After the strangest 3 months we've ever experienced, we are delighted to have opened our doors again this week. We have missed seeing our lovely customers for so long! In order to keep us all safe though, we have made a few little changes to how we work.
Firstly, our opening hours. We are now open from Wednesday to Saturday from 10am-4pm. This is so that we can reserve Monday and Tuesday for home visits or private appointments for any customers who wish to visit at a time when they know they will not run the risk of meeting others or having to wait for us to be free. We can also offer home visits before and after shop hours on Wednesday to Saturday.
So, how will the shop look when you do visit? We have provided a hand sanitising station that we will request all customers to use as they enter. Once inside, everything is as it was ... except even cleaner! We will be cleaning all surfaces that our customers regularly come into contact with between every customer, including door handles, the desk and the card machine. We appreciate that it is not possible to choose your perfect flooring without feeling the textures and depths of our beautifully soft carpets, but we will be asking customers to handle our sampling as little as possible. We will be requesting that only customers from a single household are in the shop at any one time, so if we already have customers in you may be asked to wait outside. We apologise for this, but we just want to make sure we are doing everything we can to keep both you and us safe.
What about home visits? We are still able to offer our free home measuring and estimating service. We will be limiting this to visiting one home per day (or two on Mondays and Tuesdays when there is time for Mike to return home to change PPE between visits). We will be wearing a washable face covering on any home visits and will sanitise hands before entering your home and again when we leave. We have a laser measure to enable to us to limit contact with your belongings and will be asking customers to maintain social distancing during our visit. Any sampling that we take to a customer's home will be taken out of circulation and stored separately in the back area of our shop for 72 hours before being taken out to any other customer to ensure that we do not risk any cross-contamination that way.
What will happen when your new flooring is fitted? Our fitters will also be wearing a washable face covering whenever they are working in your home and will carry hand sanitiser to use before entering your home. As our fitters will be working in your home for a length of time, once you have let them in they will request that you wait in another room until the fitting is complete. Any surfaces they touch in the process of fitting will be wiped down before they leave. Wherever possible, our fitters will be working alone, but where this is not possible they will be working in a set pair and will limit their contact as much as they can.
Most importantly, we request that if you have any symptoms of Covid 19, such as a new and persistent cough, temperature or change to your sense of taste or smell, that you do not visit the shop or arrange a home visit until you are feeling better. Similarly, if any of our team develop symptoms at any time, we will be self-isolating as per the government guidelines. We will still be here waiting for you when you recover and when all of this is over and life-as-we-know-it can return.
We hope that this information will help our customers to be confident that we are doing everything we possibly can to keep everyone safe in the current circumstances. Stay safe everyone x
It's the time of year for cold and dark mornings, wet and windy weather, coughs and sniffy noses, Christmas long gone and Spring still a way off ... but it's not all gloomy! It's also the time for snuggly evenings by the fire, for seeing the frost glisten in the sunshine early in the morning, for enjoying hot chocolate and eating up the Christmas chocolates and for spending quality time in our cosy, warm homes. And January is always an exciting time here in the shop too as we focus on looking forward to the year ahead!
It's been a busy old start to the year here at M&F! Christmas displays both instore and in the window have been replaced with displays for the new season. The shop has seen a bit of rearrangement to make everything a little more accessible and easy to see. A little refurbishment is planned for the next few weeks to keep the shop looking fresh and to make the experience of choosing your flooring or wallpaper from us a much more comfortable one too! It's an exciting time; watch this space to see more!
I'm looking forward to spending a little more time keeping our social media and web presence a little more up-to-date this year too (now that I'm rememering how!). So please keep checking back for news and updates; top flooring tips and trends; photos of some of our current installations; and details of new products :-)
Oh my goodness, how could I let it be so long since I last posted a blog post! There is always so much to do when running a small, family business but I really must make time to do this more often! Anyway, let's get on ...
At this time of year we all hope to start getting out into the sunshine a bit more, but the weather is still a bit unpredictable and not always quite as warm as we expect! Mike and I spend lots of time (well, a bit of time when we're not working!) in our conservatory at home at this time of year. It's perfect for admiring the beautiful outdoors whilst staying nice and warm. It also got me thinking of all the lovely natural patterns and textures we have in our flooring and wallpaper ranges, great for bringing a little bit of the outdoors indoors. And there we had it, inspiration for our latest display!
