Did you see the BBC television production Freefall?

An excellent drama highlighting the effects of the recession on three individuals: a city banker, a hardworking family man stuck with a subprime mortgage and the slimy  mortgage broker who sold it to him.

All three characters were shown as stripped down caricatures, the banker high on cocaine and bedroom action, the family man good but niave and the salesman totally amoral and able to apply his self-serving principles to whatever he was selling: sub-prime mortgages before the credit crunch and ethical home improvements after.

The types were all instantly recognizable  and plausible but seeing the salesman telling the lady of an expensive detached house how wonderful her home was and how he was appalled at people’s lack of care for the environment and how ‘I am worried for my children and terrified for my grandchildren’ before launching into a pitch for solar heating panels, rang bells for me.

The home improvement industries, including: double glazing, fitted bedrooms, sliding door wardrobes and all types of supposedly bespoke fitted furniture are riddled with them.  I have worked alongside them and competed with them and the apparent sincerity of their insincerity has amazed me.  Watch out for them because they do exist and for the untrained eye they are very hard to spot. They will offer you a super deal because they really like you and because they think you, and your wonderful home, deserve their product and for those reason they will give you a very special discount.  However, the clincher is that the sale ends tonight and if you want that new fitted office or home cinema you have to say yes now.  there is no time to waste and the price will double tomorrow.

The fact that they are denying you the right to think it over and compare the offerings from their competitors does not concern them.  Decide now or forever lose the deal.

Total nonsense, insist on your right to sleep on it and you will probably seal an even better offer on the same built-in furniture in a week’s time.

Watch out for the never ending sale

In 1978 the labour government under Prime Minister James Callaghan introduced the Sale Of Goods Act that, inter alia, attempted to put a regulatory framework around what you could and could not say about ‘Sale Discounts’. I believe that the rules still say that in order to claim that a price has been reduced you must have offered the same, or an identical item at a higher price for at least 28 days before.

Because the legislation was new and the trading standards officers were keen enforce it, furniture retailers very quickly devised ways of complying with the letter,  if not the spirit of the law. This was particularly easy for multiple retailers such as Times Furnishing and Courts who could simply offer a chest of drawers in their Brighton branch, a wardrobe in Kingston upon Thames and a dressing table in Finchley at a heavily inflated price for the statutory period and the, 28 days later retail them, individually or as a bedroom suite, across all branches at a 50% discount.

Because the markets have changed, it is now very difficult for trading standards officers to apply sanctions.  As I write, Sharps, the UK’s largest supplier of fitted wardobes and bedroom furniture has just started its umpteenth 50% off Summer Sale, replacing the half-price Spring Sale. I think that these lies damage the image of fitted furniture and other home improvement industries.

So, the first thing to establish before ordering a fitted bedroom or a home study from anybody is ‘are they telling you the truth’? Why would you trust anybody who tells you that their furniture is ‘half price’ when it is perfectly obvious that these are there normal prices and that nobody, ever, pays the ‘full price’?

Good, I’m glad I got that off my chest.  More advice on buying home improvements next week.

Isn’t this great?

June fades into July in an endless stream of warm sunny days.  Most of your sales calls are in the cool of the evening when your clients are at home. You can drive out after the rush hour has eased with the hood down on your sports car, if like me you are lucky enough to have one.

So what’s not to like? Not much , I admit.  I sometimes think that I have the perfect summer job, it’s not quite so enjoyable on a cold Novemember evening when you are looking for ‘Treetops’ or ‘The Gables’ on a private road where the houses have unlit name boards at varying heights and angles, some of them impossible to read and quite a few non existant.

Still there is a downside; even in more robust markets for bespoke fitted furniture, most home owners are thinking of barbecues, sunloungers and patio furniture rather than a fitted home office or installing new wardrobes.

So there are fewer client’s to see and the siren cry of a lawn that needs mowing is tempting me away from my computer and the interior design CAD package.

My study is in the loft space and becomes almost uninhabitable at midday during the summer months, so its a couple of hours work designing and dealing with the routine marketing issues after breakfast, a few more hours of follow up phone calls after lunch and then a salad on the patio before setting off to see Mr & Mrs Homeowner about their new bespoke living room furniture when half the population are slumped in front of their TVs trying to recover from the commute from the home counties into London and back.

Now, where did I leave the watering can?

Whether you are in the market for a loft conversion, a conservatory, fitted home office furniture, a new fitted kitchen, double glazing or fitted wardrobes it is good practice to get three competitive quotations.

possibly from one of the major companies like Hammonds,  Neville Johnson, Everest or Moben who advertise regularly in the glossy home interest magazinesor the weekend colour supplements but do look out for the ubiquitous ‘half price sale’.  These are rarely what they claim to be; Sharps bedrooms are always offered at some variation on 50% off.  Nobody ever pays the ‘full price’ for a Moben kitchen and even the interest on Sharps’ ‘interest free’ credit on fitted study furniture is paid for out of the profit on your order. Take these fake discounts with a pinch of salt.

