Tuesday, April 29, 2014

One Thing Leads to Another

While we were at the Tiffin rally in California, recently, I hopped onto one of the display motor homes. There was a young fella on the floor. "Uh, are you OK?" I inquired?
It turns out that he is the National Sales Rep for Villa Furniture, one of the companies that manufacture furniture for RV's, and he was inspecting the driver's seat.
"Oh," I said, "Let me tell you about the Villa Furniture on my RV..."
He replied, "Better yet, show me."
So, off we trotted to look at a sofa whose back cushions were crooked, and the passenger chair that was so overstuffed it was uncomfortable to sit in.
He seemed to agree with me. He suggested we come to the plant in Cerritos, CA, a mere 90 miles away. After a brief discussion with Mr. Dreamy, we decided we had nothing to lose and everything to gain.
So, off we went to Cerritos.
We arrived bright and early to avoid LA traffic. By 9:00 AM we had taken a
 tour of the plant and Vincent had supervised the removal of the sofa and the passenger seat. By 2:00 PM, we were on the road again. Many thanks to all of the folks at Villa Furniture. Your customer service is so very much appreciated!

Interesting pictures from the day:

Upholstery patterns are cut from cardboard and stored for future use



Pieces of died, matched leather await cutting.
Rolls of vinyl fabric can be seen stacked on the lower right of the picture.


Vinyl is cut by a computerized machine. The software minimizes waste. The vinyl is held on the table by suction as a cutting head moves swiftly according to the computer's instructions.


Computerized sewing machines are used for embroidered features. The machine on the left is stitching the Tiffin logo on a piece that will be used on the backs of the captain's chairs. The blue computer screen shows the progress of the stitching.


A finished logo:


Almost a dozen women use heavy-duty machines to sew the covers of sofas and chairs.


Finished covers are placed in large bins waiting to be fit over forms constructed of foam and fiberfill on top of a steel tube skeleton. 


Huge foam blocks, at least 2' x 4' x 8',  are sliced into different sizes by the blue machine in the background. Different colored foam has different densities.


Here a passenger seat is close to being completed.



Finished sofas for different makes of motorhomes await packaging and shipment


Part of our sofa is removed for repair...


... and carefully returned for installation.


We really enjoyed our hours at the Villa Furniture plant in Cerritos. It was very interesting to see how the furniture is built.






2 comments:

  1. Interesting and weren't you lucky getting your furniture problems solved! :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. That's what is so much fun with road trips, you never know what's around the next corner. When do we get to see the finished sofa installed in your motorhome?

    ReplyDelete

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