Frame assembly for modular furniture and method of assembling the same

#The present invention relates to the field of modular, ready-to-assemble furniture, and more specifically, a frame assembly for securing together a group of modular furniture parts to form a completed furniture piece.

#Furniture pieces are typically manufactured and assembled at a factory and then shipped as a complete unit to a distributor or customer. The sections of the furniture piece are typically joined together using bolts that extend through predrilled holes in wooden or metal parts of the sections. Upholstery is used to cover the furniture sections, including the bolts and wooden or metal parts of the sections. The completed furniture piece is typically too heavy to be handled by a single individual and too large to be maneuvered through some doorways and stairwells. As a result, customers may limit the furniture that they choose to purchase or may object to additional charges required for third-party delivery of the furniture. In addition, it is difficult to efficiently pack assembled furniture pieces due to their size, shape and the fragility of the upholstered surfaces. Damage to any portion of the furniture piece typically requires the entire furniture piece to be shipped to a factory for repair.

#One approach to this problem has been through the use of ready-to-assemble (RTA) furniture that provides increased options for storage, delivery and assembly of the furniture. For instance, U.S. Pat. No. 5,338,095 to Laughlin et al. discloses a furniture piece that relies on interlocking frame members to secure the modular sections together. The interlocking joints are designed to be easy to assemble. In one instance, a pair of combined wedge and parallelepiped shaped sockets 64 defined at the lower ends of a pair of vertical side members 72 of a backrest member 26 allow the backrest member to be secured to a pair of rail members 50, as shown in FIG. 3. Despite the ease of assembly, the furniture disclosed by Laughlin, and other conventional RTA furniture, can suffer from looseness in the fit between the modular sections that results in instability. For example, a looseness in fit due to repetitive loading can result in wobble or rocking of the backrest relative to the base of the furniture piece. Laughlin attempts to solve this problem with the addition of a pair of thumbscrews 96 that secure the backrest member to respective wing portions 100 of the seat. However, a pair of unsightly flaps in the upholstery are necessary to secure the thumbscrews and the thumbscrews require the presence of the wing portions for attachment, thereby limiting aesthetic design variations.

#Having thus described the invention in general terms, reference will now be made to the accompanying drawings, which are not necessarily drawn to scale, and wherein:

#FIG. 1 is an exploded view of one embodiment of a modular/RTA sofa including a frame support assembly of the present invention;

#FIG. 2 is a sectional view of the assembled modular/RTA sofa of FIG. 1 showing an elongate rail, a receptacle and a tapered member of the frame support;

#The present invention now will be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which preferred embodiments of the invention are shown. This invention may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art. Like numbers refer to like elements throughout.

#In one embodiment, the present invention includes a modular/RTA sofa assembly 10, as shown in FIG. 1. The sofa assembly 10 includes a sofa frame 11, a drop-in spring unit 12, and a plurality of cushions 13. The sofa frame 11 supports the drop-in spring unit 12, which in turn supports the cushions 13 that provide a comfortable seating surface for a user. The sofa frame 11 includes a frame support assembly 14 that reinforces and connects several modular sofa parts preferably comprising a pair of base walls 15, a pair of armrests 16 and a backrest 17. The support frame assembly 14 includes a pair of elongate rails 20, a pair of receptacles 40 and a pair of tapered members 60. The pair of elongate rails 20 are attached to the armrests 16 and the base walls 15 to provide a box-like seating and drop-in unit 12 support area. The pair of tapered members 60 are spaced apart and attached to opposing ends of the backrest 17. The pair of receptacles 40 are each attached near the back end of respective ones of the pair of elongate rails 20 and are configured to receive the pair of tapered members 60 therein so as to provide a relatively rigid completed sofa assembly 10.

#The pair of elongate rails 20 each include an inner channel 22, an outer channel 21 and a pair of end brackets 27, 28, as shown in FIG. 2. The inner channel 22 has a continuous channel cross-section along its length, allowing the inner channel to be slidingly adjusted within the outer channel 21. Similarly, the outer channel 21 has a continuous channel cross-section, but the outer channel cross-section is slightly oversized in comparison to the cross-section of the inner channel 22. The slight oversize of the outer channel 21 allows the inner channel 22 to slide freely within the space defined between the outer channel 21 and the portion of the respective one of the armrests 16 to which the outer channel is attached.