In a safe pair of hands....

I am the Technical Manager at Wesley-Barrell and have worked here for 35 years.  My wife Rose is also Supervisor of the sewing room having trained at Wesley-Barrell as a seamstress 22 years ago.

My job is to liaise with the designers and development department to make sure a new sofa design can be made into a beautiful and comfortable piece of furniture.  As the furniture is bespoke and hand-made to order this is an enormous task.  Wesley-Barrell offer over 30 sofa styles and complementary chairs in a range of sizes with many different options such as seat depth and back height.  This requires great attention to detail as we need to rework all the measurements to ensure the sofa still looks in proportion whatever it's size and shape.

I also oversee the fabric planning department - customers can choose from literally thousands of fabrics or even supply their own so almost no two sofas are the same.  We make sure that all manner of fabrics from stripes, florals, checks and patterns are carefully aligned and matched on the sofa which is something not many companies can offer.

Over the 35 years I have been with Wesley-Barrell times have changed from when we delivered card templates to each department and supplied cutting lists on the back of cereal packets.  Now we have state of the art technology to help manage the planning and production but this is still combined with use of upholstery skills that have been passed down and little changed for generations.

I take pride in seeing a new sofa go from design into production and hopefully become a best seller!