News Tagged ‘Rume Products’

There follows a little digression. It was meant to be nine tips on buying a sofa but as per usual something strange happened on the way to the topic. There are still nine things but they are less than succinct and probably don’t contain anything like enough keywords. Helen is losing patience with me. With any luck there is some useful stuff buried beneath the puff and I promise that I will attempt to do a proper sofa buying guide at some as yet unspecified time in the future. Well, I promise to try. Who knows, I will probably end up talking about horses.

1: Not all furniture is created equal.
Making beautiful furniture beautifully in England is not easy. In fact it is rather tricky. Sofas especially. The idea that a sofa is a disposable item has permeated pretty much every level of society. Sofas are things that are always half price, on sale, buy one get one free. This has been achieved at a cost, basically the vast majority of sofas are not fit for purpose, unless that purpose is to last eighteen months and to sign you up for a decade of interest free credit. If the price of a sofa seems too good to be true that is because it is, the only reason you should buy it is that you want somewhere uncomfortable to sit. You will also have to keep your eyes closed and make sure that you can get off it and leave the room without looking back.

2: A sofa is for life, not just for Christmas.
Beautiful rooms deserve beautiful sofas. Every component that goes into an exceptional sofa should be exceptional. Design, materials, skills. I know this makes them more expensive and not everyone can afford a Rume sofa but I truly believe that some things are worth saving up for. But then I would say that. Our business model is a teensy bit mad, because we build everything to last I usually only get to see my furniture customers once, they might come in and buy a cushion or something but as far as the sofa or chair is concerned they already have one (or two, sometimes five) and don’t need another. Our repeat business comes from them telling other people about us, repeatedly. Because word of mouth is everything we have to constantly exceed expectation. We are only as good as people’s opinion of us.

3: Chairs are a bit like guns.
In much the same way that every journalist likes to think they have a book in them so designers of just about every stripe like to think they have a chair in them. They don’t. Whereas it is pretty easy to design something esoteric and eye catching, something that might win a nominal design award or get a local boy done good article in the paper it is incredibly difficult to come up with something original, comfortable, and beautiful that not only works but is worth putting into production. Chairs are a bit like guns. How many sci fi movies have you seen where the guns are inexplicably huge, or misshapen and unwieldy. Guns are gun shaped for a good reason, they have to fit in your hand, ergonomics places an irresistible force on design, well it does if the gun has any chance of being held or fired or if the chair has any chance of being sat on.

4: A chair is not a narrow sofa.
One of the wonderful things about a good chair design is that it will nearly always make a good sofa. If however you design the sofa first don’t expect it to make a good chair. It is one of the reasons why the Acronyms have such hideous chairs, they are only interested in selling huge sofas, so they design them first then compress them if something smaller is required. Proportion is everything, and it is much easier to work out on a human scale, I do this by putting a human in it. A pretty one. If a chair design makes my wife look anything less than gorgeous I know I have a problem. Actually I’m not sure that is possible which is why I also use my brother, if I can make him look good then I know I have cracked it.

5: Chipboard is not a hardwood.
It all starts with the frame, the skeleton upon which success or failure hangs. I grew up in a frame shop, (not literally, I’m not Dickensian) and over the years developed an eye for a goodly frame. Oo er missus. Being able to read a frame is very useful, it allows you to picture how the piece will look when it is finished. It is something a good upholsterer can do instinctively and taking his advice when working on a prototype can help you avoid expensive mistakes. Frames can be made of many materials and often are but hardwood is best, the more the better. Beech is still without equal and when it is glued screwed and dowelled, almost indestructible. When buying a sofa or chair ask what the frame is made of, if you’re told beech ask how much of it. Less scrupulous furniture companies have been known to call a composite with a couple of beech rails a hardwood frame. Chipboard is not a hardwood.

6: The meat on the bones.
If the frame is the skeleton then the upholstery is the meat on the bones, the fabric is the skin, you get the idea. It is also what you see, that beautifully crafted frame disappears from view along with most of the credit for it. Traditionally frame makers and upholsterers don’t really get on (In fact each have a warring guild and have been pitched against other in arcane battle for generations). Of course turning a reserved frame into a poised piece of upholstered furniture requires skill and recondite manipulation of time and space. Despite being the son of frame maker I am still in awe of the process that turns the ascetic into the aesthetic. Watching the naked tracery of timber take on substance and finery before your eyes is wonderful, if a design turns out like you expected it is even better.

7: The past is contemporary.
As there is no such thing as time (long story) the past does not really exist except as something to beat ourselves up with. We were great once blah blah blah. If history has taught us anything it is that we never seem to learn from history. We never learn anything from the future either, like tomorrow it never arrives, we don’t get to go there whether we have access to a supermassive black hole, wormhole, mystic sinkhole or not. All we can do is remember or anticipate in the right here and very now. I think it is enough and it brings me to my point. Hooray. A lot of our sofas have distant design antecedents but as the past is something we can only experience in the moment it makes our furniture simultaneously persistent and brand spanking new. We are the very definition of cutting edge yet not ashamed to admit that edge can sometimes be found on the blade of a Victorian cut throat razor.

8: Chesterfields are all boys.
Everybody accepts that ships are girls, possibly cars too, well definitely Volvos, I have even given a couple of my more feminine sofas girl’s names but I draw the line at Chesterfields. Chesterfields are all boys, even when they are covered in pink velvet they still dream of being in a gentleman’s club supporting the indelicate derriere of some pipe puffing master of the universe. Another single malt please George. Consequently Chesterfields deserve muscular names, Smithfield, Pelham, Havelock not Chloe, Janet or Amelie, giving a Chesterfield a girl’s name shows a complete misunderstanding of their nature, of their innate blokiness. Giving a Chesterfield a girl’s name would be like calling the QE2 Ralph.

9: Furniture is fun.
I have sometimes been accused of being a little too irreverent in my witterings, been told that people will only grasp the magnitude of what we do if I affect the requisite sonorous tone. But I can’t help feeling that this misses the point, owning our furniture is fun. I know the buying part can cause all sorts of stress, there are always serious questions to ask when you are spending more money than is strictly necessary but once the decision has been made I like my customers to relax and to begin to gather a sense of expectation. The road can sometimes be a little bumpy, fabrics can be delayed, build times can stretch, there are occasionally delivery problems, but I know once the furniture arrives and they see it is what I promised it will put a huge smile on their face. I know that there will never be regret, that when they are still sitting on it ten years later they will think of it as a bargain, that they won’t grow bored with it just because they have had it for a while. It makes me happy to know that our clients love their sofas and that over time they have become just like one of the family. Only better looking.