Elite Soft Furnishings & Upholstery |22 November 2016

Giving a new lease of life to your furniture 

Elite Soft Furnishings & Upholstery is a small re-upholstery and furnishing business located at the Micro Enterprise Complex at Providence, the newly built building for small businesses registered with Senpa .

It mainly refurnishes old and worn out furniture like sofas and chairs for homes, offices, restaurants and hotels. Their furnishings also include curtains, table covers, bed covers, pillow covers and stuffings etc...

Whenever a client wishes to redo their outside furniture and patio covers, Elite Soft Furnishings & Upholstery is there to assist.

The business also does car re-upholstery which involves redoing of roof lining and door panel as well as seat covers, boat cushion covers, curtains, canopy covers.
“This business has existed for a long time now, about 30 years . But before it was merged into another business and about three years ago Elite Soft furnishings was created with all the furnishing aspects now undertaken by us,” says Hariana Louise of Elite Soft Furnishings & Upholstery.
“We believe this business will greatly benefit the people of Seychelles as we do not have a large market for purchasing new furniture and other home furnishings,” says Hariana.
She says their clients vary from individuals to companies and organisations. They are from government departments, foreign owners of boats and restaurants/hotels just to name some.
As for fabrics, Elite Soft Furnishings & Upholstery provides clients with the best quality ones.

“We get our materials from  Switzerland, England, Asia, South Africa and China. But most of our fabrics are from Switzerland, England and South Africa as they are of good quality, cotton-based and more ideal for our climate and use. They are more durable as we live in the tropics where it is quite hot and humid and these fabrics are very resistant to weather,” says Hariana.

She says even their threads and outdoor fabrics are from Europe with accessories for boat trimmings also from there as Europe supplies them with real stainless materials which can withstand saline and hot climate. Whereas their raw materials such as cushion stuffing and sofa wadding are from China as they supply us with large quantity.
“So far business is going well. As our client base builds, we get more orders and work. And we are pleased when we deliver a completed work and our clients are happy,” she says.
As for challenges, Hariana says they are mainly with acquiring material.

She says good quality material costs quite a lot and our market here in Seychelles is quite small so doesn't supply that much good quality material. Therefore they have to import almost everything and the cost is quite high, and when pricing our work we have to think of the expenses made and price our products in a way that we will get a profit, which at times certain clients will find a bit high.

“But they have to bear in mind that refurnished work are often than most more expensive than something directly from shops, as we are disassembling the whole ensemble to fix from the inside out. That is why it will be more expensive than something right from the showrooms,” says Hariana.
As the festive season is approaching Elite Soft Furnishings & Upholstery has a message for potential clients.

“For the upcoming festive season do not to wait until the last minute to come and bring your work as we close on December 22 until January 8, 2017. So there is still a month for clients to come and see us or they can come by next year, where we will be getting new stock of material,” she said.
Elite Soft Furnishings & Upholstery can be contacted by phone: 2515304/05 office: 4374328 . Email: info@elitesoftfurnishings.sc and their Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/elite.sfu/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED

The accompanying photographs are examples of some of the work done by Elite Soft Furnishings & Upholstery.

M.J.