I went with my wife to look at furniture. It was a decent store. Not Ethan Allen, but still decent. Now that I know a bit about funiture construction everything looked like junk. Mis-matched panels, bad dovetails joints; (I was glad to see the dovetail joints on draws, but they still were bad), horrible wood grain, junk hardware. It was very disappointing. Especially since some of the pieces were VERY expensive.
Are you ruined too?
geoff
Replies
I've been ruined about furniture shopping too. My philosophy now is buy disposable Ikea and (very) slowly replace them with things I make. If only I had 30 hours a day of shop time...
As your well aware, most of the furniture you see, even in the high end stores will contain a lot of "not solid wood", i.e, lamenent over mdf/plywood, in a lot of cases it's not even veneer, but something like what I would call tack-on wood grain paper. Really not worth bringing home. I would like to say I build all my own furniture-but I don't, the dealers get everything I make. When I do need something like a mattress or couch I'll try to trade-in (wholesale for wholesale) what I make for something in store of the dealer I sell to.
Robert
So far as I can tell solid wood does not exist in production furniture any more. I constantly run into customers who think that their $6,000 dining table is solid wood. When I show them how you can tell it is a veneer over particle board they are very dissapointed. Having said that solid wood is not necessarily better than veneers. There is a lot less to go wrong. But 50 years from now the traditionaly made solid wood table can be refinished, repaired, or touched up. Once the veneer is damaged it is not usually repairable.
Mike
The notion that wood veneer is unrepairable or nort as durable has as much to do with construction as solid wood furniture does. I agree commercial production furniture will most likely utilze thinly veneered material. Custom veneered work can have veneer as near 1/8" thick. I've veneered pieces with thicker veneers and have found dings and dents about as repairable as solid wood pieces.
Solid wood is great but it has it's inherent limitations. Try building a set of kitchen cabinets with a sequential series of boards. Even from the same tree the grain pattern won't match from door to door. or a table with an interesting graphic pattern, pretty hard with solid wood. The long and short of it is veneer is okay as long as there is some craftsmanship to it just like anything else.
Obviously veneers can be repaired or replaced through several techniques. As I always tell my customers "Anything is possible" soon after that the conversation steers towards budget. I don't specialize in restoration, but have fixed a few pieces. Most of the time there is veneer damage involved and every time it costs too much to fix. What I am getting at is that even high end production furniture will not be worth fixing in 20 years. I use veneers regularly, usually in the form of plywood, and agree that there are many advantages to using man made substrates.
Mike
Five years ago my wife and I bought a nice cherry dining room table at Scan|Design, and it's solid. And, I should add, nicely made and finished. I love the feel of the wood. Not even terribly expensive, under $2K with three leaves.
It is the only piece of furniture we own that I don't want to replace with my own work. I expect to pass it along to one of my kids.
What is your easy way to tell if the dining room table is veneer orver MDF?
Big furniture stores bum me out.I know what you mean, horrible quality and high prices.When wifey can't wait for me to build it,I opt for the cheapest alternative until I can.It still kills me though.I could have spent that money on really great wood!!!
Why do you say Stickley?
Geoff: I have been ruined since birth in many areas of life. As far as building stuff I have yet to build anything for myself. That might not be a bad thing 'cause all my work gets rave reviews from the family but all I notice are the poor fitting joints, the less then perfect finish etc. If I build something for me I'll probably never be satisfied with it, the defects will always be staring me in the face. I have ATD ( attention to detail) which will someday help me be a good craftsman but until then...............
Duke
The Bill of Rights
December 15 1791
NRA Endowment Member
LEAA Life Member
CRPA Member
< She 'accused' me of being 'some kind of a craftsman'.>
Wow, what an insult. I bet you turned on your heel and stormed out. Did you flip her off from outside the store window as you left? Sheesh, some people. ;-) aloha, mike
I know of only one Mike Gagne, the "aloha" gave you away. I am a friend of your brother in a far away land, met you at a "family fest" in Chitown. PeteyJust another homeowner...
I remember seeing a Hinkle Haris piece once that actuallu had copious amounts of steel wool embedded in the lacquer. I guess they didn't have a tack cloth. It was a very expensive pencil post bed.
In the same store the salesman told me the best furniture was made from boards no wider than 3 inches.
Frank
Yep, thats what got me into woodworking.
I got into woodworking directly from refinishing a house full of furniture. My wife and I had very little money when we first married and bought all our furniture in thrift stores. In the 60's most of it was oak from the turn of the century. I could buy a chest of drawers for $10.00, repair it, refinish it and have serviceable and not bad looking furniture - not to mention durable. Some of that furniture my children are using in their homes.
I learned how furniture was made by taking it apart and repairing it. Most of the furniture for sale today is not as good as what a reasonably competent amateur woodworker can turn out for less money.
I've got some decent old furnitue from that era as well. Golden oak or ranch oak or something someone called this stuff. Pretty well made, better then any of the new stuff by miles.
