JHZR2
Staff member
How hard can it really be to find nice, solid, wood furniture, made in the USA, which doesnt have some degree of chintziness to it?
Since we're getting married before too long, we are looking at real furniture to deck our house out with. Not super fancy or expensive, but at least solid wood with timeless designs that will look and reflect their quality for years to come.
Well, thinking we'd play the trendy couple, we decided to go to look at pottery barn and restoration hardware - both are decent stores with some nice wares, sometimes, when theyre not trying to be too haughty with the crows that leases their showoff cars and has too much debt... Anyway, pottery barn had a real nice TV console and a sectional sofa, both of which would look great in our living room, which, being in an old house, has lots of fine original woodwork for the trim. The sectional was nice, but $3499, and it wasnt even a sleeper or leather?!? cripes... the tv stand was relatively reasonable for the size and construction, but the wood was just a veneer, it wasnt real, and you could see that it was likely pressed wood under the veneer... what gives????
Restoration hardware wasa bit better... we looked at their bedroom furniture after not being all that impressed at PB. Their bedroom stuff is nice in terms of decent dovetailed cedar drawers, made in USA, solid tops, etc., but even their stuff (and it is $$$$$, like most likely $8-10k for a bedroom set, total). Yet, some of their stuff had very thin panels on the sides, the supports on the bed setup that we liked showed cracking in the veneer on the sides, and though it was put together well, was sturdy, etc., it doesnt have the overall HQ look and feel of my parents' Queen Anne (cherry) furniture that they have throughout the house, or the real antique furniture that my grandparents have...
Im kind of bummed... any furniture store doesnt have things that are better in the slightest, and are filled with used care salesmenish people...
What have you done???
Thanks,
JMH in the pressed wood doldrums
Since we're getting married before too long, we are looking at real furniture to deck our house out with. Not super fancy or expensive, but at least solid wood with timeless designs that will look and reflect their quality for years to come.
Well, thinking we'd play the trendy couple, we decided to go to look at pottery barn and restoration hardware - both are decent stores with some nice wares, sometimes, when theyre not trying to be too haughty with the crows that leases their showoff cars and has too much debt... Anyway, pottery barn had a real nice TV console and a sectional sofa, both of which would look great in our living room, which, being in an old house, has lots of fine original woodwork for the trim. The sectional was nice, but $3499, and it wasnt even a sleeper or leather?!? cripes... the tv stand was relatively reasonable for the size and construction, but the wood was just a veneer, it wasnt real, and you could see that it was likely pressed wood under the veneer... what gives????
Restoration hardware wasa bit better... we looked at their bedroom furniture after not being all that impressed at PB. Their bedroom stuff is nice in terms of decent dovetailed cedar drawers, made in USA, solid tops, etc., but even their stuff (and it is $$$$$, like most likely $8-10k for a bedroom set, total). Yet, some of their stuff had very thin panels on the sides, the supports on the bed setup that we liked showed cracking in the veneer on the sides, and though it was put together well, was sturdy, etc., it doesnt have the overall HQ look and feel of my parents' Queen Anne (cherry) furniture that they have throughout the house, or the real antique furniture that my grandparents have...
Im kind of bummed... any furniture store doesnt have things that are better in the slightest, and are filled with used care salesmenish people...
What have you done???
Thanks,
JMH in the pressed wood doldrums
