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You may not have realised but it has probably been a very long time since you last refurbished your café. Maybe you haven’t touched the décor since you opened, or perhaps you are just starting up and are looking for inspirational design ideas. If any of these situations sound like you then you are in the right place. Our start-to-finish guide will see you through an entire café refurbishment project giving you top tips to ensure a smooth transition from old to new.

First Things First – Choosing a Café Design

When refurbishing your café it is vital you have an idea of the finished look. By choosing your style early you can make decisions based on this throughout the rest of the project. Whether you are interested in vintage, American, modern or quirky, an early choice will reduce conflicting ideas in the future.

Here at Trent Furniture, we have a great selection of café and restaurant furniture from all ranges suitable for any budget. Search our products for design inspiration before making a move. Our pub sofa and coffee table packages also suitable for cafés to provide some home comforts for your customers or perhaps check out our cast iron table collection for a more ornate style.

Take Out the Trash – Removing Old Café Décor

The next step is deciding what pieces of current furniture and décor you wish to keep if any. Outdoor furniture, wall hangings, flooring and lighting are all things to consider as well as the obvious indoor commercial chairs and tables.

Make a mental note of what is staying and what is going or, better yet, store it elsewhere until it can be collected for recycling or reselling. Alternatively, you may even decide to keep a few pieces and up-cycle them to fit into your new space.

Now that you have a clean slate to work with your creative juices will flow and work on the new café design can begin. 

Three’s a Crowd – Space Saving Café Furniture

Assess your available space before making rash decisions. Plan a new layout for your seating areas, bar area and maybe even a waiting area, ahead of buying. Ensure you have designed your layout so that customers are left with enough personal space to help maintain their comfort. Squashing too many tables and chairs together can leave a bitter taste in the mouth of your customers and could put them off returning.

If you wish to entice more customers into your business consider space saving furniture such as our Berwick Buttoned Back Bench. Placed together with long or square tables you can seat more customers without the squeeze.

If you sell alcoholic drinks and would like to create an area dedicated to this, perhaps a poseur table against a wall with a range of surrounding backless stools will create the atmosphere you and your customers’ desire.

Caution: Wet Paint! – Choosing New Café Décor

Furniture isn’t the only step when it comes to café design. While your customers are waiting for their meal to arrive their wandering eyes will lie upon the walls and surrounding décor within your premises.

Staying within your chosen style, decide on paints or wallpapers that reflect the atmosphere you wish to portray. Dark colours accompanied by low lighting will offer a cosy space to relax but may make your café look smaller.

Using light, pastel colours can portray the ever popular shabby chic style whereas quirky patterns and bright colours may create a retro or American diner type feel. Your choice of furniture should further complement this design through the use of different materials and finishes.

Adding the finishing touches is usually where creativity comes to light and decorative wall hangings can play a big part in the refurbishment project. Clocks, photographs, paintings and ornaments can all leave a lasting impression on your customers.

Walls decorated with accessories from guitars to famous quotes can be a great distraction while they wait for food or drinks or allow their mind to relax with a more minimalistic design. Whatever your decision, it is important that you have a clear idea of your style to ensure there are no conflicting ideas.

The Great Outdoors – Top Quality Outdoor Furniture

On a hot summer’s day, there is nowhere better to be than outside. The UK rarely basks in delightful sunshine so when it does your customers will want to take advantage.

Providing your customers with a safe and comfortable outdoor area can be as important as ensuring your indoor space is inviting. While planning your refurbishment take a look at your current outdoor area and decide if this also needs an update.

We understand that due to the British summer outdoor furniture needs to be weather resistant as well as comfortable and therefore we have incorporated this into every outdoor design. However, if you do not wish to leave your furniture outdoors all year round, our range of outdoor stacking chairs is the perfect answer. This space-saving outdoor furniture is light-weight and durable so great for easy moving.

Money, Money, Money – Café Design with a Budget

As with every refurbishment project, costs and a budget play an important part of the process. Luckily a full café refurbishment doesn’t have to be expensive and Trent Furniture offers a range of different products for all budgets.

