I know it's the end of January but a very belated Happy New Year. I haven't posted a Blog for quite some time so I thought it was about time I did. I never want to bore you with so please do let me know if I am!

So, what's happening in 2026? Firstly, it's our 25th birthday in May. Yes, we have been here 25 years which is pretty amazing. Where the time has gone? We have changed what we sell over the years to keep up with what customers want. Quite frankly if we hadn't, we wouldn't still be in business. When we first opened, we were selling Victorian, Edwardian and 1920's furniture. Mark has been an upholsterer for 40 years and learnt his skill aged 16 as a trade. He learnt some wood working skills, so when we were unable to find the antique furniture we sold, he decided to copy some frames and make them. Customers who buy from us usually buy because they like what they see. We have always specialised in small furniture. We have a small shop and most modern furniture is huge and it isn't always easier getting into homes. The sofas and chairs we make are based on traditional designs which are comfortable, supportive and perfect if you don't have a huge space. We have a huge choice of fabrics so your sofa or chair will be unique.

When Victorian and Edwardian furniture went out of fashion around 10 years ago, we started investing in Mid Century furniture. We particularly love Danish furniture. Lots of it is again small, but the designs are truly inspiring. We make a Danish style sofa and chair which is based on probably an early 20th century design, but its small, not too deep and comfortable.

We still make bespoke footstools which can be made to measure. We are happy to discuss your requirements and advise on fabric choices. Just call or email.

Our upholstery classes continue in 2026. January has been busy with new students and students who have been coming for 2 years that just enjoy learning how to re-upholster a chair. It's a hobby they enjoy and they have caught the upholstery bug, so with Mark's 40 years experience, they learn how to transform a piece of furniture that is useable and unique. Many students tell us how proud they are of their achievements and didn't understand or realise how much time it actually takes to re-upholster a piece of furniture properly. 

If you've always wanted to re-upholster a piece of furniture but didn't know where to start, then our upholstery classes could be for you. 

Every year is different but I have to admit, 2024 has not been as easy year. The cost of living started to hit us at the end of last year, so much so, I ended up taking part time job to help with finances. To be quite honest, I thoroughly enjoy it. I love being busy, and seeing so many more people. Its given me an extra boost when coming into the shop. In May 2025, we will have been in our shop on Wyle Cop for 24 years. Having a part time job with the extra income has meant we could carry on. Trade has improved over the last three months, but I will continue to work in the other job as I enjoy it and it keeps me sane.

We moved workshops in early summer which has made Mark's life much easier. It's closer to where we live and a great environment, with many positives working in Ellesmere. Our upholstery classes restarted in Ellesmere and we have been overwhelmed with students and the support you have all given us. They restart in January with many students coming back with more projects to work on. We must be doing something right if they want to keep coming back!

One of our proudest moments of 2024 was our eldest son achieving a First Class Honors degree this year. He will be starting his new job in January and I will miss him terribly. He has been an enormous help to us since finishing university, working in the shop, helping with deliveries and helping his dad in the workshop. He's not too far away so no doubt he will be back on a regular basis for Sunday lunch.

Our youngest son is in his last year of A levels and has applied to university to study sculpture and environmental art. He is a budding sculptor and has already sold some of his creations. He loves working with wood so if you are on Instagram, and would like to support a budding artist, then please do follow him @whimsicalwoodworkss (note the two ss on the end) He takes after his dad for art as I can't draw a straight line with a ruler! We love that he has so many ideas buzzing around but he is taking over his dad's workshop.

We are feeling positive about 2025. I think more people are looking for quality and understand that quality isn't cheap, and cheap isn't quality. We will always put quality, sustainability and attention to detail first. Its what we do. So a very Happy New Year to you all and please do get in touch if you have any questions, queries, are looking for new or re-upholstered furniture, or would like one of your pieces re-upholstered.

