Where To Find Sustainable Furniture Made In New Zealand

Until this year, our bed was the only new piece of furniture my husband, Tim, and I have ever owned - and our bed base was made by my father-in-law, so it doesn’t really count! Living a sustainable lifestyle has meant Tim and I have always ventured to secondhand stores for new pieces of furniture, or adopted items from family.

But after 3 years of living together, I was over the horrible red leather couches that Tim bought secondhand from his brother a decade ago. Our mentality has always been ‘use what you have!’ … but when what you have means you begin to loathe a space you spend a lot of time in, something needs to change.

After hunting through secondhand furniture stores for months and having no luck finding the retro inspired chairs we were looking for, I began chatting to Catherine from Lore. On a personal level, we hit it off immediately and better yet; Lore is home to designer furniture, curtains, and blinds; elegant and timeless pieces all hand crafted in Aotearoa New Zealand from sustainable materials. Catherine works with suppliers all over Aotearoa New Zealand to source beautiful interior decor in a range of textiles, colours, and styles.

With this in mind, Catherine, Tim and I set out with a plan to design sustainably made arm chairs for our living room. Our goal was to design the chairs we had in mind for our own lounge, but ensure they were timeless and suitable for other homes across Aotearoa New Zealand.

During the design process, we came across several barriers. The perfect colours, but made from synthetic materials. The ideal wool, but too itchy on skin. After 6 months of back and forth, I’m over the moon to present you with our final product:

The Woolly Chair

Width: 725mm Depth: 740mm Height: 1050mm

The Chairs

The Chairs In My Lounge

You can drool over these stunners all day long on the Lore site, but here’s a little insight into how they are made.

A note from the wool producers:

“We don’t use just any wool. We use mid micron wools that come from selected farms throughout New Zealand. Others use a coarser carpet wool which is made to walk on, not sit on.

Earlier this year I dropped in to a farm on Danseys Pass in Central Otago. It was a random visit as I sensed they may grow our sort of wool. It proved to be the case as they gave 10000 sheep producing 25-27 micron wool.Carpet wools are 35-37. The bigger the number the coarser the wool. 

I was intrigued to learn that they blade shear their sheep as it leaves more wool on their backs as they head into winter and that is such a good animal husbandry story.

The wool is then scoured in Timaru ( or Napier for North Island farmers) , spun in Petone and woven in Mt Wellington. These factories employ 160 New Zealanders.

In the new world we are about to face local supply and stories like this will become important. There is no compromise. Our quality is superior to the foreign fabrics and our pricing better. It’s a better environmental story too.”

 The Chair Makers:

The makers of the Woolly chair are Modern Chair, based in Richardson road, Mt Roskill. They are a family business and have been in the industry for four generations… since 1912! They have no website, no Facebook, and no Instagram, however I am planning a visit to their site to meet and thank the team of 19 in person sometime soon.

The chair legs are made with FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) certified pine, and are whitewashed instead of stained to increase longevity. Although we liked the look of the darker legs, the risk of vacuum bumps, dog claw scratches, and general wear and tear would have made them look weary too quickly.

Can you tell I’m in love? The chairs completely light up our living room, they are comfy but sturdy, made with longevity in mind (we plan on having these forever and passing them down through generations), easy to move around when we need, and repel stains like no other fabric I’ve experienced before.

If you’re interested in adding the Woolly Chair to your home, you can pick from four colours: Lemon (mine!), Heather, Glacier, and Leaf.

Shop The Woolly Chair here.

Please let me know if you have any extra questions!

For more information on how to create a green home, find a helpful and simple guide by Redfin here.

NOTE: We have two chairs in our lounge. One of them was gifted to us in exchange for working together to make it an available product online, and for me to share about it on my socials. Thank you Lore!