Who Are Indigo Furniture

Indigo Furniture started in 1999 in Matlock, just outside the Peak District in the beautiful Derbyshire Dales. The Indigo story started when the owners of a company called Sandringham Fine Furniture in Matlock, came across a style of furniture that was being made for a company in Manchester called Halo Furniture. Story goes that Halo didn’t see the potential in this particular style due to the handmade nature of the product where the beauty was in each piece being uniquely characterised by the saw marks and milling marks left in the surface of the wood which enhances the overall character and feel of the furniture. For large high street companies an unpredictable product isn’t easy to handle. The guys at Sandringham Fine Furniture did see the potential as from a different perspective the furniture is unique and interesting and nothing like what you could find in the big stores. They came up with a new business name and launched the brand Indigo Furniture and the rest as they say is history.

What Happened To Indigo Furniture

Unfortunately Indigo Furniture closed their doors in 2020 just as the world was going into a global lockdown. The company successfully ran for over 20 years and was a local beacon of pride in many ways. The two owners being old friends from school and growing up in and around the local area were paving the way for the younger generations of budding entrepreneurs, proving what is possible if you have the skills, motivation and tenacity to build something different. What actually happened to the company in the final days and months or even years is only really known by the owners and people in charge. From an outsiders point of view we believe that handcrafted quality solid wood furniture reached its ceiling of possibility with regards to going mass market. Large machines essentially need a lot of grease so to speak. The product that was once the centre of importance to both retailer and customer becomes a problem on a spread sheet. They have to squeeze the companies making the furniture for them to make it cheaper and faster. Then they have to increase the price to the customer so they can find the margin necessary to include huge amounts of advertising now needed to keep the machine properly greased. We believe that every product has its ceiling or its limit depending on the attributes it has and who and where it is marketing to. Essentially the business was built around a unique selling point that couldn’t be harnessed as the stresses of big business take over. Whatever happened is not known to us but they left a fantastic legacy of success that largely remains positive for their customers who genuinely loved the furniture they bought from Indigo Furniture.

What Is Indigo Furniture

Indigo Furniture was an independent furniture retailer who predominantly sold plank beds, plank tables, leather sofas and many more products for homes and businesses. So successful they were that the style of furniture that they sold was often refereed to as Indigo Furniture, or being like Indigo furniture. As it happens the style of furniture (sometimes referred to as plank furniture) was taken from another company before them. That being said it was certainly Indigo who were responsible for the success of that style of furniture. Turning themselves from local furniture retailers to a National brand that even sold their plank furniture over seas. Whilst technically speaking Indigo Furniture is simply a company name who’s owners latched onto a good thing, they quickly became the leading brand of plank furniture and earned the right for others to use the brand name Indigo Furniture when referring to plank furniture in general. They also sold real leather sofas that were made overseas and beautiful British made mattresses from the Smeaton Brothers Range of natural mattresses from Health Beds who have been making mattresses for over 130 years.

Who Are Ashton & Coleman

Ashton & Coleman both grew up in the surrounding area of Matlock in Derbyshire. There is a connection to Indigo Furniture with regards to the fact that Simon Ashton was Indigo Furnitures first employee back in 1999 and stayed with them for 12 years before deciding to go it alone and set up his own bespoke joinery company. Obviously Simon understood the plank furniture product better than most, meaning he knew the finer details surrounding some of the processes you need to understand to be able to make the most out of plank furniture. At the same time Simon Ashton left Indigo and set up his own joinery business Pete Coleman had just done the same thing after being made redundant from his bench joinery job at a commercial interiors company in Chesterfield who made high quality interiors for retail shops, cafes, coffee shops and any customer or public based environment. Pete always wanted to make ‘proper furniture’ as apposed to the stuff he had worked on in his previous job and focussed his bespoke joinery business on building a name for making quality joinery and furniture for his customers homes. Simon and Pete knew of each other growing up and often spoke at the wood yard and in passing, about the trials of running your own business and they kept in touch. When Pete moved to a premises at Ladygrove Mill to start his new workshop there he told Simon about the available space there and Simon quickly moved his business there too. Within a year they were sharing a kettle and once again as they say, the rest is history. After many years of building their business from the ground up they too have built a brand that is synonymous with quality modern plank furniture.