Sparrow & Plumb exhibited at The Ideal Home Show 2023!

Written By Emily Plumb

Hey all! Hope you’re well and thanks for clicking onto my website! For those that are new to Sparrow & Plumb, here’s a brief introduction 😊 I’m Emily, owner of S&P & we are a small business creating bespoke handcrafted furniture in Somerton, Somerset. We use over 270 luxurious fabrics to create our furniture from traditional Harris Tweeds to hand painted Linwood velvets!

Last month I spontaneously decided to do the Ideal Home Show at Olympia for 17 days!! The longest interiors show in the UK 🇬🇧 😍 The decision was super last minute & we managed to fill a 32m2 stand with our furniture & soft furnishings. This was a mammoth task as all of our products are made to order so we wouldn’t normally hold any stock.

Apart from the Bath & West show last year, I’d never really done a show before, nothing like the Ideal Home Show any way! So I didn’t know what to expect and I found it quite difficult to visualise our products in the large open space.

But we worked constantly for 7 days straight from the moment we decided to do the show, right up until the day before we had to set up. And by some miracle managed to create over 30 pieces of furniture whilst still full-filling our online orders. We also made 28 scatter cushions and over 25 lampshades which was amazing considering there are only 4 of us creating these items. And it didn’t stop there, my lovely little team then created DIY room dividers to create different scenes on the stand, 3 tiered tables to display our furniture on, a handmade blush pink painted cushion stand and a copper fabric swatch stand.

We hired a Luton van and headed to London! 😍 When we got there we immediately started setting up which was so much fun minus the fact we were upstairs and hadn’t brought a trolley so had to carry every piece of furniture by hand😂

If you’re new to trade shows, always bring a trolley!!! It will save you so much time & energy! 😅

The show started on the Friday and continued for 17 consecutive days & finished on a Sunday. During my time at the show Good homes magazine selected two of our furniture pieces for the live room sets & are kindly featuring us in their July magazine! I met some amazing people, lifelong friends and some really talented individuals. Even though the show was a huge success for us, it definitely isn’t just about the sells you make. The experience, brand awareness and confidence the show has given our business has been priceless 🥰

Here are a few of the lovely brands I discovered at the Ideal Home Show:

Here is a photo of my favourite piece of furniture at the moment that came with us to the show - The Coffee Table Footstool with Storage in Yangai Pastel Velvet ❤️

I hope you’ve enjoyed this blog post & we are pleased to announce we are booked in to exhibit at the Ideal Show next year, the dates are 15th - 31st March 2024! We hope to see you there! Here’s the link for more info: https://www.idealhomeshow.co.uk

Love,

Emily x

Emily Plumb
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