Our workshop
We pride ourselves on the fact that all of our furniture is made by hand in our workshop in Sussex, with local materials whenever possible.
Looking out on the countryside, our refurbished farm building comfortably houses eight employees along with the space for creative design, frame-making, carpentry, veneering, gilding, upholstery and polishing, amongst other technical and creative capabilities.
Our heritage
In 1913, talented craftsman John Tanous set up a fine art framing business just off the Fulham Road in London.
A lot has changed since then.
Today, John Tanous is owned and run by Carl and Tanya and is a bespoke furniture manufacturer for designers, the hospitality industry and private individuals.
Our products
Since 2009, John Tanous has been based in Sussex.
Most of our products are given a name post-production that is drawn from the beautiful Sussex towns, villages and places of historic interest that are located in the area surrounding our workshop.
For example, there is a great pub in Fletching called the Griffin Inn, which made the naming of the table a whole lot easier!
Our responsibility
We believe in acting responsibly with regard to sustainability.
So we reduce waste where possible by adapting our client’s existing furniture which limits the usage of new materials.
In Winter, the workshop doesn’t have central heating, instead we heat the spacious building with wood furnaces that are fed with our manufacturing offcuts.
We also handle furniture donations to local charities.
Our partnerships
Where possible we source locally.
We have a range of partners, from local forestry and wood suppliers that engage in environmental best practice, to next-door neighbour polishers, a father and son, and a tea maker – for our own tea made in Brighton by Bird & Blend.
Our creativity
We believe it is important to always keep one eye on the past and one eye on the future because it helps us with discovering new creative techniques and finishes.
This makes our work exciting as we are always learning new ways to hone our craft.
For example, by combining centuries-old construction veneering with archaic gilding techniques alongside the latest laser cutting technology we were able to create this striking fish-scale finish.
Meet Bob!
Bob has been part of the team for 25 years. Bob has one of the finest eyes for detail and a lot of patience for careful considered gilding.
There are two things Bob loves more than furniture: Bonsai trees and bird-watching. He always brings his Bonsais into the workshop and he loves watching the birds in the fields surrounding us.
So to make him feel at home, we built a bird watching station inside the workshop, and setup binoculars to admire the view!