The Furniture Store is a family-run indigenous Irish furniture business. Founded in 1996 by Tom Conneely the business started off by importing pieces of furniture from the European continent. It is amazing what you start to learn about the different furniture like the timbers used in each country and maybe the purpose of using it. For instance we loved the German furniture because they like white oak and those pieces are beautiful stand-alone items and they compliment pine which was and is very popular. The Danish and the other Nordic countries like to use a lot of elm and beech timber because of its easy to work with, it can be shaped easily and has great strength. The Dutch favor oak in both its lighter and darker form.
The Europe of 1996 was very different to the Europe we see today. English was not the global language it now is and of course there was no single currency so this made things more difficult when dealing with suppliers but nevertheless Tom set out where he did manage to find some fantastic suppliers with quality products and at the tail end of 1996, he would import his first load of furniture, the container travelling all the way from the port of Rotterdam to the wilds of Connemara before being unloaded.