Newport's Jubilee shop window competition produced an overall winner in L & H Furniture. BUSINESS ARGUS looks at the company.

WHEN it comes to furnishing your house from top to bottom the long-established L & H Furniture Newport store has everything you need.

In fact, business has been so good locally and in the Valleys that boss Terry Day is thinking in terms of expansion and opening a store in Blackwood.

Mr Day, pictured, whose company was overall winner in the Chamber of Trade Jubilee shop window competition, took over from his father five years ago.

"My father had been in business in Commercial Road and Kingsway for up to forty years but he suffered an accident five years ago and I came straight in to help," said Mr Day.

He is a stonemason by trade and served a long apprenticeship but he has taken to the furniture business and enjoys it. "It has its ups and downs like everything else."

He ventured into carpets nearly a year ago and has not regretted that move. "It is really going well."

The Newport store has everything. "We have everything you need, dining suites, three-piece suits, beds, bedding, recliners, curtains and, of course, carpets and because we have not got the overheads of our competitors prices are competitive," said Mr Day.

It's a family business in the true sense, with Mr Day's wife Sarah looking after the accounts and sales and, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, his mother-in-law Lorraine "looks after the shop" while Mr Day and Sarah make their deliveries to the Valleys.

"We have regular deliveries to Tredegar, Ebbw Vale and Blackwood and we also handle the marketing side on these trips so, in effect, the customer gets the best of both worlds," said Mr Day.

So, with expansionist plans in mind the firm looks set for a bright future.