Photos by Dylan Hamm.
Why was it important for you, and co-founder Najeeb Dawary, to start FFABB? We have been creating high-end bespoke furniture and re-upholstering heirloom pieces for over 25 years through our sister company and have really seen the quality of furniture on the market change in that time. The trend of fast and disposable furniture was glaring at us daily as we started to notice a lot of our inquiries shifted toward replacing faulty foam and broken frames of newly purchased pieces. We knew that with the help of some automation we would be able to put soft seating out in the world at a fair price point that wouldn’t end up in the landfill.
We decided to take our years of traditional furniture making experience, modernize it slightly and apply it to FFABB Home. We created a collection of modern, family-friendly designs for our online store where you can customize your sofa, bed or chair to best suit your needs.
How do your designs start? We are tech-enabled craftspeople! We always start with a hand drawing and then digitize to 3-D to confirm the scale and proportion. Computerized
What does a typical day in the studio look like? Do you have designers, builders, upholsterers, under one roof? We proudly design, manufacture and package our goods for shipping all in our big, beautiful, North Vancouver warehouse. We have a growing but tight and talented team here at the FFABB Lab. Our days are definitely dynamic, lots of focused work mixed with singing and laughing! No two days are alike and as we are still growing FFABB and expanding internationally, there are new things to learn daily.
Each new order goes into production within two days and has many steps along the way. A typical day in the Lab is a mixture of customer support, fabric sampling, ordering foam and materials, website maintenance, frame building, sewing, stuffing cushions, upholstering and shipping.
