Covering All Corners
There are exciting developments afoot at a Lancashire company known for its quality craftsmanship and excellent service. Photography: Roger Moore
Tucked away in a traditional mill building in Preston, is the country’s most successful and long-established reupholstery and soft furnishings specialist.
A fourth-generation family business, Plumbs is the UK leader in tailoring bespoke covers for sofas and suites, and in reupholstering treasured items of family furniture.
Earlier this year, Plumbs refurbished their showroom at Brookhouse Mill, near the city centre. Here, customers can see sofas and chairs which have been covered using their three trademark cover styles – Easifit, Designer and the premium Traditional. There are subtle differences between the three styles, but each can be used to transform furniture pieces which have begun to look worn or no longer match new décor.
In addition to the different cover styles, there are hundreds of fabrics available – from leading textile houses like Warwick, Bill Beaumont, Ross, Roma and Sanderson – so whatever your style or colour scheme there will be one that’s just right.
“Being in an old mill, the showroom is lovely and spacious, so people feel comfortable coming here,” says Emma Singleton, Business Development Manager and great-granddaughter of the couple who started the company 60 years ago. “That’s particularly important just now with most people still preferring to socially distance whilst shopping.”
With changes to customer behaviour in mind, the Plumbs team were extremely creative both during lockdown and in the weeks since, and have recently launched two new, exciting services which are perfectly suited to current times.
The first development is the Plumbs Marketplace website, a new online shop which enables customers to browse and purchase items without visiting the showroom. It offers soft furnishings such as ready-made curtains and scatter cushions, as well as a range of fabrics for curtains and upholstery, from designer names by the metre to ready-cut roll ends.
“It’s like a virtual factory shop,” explains Emma. “Everything in the Marketplace is of the premium quality you would expect from Plumbs, but at clearance prices, and it’s perfect in the current climate with many people, for now, preferring to shop online.”
The second, new, web-based service is called Cover My Furniture and is designed especially for customers who already have loose covers on their furniture. With this new service, customers can browse the website and choose a shortlist of fabrics, for which they will be sent samples. They then send in their loose covers which will be remade to the exact size in their new, selected fabric. To find out more, you can visit the dedicated website www.covermyfurniture.com.
For those who prefer a face-to-face service, Plumbs has consultants across the country and, every year, thousands of satisfied UK customers have their favourite and treasured pieces of furniture transformed by Plumbs’ skilled cover-making and reupholstery experts.
“We are interior design specialists so we can offer a complete soft furnishings design service, to restyle your whole room, not just your furniture,” says Emma. “We’re always here in the showroom to offer advice but now offer web-based services too.”
With holidays on hold and people spending more time in their houses, it seems many are choosing to make improvements at home. As Emma laughingly puts it, people are saying: “It’s no to cruises, but yes to covers!”
Plumbs
Brookhouse Mill, Old Lancaster Lane
Ashton-on-Ribble, Preston PR1 7PZ
01772 259995
plumbs@plumbs.co.uk
plumbs.co.uk
plumbsmarketplace.co.uk
