There is Nothing New About New Builds!
Ever since we opened our doors 65 years ago my Father did the furnishings and flooring for most of the new homes in town as well as the existing ones. In those days there weren’t so many new homes being built and furniture stores like ours did not have special account managers designated to ‘new builds’. The late 1970’s, however, saw a massive movement of the population to the South Coast and consequently, new housing was in high demand. Developments sprang up everywhere as anyone who has lived in this area during those years will testify. To meet the new demand for homes, housing was being built and sold quickly, complete with flooring and sometimes furniture too! In response to the new need Peter Green opened our Commercial Contracts Department in the early 80’s catering to the needs and wants of construction companies, not just in this area but with a radius that included London, much of the South Coast and of course the Isle of Wight. The Peter Green Commercial Contracts division has always been a busy facet of our furniture and flooring trade and we have long established relationships both with the bigger and well known contractors as well as much smaller builders who construct well appointed bespoke homes. We are experts at flooring and have a fantastic team of fitters who are specialists in carpeting and hard flooring of all kinds. Our flooring ranges are exhaustive, but no worries, our skilled account managers can quickly guide our clients towards the floors that are perfect for their budget and their prospective home owners. It does not however end with flooring, we also supply furnishings to new home owners including sofas, dining sets, beds, rugs, window treatments, soft furnishings, wall art and accessories. We have fitted out very many show homes over the years with the quality of furniture that is expected of Peter Green, at the same time offering a variety of attractive furnishing packages for new home owners expressly designed to meet different price points.
The popularity and success of the Peter Green Commercial Department is fundamentally based on the ‘back to basics’ values of our founder, Peter Green, who believed that pleasing the customer was all important and that quality, value and service was central to a good business. It was this philosophy that enabled the company to grow from a small shop in Eastleigh to the massive showroom that it now occupies in Chandlers Ford. Peter Green knew that if you base a business on that criterion then people will keep coming back for more.
Our company is still family owned and run and in more recent years we have often heard it being referred to as an ‘icon’! Of course this is the kind of praise we love but it does not come easily, it takes many years of honest trading to earn an accolade like that and we are so proud that people view us in that way. We are one of the few independent furniture and flooring suppliers around now and we feel that this plays in our favour, as people love the time and attention that we are able to devote to their projects. We understand the needs of the builder and the needs of the new home owner in this area because we have grown up with them and lived amongst them. We have seen the area change and develop along side us. Right now, we are witnessing a renewed interest in smaller, regional businesses like ours as people opt to ‘shop local.’ People know that to shop with us keeps the money in the community and since lockdown we have had many new customers in the building, health, education, retail and real estate sectors choose us for their furniture and flooring projects because we are a respected, family run and local company.
However you feel about it, the building boom in the Hampshire area has not stopped yet. The current tight supply of existing homes on the market is helping drive new construction, and more and more land is being released to house the growing population. The 55+ market, which almost perfectly fits the baby boomers in the mid-fifties to mid seventies age range, is growing on the South Coast as are the young single and young family sectors. Production builders are moving swiftly to serve the growing population with multi-family and single-family dwellings in both luxury and affordable housing sectors and with this we too are seeing changes. The construction industry in general is much more interested in eco-friendly products that will not be detrimental to the future occupant’s health. We are also now being asked for more luxurious products in terms of carpeting, hard flooring such as LVT, and wood is very popular at the moment. Greys and blues are replacing the standard beiges for flooring and we see furniture trending towards the very popular retro and mid-century modern look, with a little more colour than we saw a few years ago, and in some very exciting combinations too! Prints are ‘in’ especially combined with solids and velvet upholstery is very hot at the moment. All these changes have made our designer’s work much more exciting and we are always up for the challenge!
If you have never visited our Commercial Contacts Department or for some reason have never heard of us, we would love to meet you. New builds are only a small part of our business which runs the full scope from hospitality, retail, housing, education, clubs, religious organizations, care homes, offices, health care, letting agents through to sports facilities and student accommodation. We have every flooring type imaginable including non slip products, pet friendly products, eco friendly products to name a few. We can have carpeting woven to your specifications including an image or logo or in any colour you choose using computer matching technology. We can even hard flooring digitally printed with maps or graphic images of your choice. We have many, many styles of furniture at our finger tips too and as a team we possess a wealth of knowledge between us to help guide you through those difficult but exciting choices.
If you have not visited us before please do. You will be glad you came!
- 13th May 2021