New stock, more space

Press, 6 November 1984, Page 21

New stock, more space

Smiths City Market has extended not only its shop space, but the range of products for sale. The new wallpaper section of the store, which opened recently, adds to the extensive home handyman and home improvements area of the store, and gives more room to display existing hardware stocks. The wallpaper section is in premises which were formerly occupied by a real estate office, on the corner of Colombo and Dundas Streets. The large interior between the wallpaper showroom and the hardware shop has been completely renovated and rearranged to take the entire paint section. Large windows and fluorescent lights give soft but natural lighting, making the choice of patterns and

colours of papers easier. A new design of display cupboards, exclusive to Smiths, has been created to accommodate 210 patterns of paper. These patterns all come from well-known designers such as Ashley, Jenmuir, Vision, House of York, as well as another line which is produced exclusively for Smiths City Market. The display cabinets have front flaps which each have a sample of the paper in stock pasted on the front. The cabinets are staggered so that long drops, which can be changed regularly, can be seen on the side. A multi-faceted mirror simulates large wall areas, so the customer can gauge what a small sample would

look like if used in large quantity. Sample pattern books can be viewed at leisure in comfortable seats. One corner of the showroom will be permanently set aside for display as a room of a home. Changed at regular intervals into a dining, living, bed or bathroom, the display will show various types of papers available for specific uses. A wide scale of prices are in stock, ranging from the cheapest, plus any on special, to foil and loomstyle papers in the more expensive category. Any papers not in stock can be obtained by the department within a week. All accessories needed for wallpapering — brushes, pastes, fillers, rollers are — on sale in the shop. The job of selecting the

right wallpaper is never easy, but the newly acquired staff in the department can offer expert advice which comes from years of experience in the trade. The supervisor, Mr Ray Phelan, has worked all his life in the wallpaper trade, and is assisted by one staff member, Stella Hankinson. Home improvement loan finance is available from Smiths City Market, and they offer to refund all purchases if the customers decide against the choice they have made, even after beginning to hang the paper. The new showroom is open until 9 p.m. on Fridays, and on Saturdays until 12.30 p.m. The large and accessible Smiths carpark also makes shopping convenient.