We specialize in designing custom and limited edition furniture for both commercial projects and residential commissions.
Commercial Projects
If you are furnishing or re-designing your office, restaurant or hotel, we can help you conceptualize and custom make bespoke furniture for your space.
Residential Commissions
We make bespoke furniture for the home – everything from a new headboard, to a dining room table, built-in-cupboards, or a new kitchen.
Who is Fine Finish Furniture?
Fine Finish Furniture is owned and run by Alan and Johanna Neate. The company is a service-minded family business which specializes in high end, custom-made furniture as well as built-in units and shop fitting.
Alan started restoring vintage cars at the age of 18 (he still does this today as a hobby). Alan completed a 4 year apprentice ship with Sabbatini Auto Stylists in Johannesburg where he learnt the trade working on cars such as Lamborghini, Ferrari, Aston Martin, and Jaguar etc. The knowledge in metalwork and fiber glass, as well as a fastidious attention to detail, has proven invaluable in manufacturing bespoke pieces of furniture. Alan also did a year’s internship in the UK – Middlesbrough, as well as Slough, London – where he studied paint technology and spraying at ICI Head Office (one of the most advanced technical paint specialists in the world).
From 1995 to 1997 Alan was working with his mother, Des Armstrong, at Hadeda – Importer from Mexico and South America – supplying furniture and object de art to decorators, architects and the public. Gradually more and more requests were made for custom pieces of furniture, this blossomed into the start of Fine Finish Furniture. Due to the business rapidly expanding, Johanna, Alan’s wife, joined the business in 2007. She takes care of all customer and admin related aspects of the business, leaving Alan free to do what he does best – furniture and design.
What makes Fine Finish Furniture?
We relocated from Johannesburg to a farm in the Southern Cape to have more creative freedom, better quality of life, and therefore be able to produce a better product. In Johannesburg we had a large factory (700 square meters) where we ran big turnkey operations. We worked with several of South Africa’s top decorators and architects, as well as supplied furniture to top specialist retailers, but also did shop fitting jobs for Hyde Park, Sandton, V&A Waterfront and Tygervalley shopping centers.
We realized that we were living to work, not working to live and our two daughters were growing up too quickly without us. We made the decision to leave the rushed life of the big city to enjoy a free range life style, making free range furniture. We now run a tight knit, family style operation from our factory on the farm outside of Still Bay. We can work in all materials – solid timbers, veneers and Supawood as well as ferrous/non-ferrous metals, fiber glass and we are a registered Corian installer.
If you want custom furniture, Alan works on Auto CAD, alternatively you can supply us with a sketch or even a picture. We always go out of our way to establish what it is that you, the client, wants, so that the end product is above expectations. Nothing is out of the question, no matter how complex the project. We thrive on challenges and are proud to say that we have not been stumped by a project yet.