Another iconic Lismore business reopens its doors today, nearly sixteen months since the building, which has been the home of Instyle Sleepcentre for the past 46 years, was severely damaged during the February 28, 2022, flood.

Owner Dave Martin is looking forward to getting back into the CBD after working online and from home. which allowed him to stay in touch with customers.

"It's nice to be back, this is sort of home. I've had a lot of years here, so it feels nice," Dave told the Lismore App.

"You look at that beautiful ceiling, the old press metal ceiling it, there's so much of that there. So, there's an intrinsic sentimental value to the location."

"It was a given we were coming back, we were never going to be anywhere else. We've been here for this long. The CBD needs supporting, it needs businesses and it needs people in town. Lismore needs the CBD, so we were always going to be back here."

"Obviously we'll see floods again at some point in time. I'm hoping that's quite some time to be quite honest. I'm certainly not looking forward to having to go through something like this again."

Being situated at the lower end of Woodlark Street (next to Brightway Lighting), the flood waters reached just above the awning severely damaging the roof which is why it took so long to be fixed.

"The rebuild has taken so long mainly because of the difficulty in getting tradesmen but there are other problems that needed to be fixed," Dave said, "And to be honest, me having a shop that needs rebuilding and someone who doesn't even have a house to live in, I can wait. People who don't have a house to live in have to be a priority."

As you can see from the building's exterior, there is still work to be done but, as is the case with so many other businesses, people will understand when they walk through the door.

"We've still got a long way to go. We're still trying to finish things off, but it's good enough that we can at least start getting in here and start trading."

"The outside of the building still needs to be finished, it's getting love but it's not completely finished yet. So, please be patient with us while we sort of grow and get back, like everybody."

There will be some new faces in the coming weeks as Dave has had to hire new staff members to serve in the showroom.

"We've got some new people starting which is great, new young people with enthusiasm so it'll be great to have them around. It will probably be about two weeks before customers will meet Eden and we're still working on the second person."

"I'm very fortunate, the people that have applied have been really, really decent, high-quality people so I'm very thankful. Other times we've advertised for staff and had 100+, obviously we haven't had anywhere near that number this time but all the people that applied this time have been really, really high quality and we're still going through interviewing people. It's nice to see and makes you feel a bit better about things when you see some decent quality people."

Apart from the good news that Instyle is back in business, Dave has a reopening special.

"Double, Queen and King mattresses will be the price of a single. So come on down, let us help out and get you back into something comfortable."

Instyle Sleepcentre is at 103 Woodlark Street, Lismore CBD just down from the Keen Street roundabout.