Make a house a home

A big advocate of the laid-back Cornish lifestyle, Chris of Endurance Flooring has filled the gap in Cornwall’s home improvement market.

With more than 60 years of combined experience in the industry, Endurance Flooring in Truro is a business with family, professionalism and customer service at its core. I meet Chris, who explains how it all began in Tonbridge, Kent, before he took on the venture of moving the business to Cornwall.

“We want to offer our customers an experience and reassure them that what matters to us is what matters to them.”

“Alan, my Dad, has been in the trade for more than 40 years, me for over 15, and before moving to Cornwall we ran what was essentially the same shop, but in Tonbridge. Since setting up here, dad’s moved down and now, though semi-retired, he still helps out with running the business a few days a week.

“Dad’s been in the trade so long that he knows it inside out. For me, I spent a good number of years working under some fantastic tradesmen, drawing from each of them to hone my own particular skillset. It’s this, I think, that our clients value – that all of us at Endurance know what we’re talking about. We don’t just want to make a sale and sell as much flooring as possible; we want to offer our customers an experience and reassure them that what matters to us is what matters to them.”

It was a gap in the market for this kind of service, as well as the allure of living the Cornish lifestyle that made Chris’s decision to pick up the business and drop it in Cornwall. But it’s not just an extensive knowledge of
all types of flooring that makes Endurance
so popular.

“A home is someone’s castle,” Chris explains, “so if you have workers that don’t care about the job, it’s not right. We do our utmost to respect our clients and their homes. What’s more, we back a lot of British manufacturers and brands. We often find that clients have their hearts set on a particular brand before they even enter the store, and more often than not those brands are ones that we hold a contract for, allowing us to both supply and fit them.”

Fitting, according to Chris, is the most important part of the Endurance service. The team of highly skilled and experienced fitters works with a whole host of different properties, from period homes to contemporary retreats, but one thing that remains constant is that Chris and the team are always the last workmen in, adding the finishing touches and the ‘wow’ factor to a home and leaving it clean, tidy and ready to impress their customers who are itching to move into their new home. “We’re one of the only companies in Cornwall to offer a full house fitting service. So, for instance, if you wanted to lay hardwood flooring throughout your living space and then carpet the stairs and bedrooms, we can take care of the lot. We’re also one of the only companies to offer discounts on full house jobs that require a range of different materials.”

I ask Chris if the business hopes to expand, and he insists that he wouldn’t want to. “We get invited to quote for big housing developments, but we don’t tend to get involved as they’re more about getting the job done quickly than they are about quality. We’re all about offering a personal service to our clients, being on first name terms with them and getting to know them on a personal level. We also work closely with friends and family, all of whom have lots of experience, whether in retail or in the installation side of things, and our clients seem to really like that aspect of the busness. We’ve developed an amazing rapport with some of our customers. We’re also trusted by some Truro-based property agencies to select and fit carpets for their rental properties, and we often take on contracts for second homeowners, who simply give us the key code and ask us to get on with it.”

There is, however, one thing that’s set to change at the store, and that’s the addition of a 3D viewing service for clients who want to know how their floor will look in situ. “We’re really excited about this, as it’s quite tricky to picture how a new floor will look when all you’ve got to go by is a small sample.”

So, if you want to know that your flooring needs are being taken care of from the moment you walk in store, why not pop into the shop in Truro and speak to Chris or Alan yourself?