Each week the Herald will be featuring a business to help readers get to know the people who make the town special. This week concentrates on Sidmouth Design Co at Old Station Yard, in Alexandria Road, owned by Edward Willis Fleming.

Tell us about yourself.

I fell in love with Sidmouth 35 years ago when I first visited the town. I decided I had to live here and have done so ever since. I had a successful property business in London, so felt I should centre my life around improving people’s homes and hopefully their lives as a result.

Tell us about your business.

We provide the complete service for the home. We give a planning consultancy and architectural service, project management and building contractors, kitchen, bathrooms and soft furnishings, fireplaces and woodburners and a complete interior design service.

What makes you different to other similar businesses?

Our eye for detail is second to none. Even our own tradesmen say you can tell if it’s been done by Sidmouth Design or not!

What is the most interesting part of your job?

Identifying the fundamental faults and failings in a house or home and advising in an affordable and creative way.

Tell us something that might surprise people about yourself or your business?

A lot of people assume that we are really expensive. But we have to be competitive and very often we find we are better value than many other organisations.

Tell us an story you have from running your business?

We once were tasked with lifting a tarmac path in the garden of a very fine house so we could replace it with York slabs, which we said would have been there originally. On the very first morning I instructed the team to just investigate carefully to see what was under the tarmac. They found a York stone path already there. We did take it up and relay it but you can imagine how delighted the client was, we didn’t need any new slabs.

Visit sidmouthdesign.co.uk for more information.

If you would like to feature in the Through the Shop Window segment email beth.sharp2@archant.co.uk for a form.