Imagine my surprise when a customer came into the shop to buy a 1950’s teak bowl and told me that being listed in a book had prompted him to visit our website. “A book?” I thought to myself, assuming he was perhaps reading about the Danish or Scandinavian design and had done some local research. I thought I’d ask him which book it was since I’d probably also be interested in what the author had to say, and so imagine my shock when the customer told me about the book in question; he was reading ‘Less’ by Patrick Grant. I must have looked vague when he said Patrick Grant, then said he was THE Patrick of The Great British Sewing Bee. I must admit that although I love the programme, I hadn’t actually heard that Patrick had released a book, never mind that he had mentioned A Little Futrniture Shop in it! The customer explained the book to me as the title ‘Less’ seemed quite cryptic, he said the book was about buying quality, buying fewer things and making them last. Certainly not a novel idea (pardon the pun), but one that really does need expressing in this fast paced world of consumer culture.

The appendix at the back of the book had a list of British artisan makers and apparently we were listed. Well, off I went to search out the book to the local bookshop round the corner from me called Pengwern Books. I always try to buy and support local independent businesses. We try and look out for each other as much as possible. Independent retailers are a big pull to Shrewsbury visitors, so we support each other.

When I opened the book, I admit I went straight to the back pages. What an honour to be not only at the top of the page, but to be on the same page as Ercol and Linley Furniture. I’ve no idea how Partick came to find out about us. If he came into the shop, then I must’ve been too busy to have registered it was him, or perhaps he wasn’t in his dapper suit and his moustache wasn’t perfectly shaped that day! We shall never know! We may have been recommended to him, but again I wouldn’t know by whom, on the bright side, I may not have met him but this must mean that not only are we offering quality crafted goods made in Britain, but we are also offering good enough customer service to be held in high esteem from a Saville row tailor – go me!

From devouring the book in the past few days is the book, and Mr Grant, has the same principles that we try to work with. Mark is a craftsman which has been a lifelong career. To quote Partick, “The craftsperson nurtures and develops a single ability throughout the course of their working life, refining it through practice and through teaching.”

He goes onto to say “Good work is doing something the way it should be done. It is correctness, it is quality. The difference can be explained by doing something right and merely getting the job done. Too often in working lives we are constrained and forced to do functional rather than good work. The desire to do good work is natural and the craftsman is not satisfied with just good enough.” Many women of a certain age have a soft spot for a Mr Hugh Grant, however, I think those of us who settle in to watch quality sewing on the BBC think of a different Mr Grant in the very same way…

A customer visited us last year enquiring about making them a pair of leather wing chairs. They had ordered a pair from a company, and they were very unhappy with the quality so had decided to send them back. We don’t make wing chairs, but we do make an Edwardian style armchair which suited their Victorian home. Their request wasn’t straight forward. They wanted a higher seat, no cushion and to be upholstered in leather. Mark was reluctant at first. It would mean redesigning the chair which would take time and upholstering them in leather costs more and takes longer.

This did not discourage them much to Marks surprise. After visiting Mark at the workshop and talking the whole thing through, we agreed to make them. The legs would need to be longer, the rails changed to tie the springs to, the springs 3” higher than we usually use and they would be firm. This is what they wanted which would help with mobility.

The fun then began. Mark stared making a prototype to figure out where the rails would go in comparison to the seat height. This took time. The front legs had to be higher, the back legs higher but ensuring the difference between the arm height and the back was the same distance to the normal chairs we make. Time consuming, head scratching and working out time had to be factored in. It’s not just as simple as using bigger timber. We had to order wider beech to make the back legs which all come out of one piece, as the 4” wasn’t wide enough to get the extra length. This took a while to arrive, and some had to be sent back due to inferior quality. We were beginning to wonder if someone was trying to tell us something. The ordering of the leather was the next thing. Pillar box red was required, and the leather company told me it was due in stock in a couple of days. Six weeks later it arrived. We were beginning to wonder if these chairs would ever arrive with the customer.

Individual close studding is the only way to finish leather. We don’t cheat and use stud strip, so 1500 brass studs later, they were finished.

The customers patience and understanding of the job Mark had said yes to was very much appreciated. They knew it wasn’t a simple job. This morning they were delivered, and I’m pleased to say they were delighted, and probably relieved that they had finally arrived. We were too.

