After 20 years of working for multinational companies in retail, Jim Cartey returned to his Salford roots to set up his own furniture shop with wife Josie and their two sons Carl and Allen. It was in 1984 that they set up shop on Langworthy Rd, an area that Jim and Josie knew well from their Salford childhood, they named the shop Carl Allen furnishings and advertised as Salford’s own family furnishers. The store went from strength to strength, based on the principle of value for money, this also saw a rapid expansion in their customer base as generation upon generation would visit the shop, recommendations handed down from parents to children.