The backdrop for our window display is made from some of Galerie wallcoverings fabulous brick-designed papers. We also have some fabulous wood-plank design papers from Galerie available instore, for those who appreciate the natural look.
The table and wicker chairs are set on a gorgeous seagrass rug from Flair rugs. a lovely natural material again, we can just imagine this looking amazing in a conservatory or summer house setting.
The display also showcases some of Kersaint Cobb's eye-catching natural material collection. Kersaint Cobb specialise in engineered-wood flooring and natural floorcoverings such as sisal, seagrass, jute and coir. These give an amazing natural look to a home and look fantastic when accessorised by a soft, colourful rug.
Also featured are some of the very natural-looking wood finish Luxury Vinyl Tile ranges from manufacturers including Polyflor and Karndean. A really practical, clean, easy-to-live-with floorcovering suitable for all areas of the home.
For further details on any of the featured products please give us a call or email, pop in to see us or take a look at our Facebook page 'M & F Carpets'.
The nights are drawing in, the mornings are getting chillier, the leaves are changing colour ... It's time to embrace the cosiness of Autumn! Thoughts begin to turn to cosy evenings with the fire or log burner glowing and the warmth of a soft snuggly blanket and mug of hot chocolate. That's the feeling we've tried to recreate in our latest window display!
We love the beautiful, rich colours of Autumn. The warm orange, red and brown tones of nature at this time. Our window features lots of carpet leaves in these shades, either scattered on the floor or strung together and hung to replicate the leaves falling from the trees. These have been lovingly cut-out by our own fair hands from a mix of Brockway's superb Solar range and Ulster's York Wilton. Both of these ranges are beautiful, high-quality wool carpets, available in a wide range of clear, defined colours.
Our display also features lots of different types and tones of wood and wood-effect flooring, including laminate, engineered board and luxury vinyl tiles. The look is completed by the soft, warm blanket drapped over the chair set in front of the eye-catching brick-effect wallpaper from our extensive range by Galerie Wallcoverings, oh, and obviously by the addition of Rugsy, our resident display dog!! We think it all looks rather cosy!
Well, who doesn't love Summertime? Warm sunshine, colourful flowers, long summer evenings ...
Some of our family's favourite Summer pastimes include picnics, family cycle rides and long walks with Rosie, our loveable labrador. So when designing our latest window display we decided to go for something a bit different, to catch the eye of our customers and passers-by and hopefully make them think of the pleasures of Summer! We also wanted it to reflect our own favourite ways to relax and unwind in the Summer months, hence the addition of the bicycle, picnic basket and our resident toy dog!!
Plaid carpets have become hugely fashionable over recent months, so we have included a sample of Ulster Carpets' quality, eye-catching Glenmoy carpet in the Royal Stewart design to act as our 'picnic blanket, set on a large piece of very realistic-looking artificial grass which we also sell instore. The flowers and fluffy clouds are made from samples of some of the supersoft luxury saxonies we have available. The addition of some colourful butterflies cut from some of our beautiful Galerie wallpapers completed the look.
Now just to make sure we make time to enjoy these Summer pastimes with our children before they are all grown up ...
We all know how easily spillages happen so this month's window display focus is on easily cleanable carpets.(Sorry about the awful picture, at this time of year we struggle to get a photo of the window display without a reflection regardless of what time of day or where we stand!)
Many of our synthetic carpets are now bleach-cleanable, making them perfect for family homes. However, our window display focuses on Abingdon Flooring who offer a lifetime guarantee against food and drink stains on their Stainfree ranges. They also offer ranges which are treated with Aqua Pro-Tec, giving you extra time to clean up those everyday mishaps. Aqua Pro-Tec keeps the spillage on the surface of the carpet and stops it from soaking into the fibres, giving you time to get a cloth or kitchen towel to simply blot it away! We've tried it out instore with tea, coffee, ribena ... and it really does work! Not a single one left a mark on the carpet, even after being left for several minutes! Impressive stuff! We will happily give a demonstration.
