A Very Exciting Day
- vvienl
- Feb 10, 2014
- 2 min read
We tried so hard to find a suitable fabric to reupholster our bed. The fabric from Lelievre were exquisitely beautiful but the prices were way beyond our budget. Everything else we looked at after that did not compare in quality and design to Lelievre. The interior design industry in Australia is an absolute rip-off. Suppliers of fabric for upholstery and curtains will not sell direct to the public. They will only sell to an upholsterer, or a interior designer. And most curtain markers and upholsterers will not do wotk if you supply your own fabric. All this does is ensures everyone along the chain of supply get a cut of the profits. It is ridiculous and an absolute mockery of the free market concept. While the people at Greenfield & Hunter were very helpful, they would not give me a price for the fabric we needed for our bed. Even the quote we got from DJ & IC Barclay Upholstery did not include a breakdown of cost of materials and labour. When we questioned the upholsterer, he told us that this is the way things are done. So he was making a profit on both the materials and labour. This was something that we refused to buy into. We respect quality work, and are more than happy to pay reasonable prices for labour but this was plain robbery!!!
We decided to look overseas again for our fabric. I managed to get quotes for Lelievre fabric from both France and UK at prices I am quite sure were at least 20% cheaper than in Australia. However, that was this out of our budget range. Silk lampas fabric is very expensive.
And then I decided to try eBay. I found this amazing Louis XV silk lampas from Scalamandré at an amazing price from an ebay seller - silkresource. Scalamandré is one of the most respected fabric company in the world. in fact, they have been commissioned to provide fabric for the current renovation of The Ritz Paris. This amazing silk lampas is a reproduction of an old french pattern dating back to 1730. With a 100% feedback rating, Silkresource has been so easy to deal with. We received the fabric in the mail today and it is just beautiful. We can't wait to see the finished reupholstered bed in this beautiful fabric. In fact, I think we will be getting some curtain fabric custom-made by Silkresource too.
To further add to the excitement of the day, we received our shipping container from Walton Bathrooms today. I have to admit communication on this end in Australia by the shipping agent has not been the best, and we had to follow-up on some paperwork and phone calls to ensure that delivery of the goods was on a specific day when we could be at home, but the entire process itself has been relatively easy. Everything arrived intact and undamaged, even the three toilet seats. We unpacked everything and checked each item carefully. Everything was very well packaged. The Hansgrohe shower came in a box within a box. We are very happy with everything and highly recommend Walton Bathrooms to anyone wishing to import bathware from the UK.
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