[4] Having visited a few manufacturers in his daily work, he decided that making furniture was relatively easy and that by cutting out the warehouse dealers in the middle of the supply chain, he could sell direct to the public at lower prices.

Kirkham rented a room above a snooker hall in Carcroft, and started making furniture upstairs and retailing it downstairs, calling the business Northern Upholstery.

[4] In 1983, Kirkham purchased the business and the name of the Darley Dale based DFS ("Direct Furnishing Supplies") Limited, founded by the Hardy Family in 1969.

The burglars bound and gagged the housekeeper and made off with money and jewels worth £2.4 million, later recovered, but still South Yorkshire's largest armed robbery.

Despite these aggressive marketing strategies, the quality of their products is considered by a joinery expert, Roger Galpin, to be of "fairly robust construction.

[20] In December 2008, one television commercial by DFS was banned by the Advertising Standards Authority, following complaints that the company had doctored the footage to inflate the perceived size of their sofas, relative to the actors.