We also sell a wide range of bleach-cleanable synthetic carpets from a range of our other suppliers, all perfect for guarding against muddy footprints or pawprints and accidental slops! Please pop in and have a look or give us a call to arrange a home visit (usually within 20 miles of TA8, but we are generally happy to travel across Somerset, North Somerset, South Bristol and much of Devon), where we will come and measure up, bring a range of samples to suit your requirements and offer a free no-obligation quote.
In amongst the cold, grey days of February it's great to have Valentine's Day to celebrate to add a touch of colour and romance to this time of year. Hence, our current window display has been inspired by thoughts of love and romance!
The wallpapers featured show roses, the flower of love, and scenes of some of the most romantic cities in Europe. They are from Galerie Wallcoverings, whose products are now available from M&F Carpets! Galerie are producers of beautiful, high-quality wallcoverings ranging from traditional to vintage to modern designs. We have a great selection of their sample books available for you to look through in store or to take home and peruse in your own surroundings. Their full range of products can be found on their website and we can order in any samples you wish, free of charge.
The window also features Abingdon Flooring's luxurious 'Love Story' collection. Available in a choice of two qualities, these carpets are super-soft to touch and super-stylish with a wide range of modern shades to choose from, whilst having the added advantage of being bleach-cleanable making them super-practical too!
Autumn is such a beautiful time of year. Autumn walks through the crunchy fallen leaves, cooler weather beckoning us to dig out our cosy jumpers and scarves, darker evenings just perfect for snuggling up by the fire ...
We felt we wanted our window to replicate the beauty of nature at this time of year, incorporating pine cones and falling leaves of the most beautiful rich colours. Brockway Carpet's 'Solar' range has a fantastic rainbow of shades to choose from, including some gloriously rich reds, warm browns and burnt oranges, so we used carpets from this range to create lots of leaf shapes to hang and scatter across the display. And as we love taking our dog, Rosie, out for lovely Autumnal walks, we felt it was only right that our shop 'dog' featured in the display too!!
It's one year today since Mike and I first opened the doors of M&F Carpets for business!
What a fantastic, busy day we have had to celebrate with a steady stream of customers joining us for coffee and cakes throughout the day. We also raised a fabulous £40 in aid of Dementia UK through our raffle, a worthwhile cause for an awful disease that affects so many families.
Huge thanks to everyone who has supported us in our first year!
We have had a long and busy weekend visiting the Harrogate Flooring Show, the highlight in the business calendar of anyone in the Carpet and Flooring industry! Quite a drive, but worth it to have the opportunity to view our suppliers newest ranges launched especially in time for this event!
Supersoft saxonies are definitely on-trend this year, with many more of these sumptuous, luxurious feeling carpets being recently launched. They are perfect for burying your toes into on cosy Autumn and Winter evenings at home! Wool loop-pile carpets are also very popular at the moment, due to their versatile, hard-wearing properties and stylish, modern look. Many new designs have been launched and they are available in an ever-increasing range of textures and styles, whether plain, heathered or subtly or boldly striped!
We look forward to bringing some of these to our store for our customers over the coming weeks.
You can now visit our shop in Burnham-on-Sea virtually using a computer, tablet or phone even when we're shut!
We have now been added to Google Street view, you'll find us at 10 Abingdon Street, Burnham-on-Sea or alternatively we've posted a snapshot of the virtual tour in this blog post.
We hid out of the way while the lovely people from Better Reach took their clever 360-degree photos so you get the shop all to yourself. The photos were taken back in January, so we've already added some new ranges to the shop since the photos were taken, maybe we should run a spot the difference competition when you come in to the shop.
We're really pleased with how the shop looks in the pictures, they're great quality and you can even see our ceiling and some of our office!
However, nothing beats visiting the shop in person, as unfortunately we can't show you the feel of our carpet via the computer just yet (but I'm sure there's one of these clever computer-y type people working on it somewhere!).
Mike and I look forward to welcoming you into our shop in the future.
Here at M&F Carpets, we want you to love your flooring.
Mike and Fiona will always take the time to discuss your likes and needs, show you a range of suitable floor coverings and explain the benefits of the different options available to you. We are happy to come to your home to measure, show you how our flooring samples will look in your own surroundings and offer free no obligation quotes.
We are only happy when our customers are.
