Who Makes Quality Furniture?

[MBAustin]

I'll add my voice to the Amish furniture if you're looking for wood pieces - I bought a beautiful maple table and chairs 7 years ago and love sitting down there every day for meals. Our family room furniture is leather - Stressless chair and Palliser sofa. If you like modern-ish furniture, a Scandinavian-type store will have a number of brands and most are excellent quality. Of course, none of this is cheap.

[Marita40]

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Was he using a hand cranked computer?

No travellover. The Amish in many places pool their resources and hire managers that sell their individually made goods online. I used DutchCrafters, who then farmed out my request to a particular Amish family who specialized in the Craftsman style I requested.

[JoeWras]

Thanks! This is good to know. My parents first ran into this in the 70s when they had "photo finish" furniture unsuspectingly sold to them.

In any case, good advice. I like the question about 4/4, 5/4, etc. I suspect the answer may be "what's that?"

We're not planning any purchases right now. I think I may build my own headboard for a bed. That should be pretty straightforward and a nice little project.

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Originally Posted by MRG That's been my experience. I've been told all kinds of nonsense about furniture. Many items are "all wood" meaning particle board with veneer covering or veneered plywood. I'd ask if they used solid 4/4, 5/4,6/4, or 8/4 sawn lumber for the piece.

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Originally Posted by Amethyst You will get lots of google hits. Few will turn out to be for actual solid wood. That is all I meant. The level of discernment needed will vary. I ordered a small "solid wood" cabinet for the powder room cabinet, even though I could see from the photo that it was melamine, and other customers had posted that it was melamine. It was what I needed at a fairly decent price, whereas actual wood cabinets were running in the thousands of dollars. It looks nice and performs well. I'm surprised people aren't chiming in to say to build your own furniture - that it isn't that hard, etc.

[Blue Collar Guy]

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Originally Posted by Newventurer Amish table and chairs that we love, quartersawn white oak with cherry finish, beautiful, the kids will fight over it when we are gone. Nothing else we looked at even came close to the quality.

Lol, Thats a different thread, unequal inheritances.

[zinger1457]

I'm also sold on Amish built furniture. I picked up an Amish built solid cherry wood bedroom set earlier this year, the quality was exceptional and reasonably priced. Normally you don't deal directly with the Amish builders but deal with a company that represents several Amish manufacturers, I used www.realamish.com. Definitely request wood and stain samples before making any purchase.

[nun]

I've always liked Stickley, particularly the original Arts and Crafts stuff. I just bought one of these

https://www.stickley.com/OurProducts...single&finish=

and one of these

https://www.stickley.com/OurProducts...single&finish=

Also check out this guy if you want something special.

https://www.blakhausfurniture.com/co...-media-cabinet

[Rummy]

Pop used to say, "It's all wood, except for the glue that holds the sawdust together."

I retired from a family owned and operated furniture business. There's still top quality furniture available at reasonable pricing, both case goods and upholstery.

Find a good small store in your area that cares about their reputation.

Some of the best values in solid wood case goods are made and finished by small Amish manufacturers. The same is true for small family owned upholstery manufacturers, I don't know of any Amish upholstery however.

Well made upholstery pieces will run about twice the price of generic brands (think Ashley and La Z Boy for instance). Solid wood Amish case goods will cost about 1.75 the generic brands, and last generations.

Please stay away from Chinese etc particle board, "ready to assemble" construction. Also look for "hand tied" coil spring upholstery with hard wood frames.

[brett]

Shortly after we were married we decided to buy some furniture. Our first new purchase. Everything else had been second hand or hand me down.

We decided to splurge but to only buy one good item vs. buying a load of junk.
So we bought a solid cherry bedroom set from a department store warehouse outlet. It has been a floor model.

Fast forward 35 years. That set still looks like new and we have zero wish/desire to replace it. We still have and use upholstered chairs from Flexsteel 30 years ago.

