What is the difference between normal furniture and luxury furniture?
Luxury furniture is very different from normal furniture and often it can be slightly deceiving or unusual as to why it’s different.
One of the major things that separates high street furniture to bespoke and beautiful furniture like the sofa I’m sitting on is how it’s made and the level of detail that goes into its design.
A lot of people nowadays, especially clients, high network families, and people with money, want to make their homes look unique, and they don’t want their home to look like IKEA. So they go to bespoke furniture makers and ask them to make specific pieces, be it a beautiful dining room table or a bookshelf or a sofa.
And at that point there’s a whole design process that goes into it with a team of designers creating it, sketching it, presenting the sketches, tweaking the sketches. And then, of course, once the design is locked down, there’s an exciting process of making materials and fabrics and finishes.
I’ve had some clients who have had standalone baths for the bathroom made in solid gold. That was a very expensive bathtub, but it just depends on what you want and what your tastes are and how you want to do it in your house.
Bespoke furniture not only requires great skill and detail for being built… It’s also critical to make sure it is properly cleaned and cared for.
What makes the approach to Housekeeping different for luxury furniture?
When you buy luxury, expensive, or bespoke furniture, it’s vital that the staff in your home understand how to care for it. God forbid the housekeeper uses the wrong type of cleaning material on your bespoke leather sofa or tries to clean the silver with acetone!
Some of the stories I have heard of staff, do send shivers down my spine.
It’s so important that the staff in elite homes understand that these aren’t normal homes. They are working in an environment where everything is bespoke. Everything from the brass feet on the sofa through to the finish on top of the antique desk that the principal works at are all areas that the housekeeper has to understand how to care for.
At Polo & Tweed we do a lot of staff training, because your house and wardrobe will change regularly and it’s critical that your staff be able to care for it appropriately. So, time and time again, it’s vital that the housekeeper is given skills and understands how to clean different surfaces, from marble through to wooden floors and making sure that they protect and look after what they’re caring for at the same time.