We even have selected furniture packages tailored for full and part refurbishments, ideally suited for small and large cafes and restaurants. Our quality furniture can be trusted to survive the intense usage that can occur in busy establishments, so you can relax and so can your customers.

Trent Furniture can provide something for everyone. With such a large range of product styles, colours and designs, we have something for everyone and all budgets. Our variety of café table and chairs, as well as sofas, stools and benches, are a sure way to help bring your ideas to life.

Banqueting companies or businesses that host events may find that buying their own banqueting furniture is cheaper and far more cost effective than renting banqueting furniture in the long run, especially at the sort of prices that Trent Furniture is able to provide banqueting furniture at.

The most important furniture for banqueting

Banqueting tables

The table is where most people will spend the majority of their time at a banquet; eating, drinking and being merry!  It’s therefore pretty important to have tables and especially the type of tables that are sturdy, strong and easy to move around.

For this reason, we offer a range of foldable round banqueting tables, starting at 92cm in diameter for under £35 each, up to tables that are 183cm in diameter for under £72. 

We also sell trolleys to transport and store your banqueting tables on for less than £126 each.

Banqueting chairs

In the same way that banqueting tables are important because people will be sitting at them, chairs are just as important because people will be sitting on them, again usually for long periods of time.  This means that good banqueting chairs should have two main features:

• They should be comfortable
• They should be customisable or the type of chair that can be made to fit different themes

A cushioned chair is a must for a banquet, but it still needs to be the type of banqueting chair that is stackable, so that it is easy to store without taking up too much space.  When considering stackable banqueting chairs, make sure that if they are going to be stored in a place where they’re likely to be knocked or brushed past regularly, that this will not cause them to become damaged or worn.  Something like this Taunton Stacking Chair is ideal for regular use and for taking in and out of storage many times.

Another good option for banqueting seating is this Chiavari Stacking Chair in limewash which is often bought for banqueting at weddings or summer events.

Where to buy banqueting furniture

For a large range of banqueting furniture, from tables and chairs to trolleys to transport them safely, visit the Trent Furniture website.  We specialise in furniture for all types of events and hospitality industries, offering a wide range of industry specific furniture at excellent prices.

In the face of Brexit, British holidaymakers are favouring UK based holidays rather than venturing abroad as a way of saving money in 2017.

A turbulent 2016 has meant that British beach resorts and popular rural locations are preparing for a busy summer with millions more expected to have a holiday at home this year, compared to last.

According to research from Travelzoo, 37 per cent of respondents are considering the United Kingdom for their main holiday in 2017. In 2016, 29 per cent spent their holidays in the UK. The findings are supported by Sojern, a Travel marketing group that have found a 23.8 per cent rise in the number of British holidaymakers searching and booking between October 2016 and January 2017.

Why are Brits staying in the UK?

There are plenty of reasons why more are deciding to holiday in the UK: the slumping value of the pound, the price of holidays abroad for families going out of term time or maybe the penny has dropped about just how beautiful the country we live in is.

Most popular UK holiday destinations:

• Cornwall
• London
• Devon
• Blackpool
• Isle of Wight
• North Norfolk 

With an influx of holiday makers flocking to holiday parks and hotels in the UK, it’s vital for the businesses to take advantage of the new customers and make sure that their accommodation’s décor doesn’t look worn and dated.

Paying close attention to detail could be the difference in a new visitor becoming a convert and continuing to holiday in the UK or fleeing the country as soon as they’ve got enough money saved up.

It should be the goal of holiday parks across the UK to change perceptions and provide an enjoyable stay for families, to keep them coming back and referring friends and family.

Holiday park furniture

Holiday Parks require a wide range of furniture, whether it’s for the rooms themselves or the restaurant/bar and public entertainment areas. As leading suppliers of the hospitality and leisure industry, Trent Furniture supply high quality, durable furniture for every need. 

Browse our full range of holiday park furniture here.

