For the past couple of months, we have been working  on replicating a timeless tub chair for Commercial Club Albury.

The general manager wanted to refurbish the furniture at the club without changing the style that has been an affectionate reminder of when the club first started.

Commercial Club Albury is a quite special club. It opened in 1902 as a professional and business Gentlemen’s only club. It further became a leader in business development by being the first to have a poker machine in Albury, the first in NSW to have two elevated bowling greens, and the Border city’s very first multi-level car park.

They took their business expertise further and became one of the first customers to have electricity supply to light up the club. You can learn more about the club and view historical photos here.

We were determined to preserve it by replicating their furniture.

The problem was that there were no existing templates to work from. There were a lot of variations of moulds and types of machinery that we could have used but they would not have come as close to the style of the original tub chair as we wanted them to.

So, we manufactured it from scratch. Then we got a bit obsessive with trying to match the fabric and colour pattern. Our determined account manager Kathy, who we call the Queen of Clubs, drove a few times from Sydney to Albury just to match it as close as possible.

And we think she nailed it!

Here is the original tub chair from 20 years ago:

And here is the replicated version from Nufurn

We chose the Cruise Pumpkin Crypton fabric from Wortley Group to make the tub chair be 100% waterproof, highly stain resistant, and comfortable.

What do you think of the revival of the tub chair?