Furniture designers open new shop

A CEBU-based couple has opened a furniture shop that offers custom-made furniture for the local and international markets, reinforcing Cebu’s image as a creative city.

Gregg and Agnes Taborada-Huettel said they decided to open Allison Tyler Designs shop at the third floor of the new Design Center in A.S. Fortuna Street in Mandaue City in response to the demand for finished products mostly from the local market.

“In our other company Asian Link Designs, we only offer the designs to our clients around the world and it’s up to them where they would have the items manufactured. This new business, however, will offer finished products designed by us for walk-in clients or we will do designs according to what they want,” Gregg said.

The Huettel couple has been designing furniture for 25 years for major brands abroad.

According to Gregg, Cebu’s reputation as a source of creative and skilled work remains despite the difficulties experienced now by the export industry.

“This investment will hopefully be able to still tap the available skills and creative talent of Cebuanos,” he said.

In their 170-square-meter shop is a design library where people can scan through different designs made by the firm or the couple’s collection of design books.

“The library will help clients decide which design they’d want to have for their furniture. We are all about design and quality and this will really help us achieve that,”said Huettel.

The couple is eying the market of residential home and condominium owners in Cebu which has expanded in the last two years, as well as commercial and office spaces.

“We will offer our services to them. We can visit their homes so that we can custom-fit designs that we will do for them,” said Agnes.