Walsall furniture maker to retire after 27-year ride at Fairground Way 

One of Goold Estates’ longest serving tenants has announced his retirement.

Steve Everton is hanging up his toolbelt after more than 27 years of running bedroom and kitchen fitting firm, Everton Interiors, from Fairground Way Business Centre in Walsall. 

The 65-year-old established the business in 1997 and took out a lease on a warehouse unit at Fairground Way with then owner, Walsall Council. The property was acquired by Goold Estates five years later and Steve has been based there ever since.

He made the decision to retire following ill health, but says he will miss interacting with customers and other tenants on the estate.

Steve said: “It takes some believing I was there that long! I used to enjoy going down to Fairground Way and seeing other people, and I’ve been kept busy all that time. But there’s a lot of heavy lifting involved in the job and I’m nearly 66 years old, so the time felt right. 

“Goold Estates has been a good landlord over the years and ramped up security on site from the days when it was council-owned. It’s a good location, convenient for the motorway and deliveries. Everything is there and people seem to stay because of it. I will miss it.”

Steve began his career in construction before gaining almost two decades of experience with furniture company, Sharps. It was there he learnt how to create fitted furniture, from wardrobes to dressing tables, before deciding to branch out on his own. 

Everton Interiors has since manufactured and fitted made-to-measure furniture for customers across the West Midlands and as far afield as Cumbria and the Isle of Wight, all entirely through word of mouth. He even supplied furniture for Goold Estates’ head office refurbishment last year.

“I used to get the trickier jobs,” recalls Steve. “A lot of furniture is ready-made these days but if a room was in an awkward shape or had angled ceilings, people asked me to do it. I had to carry tools and materials up and down stairs, which was hard going. I did get the occasional job in a bungalow, but there weren’t many!”

Fairground Way fronts the busy Corporation Street West, near Jct 9 of the M6 motorway and less than a mile from Walsall.

Originally built in the early 1980s, the site has been modernised and extended by Goold Estates since acquisition in 2002, to include new office and warehouse space for growing businesses. All units are fully let.  

Steve added: “As I live locally, I used to do the journey to Fairground Way in five minutes. What a lot of people don’t know is that the site was once a fairground. They used to put it on every Bank Holiday and I’d go up there as a lad in the ‘70s.”

There will be no more fairground rides for Steve, but he won’t be fully retiring just yet – he’s currently fitting his own kitchen.

Image: (l-r) Lara Angell of Goold Estates with long serving tenant, Steve Everton, at Fairground Way Business Centre, Walsall.