Wedding season in the UK typically takes place from late May through till September. While you can never really predict British weather, brides and grooms are more likely to get the best conditions for their picturesque wedding in the summer months.

It’s for this reason that the majority of weddings are booked during these months. Couples want the sun shining, happy faces and colourful flowers in bloom. It’s a busy period for wedding venues, with weddings taking place nearly every day.

There is lots to think about when planning one wedding, let alone the influx that comes in the summer months. With plenty of areas to thinks about and lots of items to tick off, one item that can be bought in advance is the furniture. The furniture is an important aspect of the wedding venue: it helps to set the scene and complete the look of a venue.

Ceremony seating

The ceremony itself is the most meaningful part of the day. The bride and groom won’t be using them, but guests will want somewhere comfortable to sit. Stacking chairs are a popular choice as they can easily be stored away.

The chiavari chair is a popular choice as it provides an elegant, rustic look for any setting. The versatile chair works well in formal venues such as banquet halls as well as more casual settings such as tents and gardens.

The loopback chair gives a sophisticated and relaxed appearance at the same time. The dark oak makes the chairs better suited to outdoor venues or in rustic, outdoor spaces. 

Wedding reception furniture

Guests will be spending most of their time at the wedding reception. This is where family and friends will do speeches, meals will be served and the first dance will take place. Comfortable seating is a must as this is where the guests will be sat for longer periods of time.

Whatever style you are looking for, there are leather chairs, wooden chairs or metal stacking chairs to make sure that you get the most appropriate chairs for your reception.

Tables are another essential piece of furniture. Banquet tables are ideal as they can be folded away and can be draped with fabrics and decorated to each couples’ personal taste. The round banqueting folding table comes in a range of sizes and can seat up to 12 persons.

If you’re holding a buffet, trestle tablesare the perfect choice. They are easy to set up and move, and can be covered with decorative cloths and accessories to match the décor. They can also be used as the gift table.

Wedding venue furniture

Trent Furniture aims to cover all the furniture needs for wedding venues, to give you one less thing to worry about when it comes to planning for these special days. We have suitable seating, dining, and display options for every part of the day, from the ceremony to the reception.

For help in finding the right furniture for your venue and budget, speak to our team today on 0116 2982 620.

Where can you buy pub stools?

If you’re looking for bar stools for a pub refurbishment, or bar stools to simply complement the existing seating that you already have, at Trent Furniture we have every option to help you find the right bar stools for your pub.

Classic/traditional pub stools

Whether you’re looking for a traditional looking low stool or a tall stool, we have lots of different types of each option in a range of finishes including dark oak, light oak and walnut.  When it comes to fabric upholstering, we have over 20 options that include patterned weaves, plain tweed and even faux leather.

Modern pub stools

The word ‘modern’ encompasses a number of different styles when it comes to pub furniture.  We have everything from the unusual M Stool shown below, to chrome stools, diner chairs and stools with black frames.

Luxury pub stools

With a choice of a solid wood or upholstered seat, we have a great range of luxury pub stools, each with hardwearing lacquer coating.  We can also upholster stools like the one below with your choice of fabric if you have a certain type that you would like to send us to use.

Luxury and comfort go hand in hand, so as well as stools with comfy seating built in, we also offer both button and piped stool tops in a variety of fabrics.

Cheap pub stools

If you’re buying pub stools on a budget, then we have both traditional and modern style low stools available for under £20 each.

Unusual pub stools

Looking for something a bit different to add to the seating in your pub?  How about a triangle shaped stool, like our Triangle Chester Stool which can be made in a choice of fabrics.

Or our Tall Zeta Chrome bar stool for something a bit more conventional, but still different to the average bar stool:

Finding the right pub stools and furniture for your pub

If you haven’t seen anything that looks like it’s quite right for your pub in this article, then head over to the stools section of the Trent Furniture website.  We have everything from Fanback armchair stools to American diner chairs, so you’re bound to find the right pub stool for you, at a great price.