Manufacturing new pieces has always been an important part of Graham & Sons. In the 1950-60’s Ron Graham made fireside chairs and settees for Farmers and Smith, Brown & Maple.
With the 1970’s ‘townhouse’ boom, the need for slimmer furniture saw Ron develop the Arlington wing chair and settees, manufactured for D’vask Furniture of Auckland. They proved so popular that their Auckland factory copied the design and supplied the top of the North Island. Ron was asked to work solely on new furniture for D’vask, but he didn’t fancy having all his eggs in one basket, so a Nelson upholsterer copied the design and supplied the South Island.
Ron expanded the range and sold through Austin Wilmot in Karori, Kirkcaldie & Stains and Yates Furniture in Otaki. This continued into the early 80’s. With the arrival of ‘big box’ furniture shops like Big Save, the new furniture market changed again.
When Ron retired, Chris and Rick Graham found a niche market making new lounge furniture direct to the customer. This allowed the furniture to be manufactured to suit the individual requirements and ideas of the client.
In the mid 90’s a new association was formed with Russell and Ainsley of Thonet & Co. They have their own frame maker and we do the upholstery. Initially we did all their work- specialty leather settees, commercial chairs and café/bars fit outs. It proved so successful, that once again there were too many eggs in one basket, and we didn’t want to sacrifice our residential customers. So now we specialize in upholstering Thonet’s new leather/fabric settees, and continue to custom make furniture for residential clients.