The thing that really ruined me was an experience buying a headboard and footboard for our matress set. I knew nothing about furniture construction, but I did know that if you spent $3500 on a set, it shouldn't wobble. Bought a tablesaw and jointer for $800, big pile of oak for $300, read everything I could find on woodworking, and copied a bed I liked the looks of. Sleep in it every night, and it dosen't wobble.
Steve
Course the big problem is when you go to a store and see a piece of furniture that you do like and really need, but you still won't buy it because you can make it better yourself...but don't ever get around to doing it.
I never did get around to making that baby crib, kids are in High School now, guess I can scratch that off the list!
David C.
I too have been ruined. We have a some "High end" production furniture producers in my state. It all looks like junk to me. I get the same feedback from some of my woodworking students who I have helped to be ruined as well.
Stickely? Geeee that was a HARD one.. LOL..
I have some really old 'nice' furniture that is still holding together..
I think from the 20's or 30' I even saw some plywood in there! Well, I think it was.. Not from a Master but still holding together and HEAVY! Some of the dovetails less than perfect but most of the inlays and exterior is really nice fitting.....
I also have a so called 'Spanish' styled Dining set (full set) from the 1960's.. I think it was made in a NC factory (as in USA).. Every joint is almost perfect and was a bit expensive then but average folks (like me) could afford it..
Just one end chair arm has come loose since then.. Re upholstered MANY times.. This set has went through 4 kids, dogs, cats, birds and still sort of looks OK..
EDIT:: We eat at it every day.. Well, usually...
Edited 10/2/2005 9:29 am ET by WillGeorge
Ruined? Yea, me too, big time. As far as thinking the stuff in the Ethan-Allen type production furniture stores ain't nothing but expensive junk, anyway. So I too now would rather get a cheap throw-away at Ikea or even Target, and hopefully replace it with something else down the road.
Fortunately there are aplce in Portland to go to see good stuff. Rejuvenation Lighting and House Parts has alot of stuff on display from small producers. 'took my wife to a showing there of pieces made by Gary Rogowski's studio's students so she could see want real furniture looks like. There's a place called Amish Furniture Gallery that also has decent stuff.
Ruined? Yea, me too, big time. I liked Blonds and then saw this Brunette! I married her!EDIT:: As in Happy Times...
Edited 10/8/2005 1:21 pm ET by WillGeorge
I hear ya! The only stuff I'd want to buy is Thomas Moser and if you haven't seen it, it's very high quality and IMHO great looking as well. His son is really adding some wonderful looks to the classics they've been making over the years.
Kell - aspires to make great furniture.
The only furniture store that has great quality is Thos. Moser.
http://www.thomasmoser.com/home/index.php
Ouch! That Thomas Moser funiture is expensive. I guess I know why the stuff at Jordan's is junk. Good furniture costs some serious money.I guess that's why our parents only owned a few pieces instead of a huge house full of junk.
geoff
I meet Thos Moser at the opening of his store in Washington DC. I told him I was a woodworker and could appreicate good quality. He than spent the next 45 minutes telling me how he finished the wood with warm boiled linseed oil and bees wax and how most of his customers didn't know quality when they saw it.
He than spent the next 45 minutes telling me how he finished the wood with warm boiled linseed oil and bees wax
Isn't it wonderful to meet someone who knows more than you? Looks like you got some free mentoring. :)
and how most of his customers didn't know quality when they saw it.
I'm sad to say that it is not just furniture. People now-a-days seem to be willing to accept poor quality in general. They would rather have cheap than good. I've just about given up on going out to eat because there is only one, (very expensive), restaurant that comes close to making food as good as my wife does. Everything else is awful.
I was talking to the guys here at work. Apparently all the workers at the local cable company sit behind bullet proof glass. They literally provide such poor service that they have to protect their employees behind bullet proof glass from irate customers.geoff
Hello; What do you all think about the quailty of the furniture that is at Restoration Hardware?
http://www.restorationhardware.com/rh/catalog/product/product_suite.jsp?productId=prod170010&navCount=3
I know it is not "studio'' quaility but looks decent to me. What more could one find in ready a made bed at $3500 or would that price cover something made to order by a small shop?
DukeKenneth Duke Masters
The Bill of Rights
December 15 1791
NRA Endowment Member
LEAA Life Member
CRPA Member
My opinion is that it's decently made and ludicrously over priced. I think you can get better quality at the same price from someone locally. Or the same quality at a lower price from Pottery Barn or the likes.
Kell
Duke, that price would get a nicer bed from my shop, better veneer, less shortcuts in construction. Maybe I ought to raise prices.
Steve
I met him Thomas Moser at that opening as well. Spent about 20 minutes talking with me about design inspiration and ways to develop it. Encouraged me to build my own stuff using his plans, although he told me chairs are "dicey for the first timer." When I told him I'd already built two dining room sets and the chairs had been in use for 8 or 10 years with no problems and everyone comments on their comfort, he told me I had a future! Best compliment I think I've ever received. He signed a book of shop drawings I bought from them. What an absolutely decent person to speak with! Whenever their new catalog comes to the house, I leaf through it cover to cover.
