance to have a one-seater chair REUPHOLSTERED LIVE AT THE SHOW.

This fantastic prize is worth up to £1,000. Your chair would be collected from your home, reupholstered live at the BBC Gardeners’ World show, in your choice of fabric (from a selection of our top 30 fabrics) and then re-delivered back to your home.

To be in with a chance of winning this amazing prize and seeing your chair transformed live at the show, upload a picture of the one seater chair you would like re-upholstered on the BBC Gardeners’ World show:

Enter here….

Closing date for entries is May 21st 2010. Two runners up will receive tickets to BBC Gardeners’ World Live.

With consumers looking for products with a low carbon foot-print around the home, loose covers can go along way towards this:

Is recycling old furniture set to become more popular?

But this goes for any product around the home from, especially ones made from materials that can be recycled such as; glass and metal etc. These will play a big part in this year’s renovations.

One such product is a work surface created using pure natural quartz and recycled metallic chips. As well as being kind to the environment it is a durable solid surface offering excellent resistance to acids, abrasion and wear. The surface comes in four polished colour tones: white, black and two shades of grey. The worktops are also able to be created to support the stylish continental trend of slimline work surfaces.

For further information please contact: Chiltern Marble Group

Just a line to thank Plumbs for the wonderful, professional job done by you on reupholstering my settees. I could hardly believe that these were my same pieces of furniture! Both settees are over 15 years old and both had suffered badly from the claws of my two cats!

One settee was down to the wood in places and the frame was rickety. My bed settee is such an unusual shape I hardly dared hope that it would look good. However, they both look amazing! They are better than new, and I’ve had so many compliments regarding them.

Not only does the fabric look great and feel luxurious, but the replacement seat cushion and upholstering have made them far more supportive and comfortable than before.

Mrs J.E. Jones – Liverpool

I thought I’d share some new photography we have done that show’s off our very popular Deco Antique fabric in a natural colourway.  The sofa is an antique style Chesterfield that has been reupholstered. As you can see this sofa looks as good as the day it was first made.

If location, location, location is the motto of estate agents. You could say an interior designers slogan would be lighting, lighting, lighting but is also usually the most overlooked aspect when a person comes to re-decorating. Many of the most successful hotels and restaurants you will notice have got lighting down to a fine art by creating a welcoming atmosphere.

So before you begin planning a restoration, building a new home or just up-dating your current decor. Remember when it comes to lighting you can never have too many light sources.

Decor that is well designed and thought-out will utilise all three types of lighting:
• General Lighting – this illuminates an entire space.
• Task Lighting – bright lights used to focus lights on a particular area for tasks such as reading, writing or cooking.
• Accent Lighting – used to spotlight decorative objects and create mood.

Walk into many thousands of homes across the UK and you will find one light fitting in the centre of the room and not much else. Just by the addition of extra lighting a room can feel warmer and more inviting, with strategically place spotlights you can direct the light to various areas to help with certain tasks.

The ability to transform a room just by adding different types of lighting is amazing. Up-lights, which are canned lights that sit on the floor, are wonderful items to use in corners, especially with large plants. They shine the light up onto the walls and ceiling creating a warm glow to an otherwise dark corner. Small rooms will seem larger with the installation of recessed ceiling can lights or wall washers, which will shine the light down onto the peripheral walls. Hallways and entranceways are sometimes dark; brighten them by adding canned light, track lights or picture lights.

If you need to get some inspiration or just simple ideas why not Visit high-end restaurants, hotels or bars and you’ll see the incredible difference lighting can make – and duplicating those effects can be simpler and less expensive than you think. The reward is a lighting atmosphere in your rooms that will be warm, unique and very inviting.

Watch some of the basic techniques our expert upholsterers use to reupholster a Queen Anne Fireside Chair:

Artists and designers get inspiration from a lot of things – even plants. Take cactus for instance. The freakily real green cactus-sofa above was used for an AXN-ad with the tagline “Relax if you can.”

We have just launched this brand new ‘Luxury Cord Velour’ fabric, which is the softest fabric we’ve ever sold. The whole family will just love snuggling up together on this sumptuous chenille fabric.

Available now in a choice of 15 beautiful colours, there is everything from vibrant lilac, passionate purple, cool natural, capaccino coffee right the way through to ravishing mulberry and even masculine black .

You simply won’t be able to stop yourself from stroking and touching – the feel and handle really is just so soft. Here is a comment from one of our consultants:

I had my first order in this fabric today and could the customer leave it alone, would she eck! She kept stroking it on her lap as if it were a cat! At this rate we will need new books as they’ll become bald with all this stroking. I’m going to get a pair of trousers made in it if thats the effect it gets!!!

Best of all though is the outstanding washability. Most fabrics lose their life and body after a visit to the washing machine. The new luxury cord velour comes out looking brand new, fluffy soft and vibrant. With no shrinkage, this fully washable fabric is quick dry making it practically perfect for a busy home.

Right now, the cost of covering any chair is £159 while a sofa is either £289 or £339 depending on the sofa size. Save even more by covering any sofa plus two chairs at just £599.

You will be impressed and tempted to cover your sofa and chairs in this brand new luxury fabric from Plumbs. Find out what all the fuss is about by requesting a visit from a Plumbs local consultant. They’ll bring the fabric to your home!

Request a visit here…