Designer Contracts has boosted its long-established show home and design team to meet a record-breaking surge in new business
The Chesterfield-based division, which works with leading national and regional developers across the UK, has taken on an additional 10 people. The new appointments follow a record-breaking three months of business this spring and grows the existing team by around a third.
Said Fay Sykes, who heads up the design division: “The team has totally smashed it over the past three months with a number of new client wins along with increased business from existing clients. It has been an incredible few months with more show home project completions than ever before.”
The UK’s largest flooring contractor, Designer Contracts first established its show home and design team in 1992. Since then, the division has built a blue-chip portfolio of clients across leading national and regional developers.
Said Fay: “The show home remains an incredibly important marketing tool as it helps a prospective buyer visualise how the layout of the property might look with their furniture, offering an insight into their potential new home life. Realistically as designers, we’re trying to sell a lifestyle as well as a property. Each interior is designed to reflect the audience profile and the area where the property is being built. Local landmarks and places of interest are taken into account and incorporated into a scheme. So, if we are designing a show property on a development within a countryside location, we will reflect the ‘great outdoors’ through the colour palette and types of furniture we choose, for example with lots of natural materials. Conversely, we may choose to apply a minimalist approach to a city development, where life can be faster paced.
“Clever interior design ensures a scheme will last the length of the show home. Incredibly modern styles often fail to stand the test of time as trends constantly evolve, quickly dating them. A shrewd plan should combat the need to regularly update and keep a show home looking relevant. Additional phases on larger sites often require a second show home and this design will complement and align with the other.
“We are also able to provide our clients with a ‘one-stop-shop’, supplying flooring, a made-to-measure curtain and blind making facility. As a company with 15 regional offices, our design team is able to use local market ‘know-how’ to create individual show home designs that suit not just the geographical locations but the target audience of each site.”
New recruits joining the Designer Contracts’ home and design team are: Paris Haertel who joins the business as a design sales consultant; Sally Whapplington who joins as a curtain and soft furnishings maker; Megan Eyre as a designer; and Ellen Hubbard and Sean Anderson as design administrators. Joe Wray joins the team as a warehouse operative with installation duties.
Sadie Ward, Megan King, Helen Smith and Amy Lipscombe join the business as trainee designers and Abbie Lockett has been promoted from design sales consultant to design sales manager.
Contact
Designer Contracts Ltd
Unit 8
Church View, Coney Green
Chesterfield
Derbyshire
S45 9HA
Telephone: 01756 795374
Email: Enquiries@DesignerContracts.com
