Creative Interiors is shutting up shop and closing its doors after 36 years of serving the Island.

The Front Street furniture store was started in 1965 by two young brothers, Joe and Harold Pimental.

And when they went into business making furniture, they had no idea the small furniture empire they would one day create.

In fact, both brothers in the early days had to play in bands to earn their crust before the business really took off.

Harold, only 20 when he went into business, used to sing and play the guitar above where the Hog Penny is now, and his brother, four years his elder used to tour the hotels to support his young family.

"At first we were the Back Street Boys, and then we got better and became the Front Street Boys,'' laughed Harold.

The business did take off, first moving to Elliott Street, and into bigger premises in Front Street in 1978.

The company has been at this site ever since, and in its hey-day in the 1980s was selling 200 containers of furniture a year.

But since the eldest brother, Joe, passed away, Harold and Joe's widow Barbara Pimental, decided it was time to call it quits and close up shop.

"It is very sad,'' said Mrs. Pimental. "There are a lot of memories here, but it is time to close this chapter of our lives and move on to the next.'' The two brothers got together in business back in the 1960s when Joe started doing display windows in Hamilton. Harold had started up a carpentry business, but soon Joe was asking him to make individual pieces for his displays.

Soon the two decided to go into business, making brightly coloured modern furniture for Hamilton.

Harold said: "It was a really exciting time and we loved making the furniture.'' CreativeInteriors to close But it was costly to produce and one-off items wasted a lot of materials.

When the brothers were asked to deck out a new Chinese restaurant, the Ding-Ho (where Primavera is now), they realised they could make more money bringing in wholesale and selling retail.

And that was it. Creative Interiors took off to a flying start. And the site at Elliott Street expanded to meet the company's growing needs.

"We used to take the carpet out into the street to cut it,'' said Sue Kemp, a designer and marketing manager, who joined the company in its early days. She has now been with the company for 28 years.

"So sometimes when the carpet was unrolled, there would be leaves inside. We just didn't have the room. First a loft was added, then we moved out as far as we could. But it wasn't enough space.'' The company struck a deal to move to 129 Front Street to the site of a former lumber yard.

Here they had a huge 20,000 square feet to play with and opened up a kind of Ikea/Habitat-like modern living section. That location opened in 1978.

"Joe was very much the artist,'' said Harold. "He was the artist, the creative person, and I was the nuts and bolts guy. We worked well together.

"We went for a contemporary look and it worked.'' In their peak period in the 1980s they could be working at furnishing three or four entire condominiums in one week.

And they kept stock on the premises for customers to chose and pick then and there.

"We started from the floor up when we furnished a house,'' said Harold.

Before the slump hit in the 1990s, Joe saw signs of the imminent slow-down in Bermuda and gave up some of the space in Front Street, cutting the showroom size by half.

Mrs. Pimental has seen the business grow from the start. She and Joe were high-school sweethearts and when the business was set up, the couple had a six month-old child.

"I was nervous, he gave up a job at Shell Co.'', she said. "And it was hard.

A lot of times we went without. Sometimes there was no money and Joe had to go and play in hotels to make us money to live on. But it was a good idea and it worked.'' "We had not a lot of help from our family,'' said Harold. "Apart from the prayers of our family, we made it on our own.'' The couple's two children Debbie and Jason, have both taken on key roles in the company. Since Joe's death, Mrs. Pimental has been coming in to help run the day-to-day operations.

But Harold and Mrs. Pimental have decided to run-off the business. It will close on March 31, and whatever stock is left will be moved to the company's Harvey Road warehouse in Paget, where the business will continue until stock is sold off.

The partners are not selling off the name, and as yet do not know what will happen to the site.

Harold will now concentrate more on his property redevelopment business he has been running for several years, and Mrs. Pimental will go back to her home life.

Harold said: "We want to thank all our loyal customers and staff we have had over the years.''