Construction

How To Make Furniture Properly…
Frames
A good foundation is necessary to create a first class product and in our case the foundation is the wooden frame. When company founder Ernest Rooke designed a new piece of furniture he always designed the frame first.

The frames are constructed locally using European beech and birch from renewable sources (rather than softwood which is used in mass production furniture). It arrives on site as sawn logs which are seasoned for several months before being cross-cut, planed and then hand shaped to form the individual components of each piece of furniture. The individual pieces are then assembled using a ‘glue and screw’ technique for maximum strength and long life.

Springs
Metal spring units, made to our exact specification for each of our designs, are mounted onto the frame.

Arm springs – anchored at the front and back with galvanised u-nails (4 per coil)

Back springs – Serpentine springing is nailed into place using clips

Seat springing unit – covered with hessian and fixed in place using bar nails

Padding is inserted beneath each spring bar to prevent friction which would otherwise result in creaking noises.

Comfort Layer
The talents of our highly skilled upholsterers are needed to create the comfort layer, hidden between the elegant fabric or leather cover and the hard structural materials (wood and metal.) Our traditional methods of hand upholstery combine what are mostly natural materials together to produce the comfort, feel and durability of our upholstered furniture.

Horsehair, rubberised hair and coir are used for the primary padding of the frame and the sculpting of the arms to the finished design. A covering of cotton felt forms a flame-retardant barrier, followed by a skimming of polyester fibre which helps to prevent friction and make a smooth finish.

The seat platform is covered with layers of rubberised hair and cotton felt followed by layers of horsehair and felt.

Covers
We mark up the fabric or leather to hand cut the cover for each piece of furniture to show the design of the fabric or the grain of the leather to its best advantage.

The cut fabric is upholstered piece by piece onto the body of the furniture. This painstaking process ensures that the stretch and pile is taken into account to guarantee a perfect finish and years of use.

Each piece is then carefully hand stitched to finish.