It pays to buy quality product/timeless style. My granny used to say ...you buy cheap you buy dear.

[pacergal]

Another plug for Amish made furniture. We bought a new bedroom set and TV stand a few years ago. Beautiful wood with insets, amazing craftsmanship. When other furniture needs replacement, will go the same route.

[Big_Hitter]

I forgot about my buddy Steve, he owns this store in htown

Amish-Built Furniture in Houston | The Amish Craftsman

[Marita40]

The only thing about Amish furniture, from my experience ordering my cherry dining room set, is that you can't be in a hurry! I believe it was a 3 month waiting period (which was fine with me at the time). Also, the communication was sometimes very slow. The "middleman" person was great, but I had a number of questions for the Amish builder and, since he didn't have a phone at home, there were long delays as the middleman attempted to get answers to my questions. All in all, everything worked out well in the end!

[zinger1457]

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Originally Posted by Marita40 The only thing about Amish furniture, from my experience ordering my cherry dining room set, is that you can't be in a hurry! I believe it was a 3 month waiting period (which was fine with me at the time).

Yes it does take time when you place an order, they only start building the furniture after the order is received. My bedroom set (5 pieces) took about 10 weeks from order to delivery.

[RetiredGypsy]

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Originally Posted by Bamaman You don't say what kind of furniture you're looking for. Upholstery? Bedroom?

The only things I won't be able to build myself are upholstered things to sit on. A reclining sofa, upholstered dining room chairs, some kind of reclining lounge chair.

[JoeWras]

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Originally Posted by zinger1457 Yes it does take time when you place an order, they only start building the furniture after the order is received. My bedroom set (5 pieces) took about 10 weeks from order to delivery.

That's a kind of cool throwback.

In fairness, our Lane sofa (purchased 17 years ago) took over 5 weeks from order to delivery. They had to manufacture it too, in Mississippi.

[Blue Collar Guy]

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Originally Posted by zinger1457 Yes it does take time when you place an order, they only start building the furniture after the order is received. My bedroom set (5 pieces) took about 10 weeks from order to delivery.

Even from the furniture chains, custom pieces take forever. Mom got a La-Z-Boy couch, with the 2 ends being electric recliners. Took 12 weeks from order to delivery..

[LiveBelowMeans]

I highly recommend Flexsteel. American made, conservative company, no debt, excellent products. You can select fabrics etc. The frame of their sofas and chairs are second to none. Not the cheapest, but you get what you pay for. Recently bought a sofa and recliner from them. JMHO

[pb4uski]

We bought our dining room set from Lyndon Furniture (Lyndon Furniture Vermont Hardwood Furniture, Custom Hardwood Furniture) a few years ago and have been very happy it. Excellent quality. Some friends also bought their dining room set from them a ew years earlier than we did and are happy as well.

[Koolau]

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Originally Posted by splitwdw Ronstar does I think. I haven't bought in a while but all of my furniture is Ethan Allen or my husband made. I think someone on this forum bought Amish made furniture maybe try doing a search for "amish" on this site.

We're still using our Ethan Allen furniture almost 50 years later. Don't have a clue what they produce now. YMMV

[Bamaman]

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Originally Posted by RetiredGypsy The only things I won't be able to build myself are upholstered things to sit on. A reclining sofa, upholstered dining room chairs, some kind of reclining lounge chair.

My wife and I have both been to upholstery school, and can handle most refurbishment.

We do subcontract out the cushions to ladies that all they do is assemble and sew cushions as they put out such good quality work.

[Ronstar]

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Originally Posted by splitwdw Ronstar does I think. I haven't bought in a while but all of my furniture is Ethan Allen or my husband made. I think someone on this forum bought Amish made furniture maybe try doing a search for "amish" on this site.

Thanks, but my furniture takes forever to build - no customer would want to wait for it.

I like Ethan Allen for commercial stuff, and I've seen some very solid Amish made furniture. But the best IMO is anything made by Darrell Peart for the arts and crafts look.