Furniture aims for timeless beauty

Press, 9 June 1986, Page 15

Furniture aims for timeless beauty

Ruske Brothers, Ltd, are manufacturers of bedroom furniture. After 30 years on the same Halswell Road site, the firm is well established on the Christchurch business scene.

Supplying exclusively the wholesale market, Ruske Brothers make furniture which aims for timeless beauty, rather than chasing this year’s fad.

Their furniture is made of solid timber combined with veneered customboard. All the furniture is

designed on the site. Recent years have seen a renewed interest in rimu timber for quality furniture. Once regarded as dowdy and downmarket, rimu is now being used for elegant and expensive furniture. In the last three years, it has displaced mahogany as the most favoured wood for stylish furniture.

Mahogany remains popular, however, especially for furniture of certain periods, such as French provincial.

Of the 14 designs being manufactured by Ruske Brothers, the Chateau range is among the most popular. This range is in the French provincial style, of solid mahogany combined with veneered customboard.

It is an up-market range, classically elegant and made to last. As with all Ruske Brothers furniture, the emphasis is on quality rather than price. Ruskes feel their furniture can be compared to a Mercedes motorcar. It

will not age as fashions change. Ruske Brothers bedroom furniture styles range widely — from the popular Early Settlers range, in natural-look kauri, through to a very modern lacquered style with a hint of art deco. Ruskes are now showing an entirely new range of bedroom furniture at the Canterbury Furniture Show. It is of rimu with brass trim and the style is strikingly simple. From design to the final polish, all Ruske Brothers

furniture is manufactured entirely on the Halswell Road site. Ruskes’ bedroom furniture is sold in stores throughout both the North and South Islands. It is also being exported to Australia. The firm is a family concern, with members of the Ruske family very much involved at the shop-floor level with the day-to-day running of the business. They feel that this close involvement has been one of the ingredients of their success.