You may wish to include a local carpenter in your quotations list. He or she will probably be cheaper than one of the major high street, home improvement companies, but do be certain to ask for references or testamonials from previous clients and try to visit and see a real furniture installation in your local area.  Otherwise you could be buying a pig-in-a-poke rather than the luxury fitted bedroom that you have been dreaming about.  Also bear in mind that a carpenter will probably do a lot of the manufacturing under your roof and be in te house for a lot longer.  Also, the local carpenter may not be able to produce a factory finish on wardrobe doors or if he buys in pre-finished doors or wardrobe carcasses he may be limited to standard sizes and not be able to produce a proper bespoke installation. Further the carpenter is unlikely to have a showroom where you can examine the product prior to purchase.

The third way is to talk to a smaller, regional fitted furniture manufacturer or double glazing supplier covering a smaller geographic are, maybe just one or two counties such as Surrey and Sussex or the whole of London and the South East. Independent fitted furniture companies such as Options are likely to to have just one or two showrooms rather than an expensive High Street presence that the retail customer always ends up paying for.  Smaller, family run bespoke cabinet makers are usual much more flexible than the bigger players and will be more willing to produce a tailor-made design to fit the dimensions of your home and achieve a better fit and cupboards that maximise the match between the space available and your storage requirements.

Take the opportunity to look at as many offerings for home improvements online as you can, choose three companies to quote, preferably one from each market sector, and take all the time you need to choose the one that is right for you and most likely make exactly what you want at a price you can afford.

This is a topic on which I have touched before but it is one that continues to crop up when talking to clients about fitted bedrooms, so I thought it might be helpful to go into more detail.

I am often told that clients have experienced problems on opening fitted wardrobe doors, and particularly when picking out seasonal clothes such as ski wear or last year’s summer clothes that have been in the cupboard for perhaps 6 to 11 months since their last wearing, and finding that the clothes have mould stains that can be difficult, or even impossible, to clean.

It is often assumed that this is the result of penetrating or rising damp, and it might be where the bedroom is on the ground floor or the property is pre 1930s and does not have a cavity wall.  However, with the majority of bedrooms being at first floor level or higher and most houses, going back to the 19th century, being of cavity wall construction, the cause probably lies elsewhere.

If any part of a fitted wardrobe, even one end, is on an external wall or a chimney breast the internal surface of that wall is likely to be colder than the ambient temperature in the room, particularly in a centrally heated house in winter.

The warm air in our houses absorbs moisture from our persperation, exhalation and cooking.  We open a wardrobe door, perhaps only once in the morning and once in the evening and moist warm air displaces the still, drier, cooler air within. We go off to work or go to bed and as the outside surfaces of our home cool, heat is drawn outwards from the inner walls, cooling the surfaces and the air trapped within the furniture which gives up its humidity and precipitates some moisture onto the inner surfaces of the wardrobe and onto the clothes stored there. The next time we open the cupboard doors the interior warms up and we have created the perfect moist, dark environment for a small mushroom farm.

The solution? If you are getting quotations for bespoke fitted bedroom furniture from companies like Options Fitted Furniture insist that the wardrobes are fully carcassed, that is; completely sealed, with solid (ideally 18mm) backs to the carcasses and that there is still air space of at least 30mm between the backs and the walls.  It may cost a little more than what is usually refered to as front-frame bedroom furniture but it will smell a whole lot nicer and your precious clothes will be safe.

It is over 10 years since I last had a ‘proper job’; you know, one where you get up at the same time everyday, travel from home to a place of work, finish at a given time and return to private life in the evening.

10 years ago, I took a break from a lifetime of working in the furniture industry to provide marketing services to house-builders, you must remember them. I fitted myself out with a home office in the loft and spent most of my time mailing and telephoning small companies to offer an ‘out-sourced marketing department’, with reasonable success, particularly with the aforesaid house-builders.

About five years ago I was asked by Options Furniture to take on the role of marketing manager, on a consultancy basis, and as the house-builder market has faded away, most of my time is now spent marketing bespoke fitted furniture from my home office.

So, how do you adjust to a life where you do not have to have a rigid daily timetable and no longer need to commute to the office, which is 30 seconds from my bedroom?

With the growth in home working, I now have several friends who run ‘cottage’ based businesses. One, a life coach, rises at 0.700, has breakfast, sees the kids off to school and college and then ‘walks to work’; round the block and back into his own front door.  I am not sure whether or not he walks home in the evening. We also hold a ‘virtual office Christmas party’ every year at a local restaurant from which our friends with proper jobs are excluded.

Two others, a wine importer and a surveyor meet regularly over coffee at a local café for some ‘water-cooler’ chat. One of them takes an afternoon power nap and that is one privilege of home working that I relish.

