Tusting Furniture

At Tusting, we take great pride and care in crafting every piece of furniture into a miniature masterpiece.  Starting with a solid hardwood frame, fully glued and dowelled for durability, we add a coiled spring seat unit with a hand-stitched cover over the traditional deep upholstery of the best foam and fibre.  For maximum comfort and resilience, cushions are fibre for the back and premium grade foam and feather for the seats. Finally, the crowning glory, and the secret that sets our furniture apart from other leather furniture, is the hand-selected hides from which the covers are formed.   We use only full-grain, aniline-dyed bovine leather which has a rich deep colour and warm, welcoming touch.


Our Choice of Leathers

These are our obsession.

For five generations our family has been making, trading and crafting leather and leather goods. All the hides we use come from cattle that are raised and slaughtered for their meat. During their life, the once-perfect hide of the newborn calf picks up marks that record its various rites of passage. Barbed wire scratches, insect bites, fat wrinkles and even (rarely!) airgun pellets leave their marks. When the hide is tanned and made into leather, all these features are visible.

In many modern leathers, these marks are disguised and hidden by briskly sanding the grain off before finishing with a layer of plastic paint. We do not do this.  The original grain surface of the hide is left intact (hence the term full-grain) and is simply coloured with aniline dyes (rather than paint!).  Hence, we prefer not to try to mask the natural defects in the leather but simply polish with clear wax to highlight the grain and beauty of this wonderful material.

The result is a piece of leather furniture that will burnish and mature with use into a timeless classic. With time, the leather will mature and age gracefully.  Scratches, stains and marks from sticky fingers will mellow to become features of the leather as a rich patina forms that will only get better and better with age.