Lynplan was established over 60 years ago.  It was started in 1947 by my dad Richard Vipond and his brother Bill.

As so often happens with business partners, before long they went their separate ways and the business you see today is the product of my dad's constant innovation and meticulous attention to detail.

It's very much a family business with it's head office in Croydon Surrey. From here we send Tailored Covers for ‘Famous Names’ furniture  round the world, and Covers for other makes and Re-Upholstery are supplied to much of the UK.

Most of our business is the supply of Covers and Re-Upholstery  direct to clients, although we also do work for local councils, schools, museums, insurance companies and hotels.  We have appeared in many publications and on TV in the BBC’s Home Front, and ITV's 60 minute makeover. 

We concentrate on quality and service, rather than volume. With so many specialised skills needed, it's not surprising that training and staff development figure highly on our agenda. Many of our staff have been with us for a long time – some over 30 years.

My name is Andrew Vipond and I'm the current Managing Director.  I'm passionate about Quality and Training in the industry and so have taken an active role in many industry bodies - In the past Chairing the Association of Master Upholsterers and Soft Furnishers (AMU&SF) and currently a Director.  I was also privileged to be a founding Director of the Furniture and Furnishings National Training Organisation (FFINTO) which brought together businesses from right across the sector, have represented the industry at Government level and contributed to a number of other industry-wide bodies concerned with safety and standards.

The strength of the business lies in combining traditional skills with new technology to give a high quality and consistent result at a reasonable price. We were an early adopter of new technology, acquiring our first 'mainframe' computer in 1979, (for the technically minded the whole business was run on a computer with a 128k memory and 5mb disk – and it filled a room!). We were also one of the very first in the UK to use computer aided design for planning fabric cutting.

Fabric being central to the company’s products, we have been active in developing the specialised cloths needed for tailored covers. When the Fire Regulations governing furniture and covers were introduced in 1988, virtually no fabrics existed that were both fire retardant and washable. And those that did comply were as stiff as a board.

Working with mills in the UK and Europe, we developed a range of fabrics using inherently fire retardant yarns, which have resulted in fine quality fire-safe, washable and soft fabrics which are exclusive to Lynplan and which form the backbone of the range today.

In December 2004 we were selected by Parker Knoll (one of the many manufacturers that we have been privileged to work with) to provide a year-long warranty service for their furniture following the closure of Parker Knoll’s Oxfordshire factory.

In 2007 we acquired the Econermine Curtain Company - a maker of fine curtains and accessories who have a very efficient factory in Lincolnshire, which has enabled us to extend the range of products available to our customers.

As more and more of us come to appreciate the value of buying good quality products that last, rather than buying masses of cheaply made items that get thrown away to landfill after a couple of years (particularly bulky items like furniture), we see a bright future for the business.  

We look forward to many more years of serving what must be one of the nicest group of customers anyone could wish for, and providing interesting and skilled jobs for our staff.