Me? I make sure that I have some time structured morning activities like breakfast Rotary and BNI to keep me in the habit of getting up and to provide some fellowship and camaraderie. I meet up with a bunch of guys at a different pub once every month for some proper man time and I do some volunteering for charity.

Otherwise, my working day is a bit solitary but compensated for by a comfortable working environment provided by beautiful, bespoke fitted home office furniture bought from Options Fitted Furniture.   Yes, I do get a discount!

Does anybody have other strategies?
Jun 09

Of course the market for fitted wardrobes and home office furniture is a bit flat right now.  A lot of the market for bespoke fitted furniture is housing related and with the sharp downturn in property sales all furniture retailers are seeing reduced demand.  That fact added to flat retail spending on big ticket items generally isn’t helping.

However, we have seen some interesting activity at the top end of the market with an order to furnish a grand 16th century manor house that is 20 times our average order vale; 20 fitted bedrooms on one day would be a sizeable contribution to our monthly turnover at any time but doubly welcome in the current market.

We have also ventured into some new market areas for bespoke cabinetry that are not just domestic clients and although commercial fit outs may be a fewer than in the boom years, another single order has proved almost equal to a month’s sales in retail fitted furniture.

It is always good to be asked to make some new furniture for an old customer and to get the opportunity to see how a bespoke piece of fitted furniture I designed a few years ago is looking.

However it’s a real treat when the last installation was 16 years ago.

Styles have moved on since then but it was good to see that this faux limed oak fitted wall unit looked as good as on the day it was installed.

Now I really have heard it all.

Following my recent post about solid wood doors, I am told by a client that what was being sold as ’solid wood’ was in fact wood veneer. However, the latest feedback suggests a well known fitted furniture company is offering ‘Man Made Wood’!

There are man made wood substitutes like mdf, and many man made wood effect surfaces like foil, vinyl and melamines but man made wood? This may just be an aberation by an over enthusiastic, or desperate, salesman and I will wait to see the formal announcement of this amazing technological breakthrough.

In the meantime, I would welcome the view of a Trading Standards Officer and urge anybody looking for real wood fitted furniture to treat such claims with scepiticism.

It crops up now and again that we are asked to make furniture with solid wood doors.

Why not?  Well, firstly what do we mean by solid wood doors? Our Kingston, five piece and seven piece doors are made from pieces of solid wood  (see Study/Office - CEO’s Office) in the way that cabinet makers and joiners have been making wooden doors for centuries.  They are expensive but they work.

What some people are looking for are flat solid wood doors (see Study/Office - Oak and Walnut) and yes, as you can see, we can and occassionaly do, make flat, solid wood doors at a client’s request.

However, experience has shown us that the craftsmen of old knew what they were doing when they developed the five piece door. Because the five piece construction allows for a degree of independent movement between the component parts and because the grain in the various components runs in different directions, the design has a balancing effect that minimises, but does not totally eliminate the tendency of timbers to split or warp as they adapt to the specific and changing humidity in a particular house. Due, of course to changing climatic conditions and artificial influences such as central heating.

Flat solid wood doors simply do not work in the same way as five piece doors and we know, to our cost, that they are troublesome.  In the instance of the Oak and Walnut study cited above, there has been some splitting but, fortunately, no warping and the client understands that this is the price of insisting on solid wood flat doors.

It is also interesting to note that the great cabinet makers of old, like Chippendale and Sherrington and laterley McIntosh did not make doors from solid wood.  In fact, they were very sparing in their use of exotic and expensive timbers that had been hauled halfway around the world.  They would make legs and frameworks and table tops from solid indigenous woods, such as beech and elm and oak but when it came to doors they would make them in the five piece method or use blockboard, probably prepared by their apprentices, from locally grown hardwoods, in which the blocks were brought together with their grains in opposing directions to balance the strains, and then veneer them with thin layers of decorative woods such as walnut or mahogany.

Today, we do not use blockboard to a great extent because particle boards and mdf are now available in superior qualities, that are not only less expensive, but also much more stable than any other timber based substrate. Bear in mind that particle board and mdf are timber based but totally free of grain with its wayward tendency. Chippendale would have used mdf if it had been available.

We also run a small trade  side to our furniture manufacturing business, that supplies kitchen studios with bespoke doors in sizes and designs that are not generally available from major kitchen manufacturers. Here we make a lot of five piece real wood doors in oak, cherry, walnut, maple and other exotic timbers, and very succesfully.  However, we have been asked, and occasionally have made solid, flat hardwood doors and frankly they are a nightmare.

So what is our policy on solid hardwood, flat doors?  If you insist, we will use them for modest sized doors in, say, a study or wall unit on the understanding that you accept some movement, but on wardrobes? NO WAY.

I personally have nearly 50 years experience in the furniture trade and Options have over 25 and we say, unequivocally, don’t go there. Flat, wood veneered doors look great and are very modern (see Fitted Bedrooms - Stunning Zebrano), but take a tip from me and Mr Chippendale; insist on them being veneered!