our weekend with Hippo

Out with the old and in with the new.


And this past week has seen plenty of both.

All but a very few pieces remain of our Pine and Oak furniture displays, as we enter a new phase of our store's future as James Allen Bedrooms.

In its vacant position we are now proudly displaying a huge selection of beds and mattresses of all types.

We have 3' (single) mattresses starting from £49.99 and 4'6" (double) mattresses starting from £99.99, we have pocket sprung and we have memory foam, we even have memory latex, we have wooden beds, metal beds, divans and a whole host of headboards to choose from.

And we also have a new supplier.


As we launched Bedzzz, our brand new bed and mattress department, we felt that we needed to be showing the very best, and offering the very best choice to our customers, so we went direct to the country's most recognisable mattress brand, Silentnight.

And with a launch weekend planned, Silentnight sent a very special guest to our shop to watch over proceedings and ensure we were doing a good enough job.

Hippo was far too excited to stay in the shop though and could be seen dancing outside for the whole of Saturday and Sunday, waving to cars, making friends with children, getting plenty of attention from grown women and posing for loads of photos!

Hippo even went for a quick walk around Enfield Town and caused quite a stir wherever he went.

We know we certainly enjoyed our weekend with Hippo, and we're pretty sure that he was having fun too!

If you posed for a photo with Hippo, or just want to see what he got up to, head over to facebook where you can 'like' James Allen Bedrooms' and start tagging the photos of yourselves.

James Allen Bedrooms on facebook

and don't forget, you can also follow James Allen Bedrooms and Silentnight Beds on twitter.

- Glen

after the riots

As many people will have no doubt heard, following riots in Tottenham, Enfield was targeted for looting and chaos on Sunday 7th August.

Obviously as rumours started to circle in the afternoon,our first priority was to make sure that all staff were safe, and our sunday opening hours meant that no-one was instore by the time that there were any signs of trouble.

But as the evening progressed, wilder rumours spread via twitter and very few hard facts were available, the 24 hour news channels only touched a little on the extent of what was going on, so it became a long drawn out waiting game to see what state our showroom would be in in the morning, if it was still standing at all.


The cold light of day, disproved the overblown tales of Nandos and Krispy Kremes going up in flames, and we were fortunate enough to only have had one window along our shop frontage broken.



Other shops were not quite so lucky, with looting affecting HMV and G Mantella, and a local chemist that had been working late was forced to barricade themselves in to try and keep out looters.

The main road through The Town remained closed off and a air of curiousity had changed to an impending sense of fear, with practically every shop closed by 4pm, as reports that shops and offices had been advised to evacuate in case of more trouble.





Thankfully no further trouble was apparent and after a peaceful march held by proud and concerned Enfield residents took to the streets on wednesday evening, Enfield feels like a much safer place once again.


Throughout Enfield Town, many shops now sport rather apt signs encouraging our residents to 'keep smiling' through all that has happened recently, these stickers can be bought from Fast Signs on Coleman Parade, and T-shirts bearing the same design can be purchased from our next door neighbour, Kapture-Me, with profits going to Riot charities, so dig deep, support our boys.

and most importantly, keep smiling.

- Glen

James Allen Bedrooms join the 21st century

In recent years we have seen a change in our displays and a change of name.

Formerly, House of Pine and quite clearly specialising in pine furniture, modern tastes has seen us expand our specialty market to include displays of solid oak furniture and contemporary fitted bedrooms.

And thus, we became James Allen Bedrooms, so as not to confuse those that thought we strictly stocked pine (although we don't strictly sell just bedrooms either, but that's another story).

Following these new directions, we have now finally taken a step into the modern world of interactive social media.

Our blog and website will still provide a main hub of information on the ranges we run and images of our bedroom collections, but apparently we need to be EVERYWHERE to survive in the 21st century.

So, you can now 'like' us on facebook
(where we are currently feeling rather unliked)


you can follow us on twitter
(where we promise not to spam you, but instead provide short messages and news of special offers)



you can 'check in' with us using foursquare
(where we will... i'm not really sure to be honest)



and you can watch us on youtube
(where we will introduce ourselves, our shop and our offers)





our first video is up already, presented by my good self so that you can now put a face to the name, giving you a quick run through on our range of pine blanket boxes and ottomans that are currently at a special price





but, rest assured, for those that are perhaps a little more old-fashioned and would rather be dealing face-to-face than with interfaces, we are still open 7 days a week, with both our Enfield Town and Crews Hill branch manned by friendly and helpful staff (that haven't found the time to tweet too often yet)