In the groove
“What do you want to call this groovy stuff we are making?” asked Chris Bruning.
His partner, Jeff Singleton, didn’t know what to call it either and, after much consideration, the groovy stuff became Groovystuff.
The vernacular may be dated but the furniture isn’t. The designs are new and unique, seeming to almost be one-of-a-kind pieces.
The company just celebrated it’s 10th anniversary by opening a showroom at the World Market Center Las Vegas.
Designed for today’s lifestyles and inspired by yesterday’s antiquities, Groovystuff offers six unique residential collections: Prairie, Iron Horse, Adirondack, Back to the Roots, Kodiak and Rocky Mountain. Each group features pieces designed with the foundation of style, value, longevity and preservation of natural resources.
In an industry just beginning to understand the impact and demand for sustainable home furnishings, the Dallas-based manufacturer is a veteran. Committed to sustainable manufacturing and environmental accountability, Groovystuff produces distinctive pieces crafted from reclaimed teak wood and antique farm implements. Its vision is to assist its retail customers in growing their businesses sustainably.
“They are thoroughly thought out and crafted from sustainable products which were tools and tree roots or worn out wagon wheels or plows,” explained Bruning as he touched a unique piece that looked like a wagon wheel sitting upright against a box. With a couple of twists of the handles secreted into the “hub” of the wheel it divided in half and swung open to reveal a beautiful bar. The Trail Boss bar features a handy wine rack below the serving area for storing your favorite bottles of wine.
More wheels were evident in the seats of the chairs at the Husker table, and wagon wheel spokes served as the trim on the back of the chairs. Plows were used as the chair legs, but the craftsmanship and blending of the pieces was so intricate that you had to do a double take and sometimes even a triple take to fully appreciate it.
Even the tiniest of roots from the teak trees are used for framing mirrors as large as 50 inches and weighing more than 70 pounds. These same roots were once discarded as not usable and burned. Some of the larger roots are fashioned into one-piece tables shaped like the letter “Z” and others are hollowed out to form tapered leg tables.
The Adirondack pool chair from Groovystuff is created by blending resalvaged farm plows and rice barrel sections. The angle of the plows and rice barrel sections create the perfect ergonomic surface to relax poolside.
Bruning didn’t start out to design furniture. The artist, electrical engineer, world traveler and disillusioned corporate executive was “tramping” through Asia and, more specifically, Thailand.
“My family believes that as much time as you spend learning something you must at least spend that same amount of time doing it,” he said.
After five years in the corporate setting, 21/2 as an engineer, Bruning said he was “burned out with the whole corporate thing. So I bought a one way ticket to Bangkok and spent the next three years going south, from one end of Indonesia to the other.”
He was astounded and amazed at the collections of old wheels and farm implements simply discarded by the farmers when they no longer had any use for them. His artistic side kicked in and he started to develop relationships with the local artisans, creating chairs and tables that he then marketed to his friends back in the United States.
Bruning hasn’t stopped there. He has since developed a whole program working with the University of Texas, Dallas and the American Home Furnishings Alliance doing case studies to show the effects of sustainable materials in the furniture industry.