Our Shrewsbury shop has been re painted and the sign has been redone this last week. Its amazing how many more people have noticed the shop, we've only been here 22 years! It had been due to be done last month, but the great British weather got in the way. Our name above the shop front is the original from 22 years ago so really was due to be redone. This time though it has been had painted by Andy Field, the sign writer. He's been doing this for 40 years, so an expert in his field but he does know everyone, which meant everyone stopped to have a chat. Not a problem, we much prefer to do business with people who are local and are experts. Its much easier to have something printed off and stuck on the front, but we decided to go down the hand painted route and we are very pleased with the result. Here's to the next 22 years.

Upholstery can be a rewarding hobby or profession. If you'd like to learn more, take a workshop if you can. This is a great way to learn the basics of upholstery from a professional. Videos and books can be helpful but there is nothing like getting hands on experience with a professional.

With plenty of practice, you can learn how to transform old furniture into beautiful new pieces. Upholstery is a skill that takes time and practice to learn. Don't get discouraged if you don't get it right the first time. Be patient.  Consider your skill level and experience.  Don't try to be too ambitious on your first project. You may want to give up.

Removing all the old upholstery is hard and dirty work. It's part of the re-upholstery process so try not to get down hearted if you have to remove lots of staples and tacks. 

Our upholstery workshops are held in our Ellesmere workshop where we have moved to recently. We offer a four week booking of 2.5 hours per week, for a minimum of four weeks. You may need longer depending on your project, but 10 hours gives you enough time to see if you love or hate it. If you've never upholstered before then short stints are a better way to learn. It gives you time to rest rather than having a whole day which you will be shattered at the end of it. We want you to finish your project and not give up at the first hurdle if you are worn out having spent 7 hours upholstering. Mark has been doing this for 36 years and knows how tired he is at the end of the working day.

All tools are provided so no need to invest in tools. If you fancy having a go, then please do get in touch to discuss dates, and what sort of project you may have in mind. 

Handmade furniture is furniture that is made by hand, rather than by machine. It is often made with traditional woodworking techniques and materials, such as wood, metal, and stone. Handmade furniture is often considered to be more high-quality and durable than mass-produced furniture, and it can also be more unique and personal.

There are many reasons why people choose to buy handmade furniture. Some people appreciate the quality and craftsmanship of handmade furniture. Others like the fact that handmade furniture is often made from sustainable materials. And still others like the fact that handmade furniture can be customized to their specific needs.

If you are thinking about buying handmade furniture, there are a few things you should keep in mind. First, handmade furniture can be more expensive than mass-produced furniture. Second, handmade furniture can take longer to make than mass-produced furniture. And third, handmade furniture can be more difficult to find than mass-produced furniture.

However, if you are willing to invest the time and money, handmade furniture can be a wise purchase. It can be a beautiful and durable piece of furniture that will last for many years.

Here are some of the benefits of buying handmade furniture:

Our Edwardian style chair is back in stock for anyone to try who is looking for a small, supportive but elegant arm chair. It can take sometime to get these back in as they are individually handmade by Mark. The timber is all hand cut and shaped on the bandsaw, fitted and glued up in individual pieces so it takes a day for each part to be glued and the glue go off. These are not stapled together in half a day like lots of mass produced furniture so patience is required when all our new pieces are made.

The latest Edwardian style chair in stock is upholstered in a Pierre Frey fabric which we first used many years ago. An elegant timeless stripe made from linen and viscose which means its hard wearing.

If you would like to try this chair then please do call in and see how it fits for size. They can be made without castors too. The legs are higher so the seat would be the same height if we don't use castors.

Edwardian style chair

Natural fabrics are the most eco friendly, organic cotton, organic linen and wool, but a new range of eco fabrics are now becoming available. Fabrics made from recycled bottles are now available from a range of companies.

Linwood have introduced their new Omega Velvet collection, their first eco velvet fabric. Omega III is now woven with recycled polyester in the pile, removing 10 large plastic bottles from the environment for every metre woven. Their new Omega velvet is also inherently FR which removes the chemical back coat for fire retardancy, which is kinder to the environment and produces a softer, low chemical, more luxurious velvet. It’s taken years of research to develop, but they wanted to produce the best plain velvet fabric – a velvet that feels good, looks good and doesn’t harm the earth. It is extremely hard wearing, a 100,000 rub test which means its also suitable for contract use. 

