One of the coolest perks of being a blogger is that you are invited to some even cooler events. I hope you enjoyed my last post about JD Sports event cus’ guys; there is a few more I haven’t shown you yet. I have a great ‘factory and behind the scene’ trips, like Graham&Brown or Wedgwood and Houzz event still to show you, but today I will show you behind the scenes of  DFS Factory and design studio and how they make their furniture. 

In November, I was invited to a 2-day influencer press trip to the beautiful Derbyshire to visit DFS factory. Along with that to create my own armchair and style a chosen sofa while staying at the luxury hotel in a country site with a 3-course dinner and drinks with other fabulous bloggers, sounds awesome right?

With other influencers invited to DFS press trip, SarahLou & Matt

I took the train to Nottingham, where I met the lovely PR girls, rest of the invited bloggers and made our journey to the DFS factory. After a warm welcome from the DFS staff, we were given a tour around the factory where we could see each sector of the production process along with a little bit of history of DFS. I was really fascinated by the process of making the furniture. The factory workers, really work hard and it does require loads of skills to create one single sofa. Each process is very thought through and the organisation is amazing. We were shown each sector from upholstery to sewing. Each sofa is made to order, and go through several hands before is send to a client. There are special machines to cut the fabrics to an exact size, but all machinery is operated by humans. I loved to see the piles of fabrics! I have this thing with fabrics, so I snapped like million pictures of it. All DFS staff was super passionate about the brand and some people work there for years. I love the fact that their advert ( you know the little cartoon creatures? ) these are based on real workers. The advertising company took pictures of the staff while interviewing them, and animated their characters so all they say it’s actually based on real interviews. The factory was definitely interesting to see. It was great to learn that the all their sofa’s and chairs are hand made to order and every single piece is put together carefully by skilled and passionate workers.

After the factory tour, we took the bus to Peak Edge Hotel which was located in a countryside. When we arrived we had around an hour to ourselves so I took advantage on that and pour water into the bath. I just love when the bathroom has undercoating flooring! Nothing worse than step o cold tiles, isn’t? my mum back home has underfloor heating and I don’t know why but I just love that! I made myself a coffee and relaxed in a bath for 30 minutes. The hotel bed was so so comfortable, and I still had a bit of time so done some work in bed after the bath. We then meet up in the hotel restaurant for a yummy 3-course meal along with other bloggers, DFS staff and the lovely PR girls.

a bit of work in bed

Next morning we started with a yummy breakfast and headed back to DFS to their design studios. It was yet another interesting part how DFS sofa’s become a reality. We met the DFS designers and they spilt us the secrets of their design process and showed us their trends mood boards. As an interior designer, it was really good to see how they develop patterns and research the trends. We also saw their showroom and it was great to see some cool new designs coming. They have shown us their latest modular sofa design, and i jst simply fallen in love. After seeing that one, my old second-hand one just put me to shame. I need this modular sofa in my life!

DFS Design studio & showroom with moodboards

Then it was time to get our hands dirty! We were taken to their workshop and with a little help of their staff, we could do our own chair. I was, of course, great 😉 I finished first, ( despite nearly destroying the chair but well…) It was actually really hard.You have to hold the fabric strong and the staple gun is super fast, yet dangerous.

DFS Showroom and trends moodboards

I think my favourite part was styling. I so call myself aspiring stylist and having a pink sofa to work with, what could go wrong? 🙂 I was in my element! I knew exactly what I wanted and I was pleased with my result. I have chosen Betsy sofa, which is only £599 now and decided to go all pastels but break it with some turquoise colour and white. I didn’t wanted to go overboard, and just create a simple effect.

DFS invited Pipa Jameson, an interior stylist to help us out. It was great to meet her and get an advice from her. We also had a photographer Nicholas Yarsley who is the most patient photographer ever ( and talented of course!)

Betsy sofa, styled by me and photographed by Nicholas Yarsley

Behind the scenes of styling with a great help!

I was creating right next to SarahLou from Lapin Blu blog and I swear she put me ‘oh so aspiring stylist to shame’ as her scandi style sofa styling was just breath taking. I literally loved every single piece of creation. SarahLou worked were quietly ( comparing to my constant talking mouth) and it was great to see how she mix and re-thing each piece. I am learning all styling myself as despite being a qualified interior designer, being an interior stylist it’s a like a whole new level set of skills. I had a bit of tour and loved everyone’s creations, as each of the set reflected everyone’s personality perfectly.

SarahLou beautiful scandi styling