Antrim mum’s hobby to help meningitis recovery now thriving furniture business

The idea of the business started after the mum-of-three began breathing new life into second-hand furniture as part of her recovery after being struck with her illness.

A way of keeping her mind busy, Shauna says she never thought her hobby of restoring items from charity shops would transform into a thriving family firm that has since expanded into new premises and taken on more staff.

Chique Unique benefited from mentoring and specialist business advice under Mid and East Antrim Borough Council’s business escalator and escalator plus programmes, which are part-funded by Invest NI and the EU.

Shauna is now encouraging other local businesses to avail of the support available from the council.

“We signed up to the business escalator programme and received support on the use of social media and creating posts to reach our target market,” she said.

"This programme helped us immensely.

“We feel much more competent using Facebook and Instagram.

"Our posts have created more engagement with our target market and we have benefited from a massive increase in the number of followers.”

Shauna added: “Following this success, we were eager to see what other support was on offer to assist us with the day to day running of our business. We got assigned another mentor to help with financial management and accounts.

“This helped us deal with the high volume of enquiries and demand for quotes more efficiently and we also looked at the use of spreadsheets to prepare our yearly accounts.”

She stressed the mentors were “so supportive and helpful” throughout.

“From the first contact with them, we discussed any issues we felt we had and required help with and they came back to us with recommendations and valuable advice,” she explained.

“They worked alongside us and supported us, helping us put these plans into place and continually followed up with us to ensure they were working well.

“Our business has continued to grow and we are delighted to be in the position to recruit more staff. We have also secured new contracts which will take our business to another level and are confident that the knowledge and skills we acquired through the programmes will enable us to service these contracts successfully and continue to expand our ever-growing business.”

For further information about the company email: chique.unique@hotmail.com

To find out more about the support available to your business and how to access free mentoring make an enquiry today via midandeastantrim.gov.uk/EscalatorPlus