Kirkby Design has a range of eco friendly fabrics. The Fleck collection has been re-engineered as a sustainable addition to Kirkby Design’s plains portfolio, Fleck Eco has been adapted to become a more environmentally conscious, textured chenille that retains the much-loved speckled aesthetic of the original Fleck fabric. Created from 47% Sustainable Tencel lyocell, 28% Recycled Wool, 20% Recycled Acrylic, 5% Recycled Polyester
As part of The Romo Groups commitment to reducing the impact on the environment of this collection, they have partnered with Trees for Life. For every metre of fabric sold a percentage of proceeds will be donated to support reforestation projects in the Scottish Highlands. For more information, please visit www.treesforlife.org.uk.

Linwood also have a recycled leather in their collection called Saddle. The collection is made using leather off cuts from shoes and bags, which are usually sent to landfill. It is available to buy by the metre making it a cost effective option.

These are just a few of the fabrics we have used personally and are happy to recommend. There more companies taking the initiative to offer eco friendly fabrics which is what the industry needs. Please do get in touch if you need any help or advice in choosing the fabric which suits your lifestyle.

What size should a footstool be?

A footstool should not be too big, so it overpowers your space. If you have a large room, then a large footstool can make a very good feature piece, in the middle of a living room, or in between two sofas. If you have a smaller living room, then you don’t want to be falling over something too big for your space. We suggest marking out your space with either masking tape or newspaper. To decide on height, we suggest placing books near where you are wanting to put your feet up if that’s what you want to use it for. Not everyone wants to use and upholstered footstool as a footstool, but they want to use it as a coffee table or extra seating. The height of the footstool will depend on the size of the legs and the size of the timber we use to make the frame. All these things are taken into consideration when making your bespoke handmade footstool.

How do you make footstools from scratch?

We make footstools from scratch by designing and working out how to make them, so they are affordable. The legs we buy in are raw so can be stained and polished to the colour and finish you want. We make ours from a timber frame. We buy the planed timber, cut it to you size and make the frame. We sometimes make our own square tapering legs as Mark must make the frame a different way. Some companies make their footstools using a piece of chipboard and foam glued to the top. We refuse to make them this way as they do not last, and you cannot use them for extra seating. They are much cheaper, but this is not the way we work. We do not compromise on quality. The frame is covered in a high-density foam, wadding, calico and the final top cover.

What can I use a footstool for?

We often get asked to make bespoke sizes, and in particular very large footstools. They are often a feature of a living room, a place to pop a tray on with drinks, somewhere to place your books and magazines, but somewhere to put your feet up.

The footstools we make are made from a timber frame. This means they are strong enough to sit on, but it does means they are heavy. We make them to last so bear this in mind if you are thinking of moving one on a regular basis.

When choosing fabric for a extra large footstool, you will have to think about the pattern and texture. Most fabrics are around 137cm (54") wide so may not be wide enough to fit across the width of the footstool. There are two ways of getting around this. The first way is if your extra large footstool is not quite as wide as the fabric, then you can have a border around the edge. This means the fabric just fits over the edge, it is then upholstered with self piped fabric and the border fitted in four pieces. This does involve more fabric, and if there is a pattern, this needs to be taken into account to make sure the top and border match. The bigger the pattern, the more fabric will be needed. Having a border gives a neat and elegant finish.

If your extra large footstool is more than the width of the fabric then the option is to have the fabric running up the length of the large footstool rather than the width. This works well if you have either a plain fabric without a pile, or a fabric that looks fine whichever way the fabric is run. (Hope this makes send. Please ask with any questions)

Fabrics that work well this way are wool checks, the kilim fabric we use works well but if you used a plain velvet for example, the pile would be running the opposite way to what it should do. This is fine if your happy with that but velvet has a pile and can look a different colour when the pile is brushed. 

When local artist purchased a pair of chairs from us, he asked if we had a chair which we could upholster using the fabric he had designed. When he showed me a photograph of the fabric, an Arts & Crafts chair which we'd had for years, instantly sprung to mind.

