things we know...
Five year construction guarantee.
All our sofas carry a five year construction
guarantee. It covers the feet and frame, springs, webbing, and
sofabed mechanisms. Everything you can't see, except the seat
cushion fillings. But don't worry about them. They'll retain their
shape and comfort for years. Why? Read on.
Underneath it all: the sturdy frame.
We've tried a variety of ways to improve
frames. But actually the traditional European hardwood is best,
pinned and glued (to a five-year guarantee). Retro shapes are
really tricky to make. Stane Street had its frame prototyped by a
surf board manufacturer. What a dude.
The cushion.
Our in-house experts, (my wife, Julia and
David's wife, Jenny) have found that when someone's unhappy with a
sofa, the seat cushions are mostly to blame.
So we use a new cushion called
Duratech. It's made from the same stuff as fleece jackets. And it's
the only seat cushion ever to receive a gold star from FIRA (the
Furniture Industry Research Association).
It is tested by having a 15-stone man
sit on it for five years, Ithe equivalent anyway). When he finally
got up, the cushion had kept 95% of its loft. In other words, five
years after you bought it, the cushion would look and feel almost
the same. It's the only cushion to win a gold star from the
Furniture Industry Research Association (FIRA), so we use it in
most of our sofas.
Washable loose covers.
Ideal for grubby fingers and muddy dogs,
obviously been around for ever. But in fact, not before 1989. That
year I found them at Shabby Chic, in SoHo, New York. Brilliant, I
thought, and brought the idea home.
Then I found how tricky they were to make. But
we ironed out the manufacuring wrinkles, and we've been making
really good washable loose covers ever since.
Top tips! Never wash your covers above 30°C or
tumble-dry them. They'll shrink. Fit them still damp, and tuck them
in with a wooden spoon. Never use washing powders that contain
"Optical whitener's." The clue is in the wording. These powders
will whiten your gorgeous fabric, which is probably not what you
want.
A dream in leather.
At one time leather sofas all looked Victorian
and sat like a brick. And only lads bought them. Basically the
tanning process made them that way. I wanted to come up with
something better, and from 1988, I tried with a Dutch tannery.
Progress was slow.
But when my wife Julia (no fan of leather
sofas) told me how lovely and soft the sofa in our showroom was, I
knew we'd cracked it. Soft leather! Now, even though most sofas are
bought by women, over half the sofas sold in the UK are
leather.