We'd had this Art & Crafts chair for years and Mark and I could never agree what fabric to put on it. We didn't want to go down the traditional route, possibly William Morris fabric, so the chair sat in the workshop gathering dust and cob webs. The customer visited our workshop and brought a sample of the fabric for Mark to look at. We all agreed this would look amazing. Mark knew it wouldn't be an easy fabric to work with due to the way it was designed. It was done by computer and was too complex for us to understand how it was designed, so here are a few paragraphs from the artist on how its done.

This the pattern is mainly inspired by the cool funky patterns of the 70s, but it's put together like Islamic tile design. Islamic tiles (which are beautiful) often have mathematical geometric designs on them, that form complex patterns across the floor or wall as you combine the tiles in different ways. There are often rules about how you place the tiles, rotating them, alternating them and so on. As you put the tiles together and follow the rules shapes and patterns emerge.

So, with that in mind. The "tiles" on the fabric, are made of either a set of curves, or straight lines. The "tiles" can then be arranged randomly next to each other, and it'll form a pattern that our eye enjoys following, they all seem to link up in an almost human design way. Because they are tiles, and will always connect to each other, a group of tiles can be repeated like, well, a fabric pattern.

The computer is given a selection of colour palettes to work with, and then after that an infinite number of patterns can be generated. Meaning that each run of fabric is unique, and therefor each furnishing (or set) is a one-off, while sitting within a theme/style.

Traditional Danish sofas have been renamed by ourselves as Shropshire sofas. We use this term fondly as they are a very  traditional style, and the houses they tend to go into are traditional old houses which don't always have the space for a larger sofa. These traditional Danish sofas are cosy and often fit into a nook or crannie of an older house. They are not deep which can often be a problem with modern sofas. They are also very shapely and elegant, will seat two people comfortably as they tend not to have large arms. We buy they because we like them, and small sofas are not easy to find, so if you are looking for small, stylish and comfortable sofa, perhaps one of our "Shropshire sofas" could work for you. 

Here is the latest one with before and after photos. Hope you like it.

Don't be afraid to mix styles and ages of furniture as they can often compliment each other. This photograph shows how Danish mid century rosewood dining chairs work well with this round Victorian dining table. Our tastes change over the years and rather than starting from scratch, updating one part of a piece of furniture can work well and save you money. Why buy a new dining suite if you can update your chairs?

The same applies to fabrics for upholstered furniture. Be bold and different. Just because a chair is an antique and traditional, you don't have to have a traditional fabric. This Victorian Arts & Crafts chair was restored and reupholstered for a local artist using a fabric he designed, and had printed onto velvet. Its very bold but I can guarantee you will never see another chair like this. It truly is is one off. Whether its your taste or not, the fabric is a top cover and can be changed. 

Life is too short to to be pleasing anyone but yourself. Buy what you like, and buy it when you see it as the chances are if you have to think about for a while, someone else will have seen it in the meantime and bought it. 

I cannot believe it either, 21 years old. I remember the day we opened, it was the end of May bank holiday weekend. We had already sold a Victorian sofa we'd had in the window before we opened. It was quite bizarre. We had been finishing getting the shop together and a customer knocked at the door wanting to buy the sofa they had seen in the window. We were excited and unsure if we had done the right thing, but we opened the doors and had a fantastic response. We sold quite a few pieces that first day, but then had to work hard to replace them!

As the years have flown by, working for yourself is not easy. We had two boys of which both came into the shop from six weeks old. We converted the back room into a nursery which was not easy at times, but customers were patient and always happy to see a baby. They are now 20 and 15 but often help in the workshop or with deliveries. 

As times have changed, so has the furniture we sell. Victorian and Edwardian furniture is not what customers are currently buying, so we have changed as the market has changed. If we hadn't changed then we would not have still been in business.

21 years on and we now have another showroom in South Shropshire. Mark does all the upholstery and making of furniture there, and there is also a larger showroom. Its not easy, but then life isn't but we make it work as we have done for the last 21 years.

We even managed to get ourselves in the local newspaper for the first time. Thanks to everyone who has supported us over the last 21 years. We do appreciate it.