Kell
I wouldn't mind hearing any of his (or your) reasoning on chairs being "dicey for the newcomer." I'm a newbie and hoping to work up to chairs within a year or so.
I think he was speaking of a couple of things, when he mentioned that chairs are "dicey for the newcomer."
Making a chair comfortable is the piece that many find difficult. Before I built any, I mocked up one in pine to make sure the dimensions and angles all worked out and felt okay. I was glad I did because my first effort showed me that there wasn't enough space between the arms for a more ample bottom than my own. This also allows you to tweak angles and heights. If you start with some ergonomic info, such as that found in books mentioned by others, you'll save yourself several steps.
The second part is the strength required of all joints. The amount of stress put on chairs is just phenomenal. It's one of the few piece of furniture that you build with the understanding that it is going to be moved and frequently. As a result, the joinery is critical to the chair remaining whole and out of the repair shop. I've always found that windsor chairs are a terrific example of the proper use of joinery, as an example.
Finally, chairs look better, at least to my eye, when they aren't square or rectilinear. More curves mean more difficult joints and curves can be difficult if all you've ever done is 90s and 45s.
That's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
Kell
Is he saying we can purchase his plans????
I don't know about plans but at the opening of the DC store I bought a book of shop drawings. From these, you can easily create plans. On the web site, you can download a .pdf drawing of most of the pieces and do the same with that.
Kell
I hate to be a naysayer, but I think that if Thomas Moser is your vision of well-made furniture, then you need to just need to stop making furniture right now because you haven't learned anything.
Or better yet, you need to go to some of furniture shows and take a look at the top of the line. Go to the furniture society's web page (http://www.furnituresociety.com), find a local member near you, go to his/her shop and talk to him/her about craftsmanship--and then give him/her $40 for their time. <g>
And for those of you griping about the expense--that's exactly why you get what you get in those crappy furniture stores and why it's hard for custom furniture makers to make a living.
I don't mean to be a crank (ok, yes I do), and no offense intended. Hopefully it sharpens your eye a bit more than just recognizing cheap, mass-produced furniture.
Tim
Taproot Member Since: 9:00 am
Well I'll admit that I've been in the wilderness. Thanks for setting me straight.
<Taproot Member Since: 9:00 am>polarsea,Sorry to come on like that when it may appear I've just joined. I've actually been around this board for about 5 years. But I got a new computer, hadn't signed for a while, and could not remember my password/screen name and just decided to start again.Tim
< I've actually been around this board for about 5 years. But I got a new computer, hadn't signed for a while, and could not remember my password/screen name and just decided to start again.>I love that excuse.....it worked for me a few times ;-) aloha, mike
I would submit to you sir that if you think Thomas Moser furniture is not well made, you haven't inspected it, sat on it or know what you're speaking of.
I went to the furniture society site you linked on your post. Very nice stuff. Probably built as well but more artistically done. Some I might wish to own, some I wouldn't have on a bet. But that's what makes all of this stuff interesting, don't you think?
Kell
Kell,Moser himself will tell you he's not on the level of custom furniture makers, like his old cohort Chris Becksvoort and many others. He makes mass-produced furniture out of solid material. Period. His margins do not allow him to take the time fitting a drawer to a tight, almost vacuum seal fit. And he's smart enough to know that most of you don't care. All I'm saying is that it would be quite interesting to helpful to the many of you who are hobby woodworkers to see furniture that's at the top of the line. It'll inspire you to do even greater work. Pictures don't do it--and I'm not talking design (because I prefer Shaker and Craftsman myself), I'm saying joinery, fit, finish. Even if the piece is ugly, look how it's made and incorporate that into your design preference.And to quell your suspicion that I've never seen his work--quite the contrary, I've spent quite a bit of time observing his pieces in his show room in Freeport on numerous occasions. As to whether I know what I'm talking about--well, I plead the 5th on that one. I'm just a knuckle dragging finish carpenter and former FWW editor. I make about 5 to 6 custom pieces of furniture a year, but feed myself by working in carpentry. I thought I'd add my two cents as well.Tim
I think that about somes it up.Just another homeowner...
Tap, strangely enough, I have T.Moser's catalogue , which I got from an expat in Zimbabwe. The stuff is not too bad for factory produced stuff-as you say not exactly a ball of fire, but at least it is basically solid timber construction.
I am trying to reconcile your sentiments on this aspect of woodworking with those on using cheap/inferior tools at the outset ;)(;Philip Marcou
I'm just full of paradox...or full of something at least.
I don't mean to be a crank (ok, yes I do), and no offense intended. Hopefully it sharpens your eye a bit more than just recognizing cheap, mass-produced furniture.
And that is the point I'm trying to make. The more I learn about funiture making, the more I realize that most furniture available today is poorly made. Even pieces that people are proud of tend be be not much better than K-Mart junk.
All of this inspires me to replace all our funiture with good pieces I've made myself. The problem is that I'm having trouble finding time to make anything, and the pieces I'd like to build far outstrip my ability to build them. Not to mention the cost in tools and materials. Sigh.geoff
Geoff: Good points, I feel the same frustration as you seem to. The best pieces of furniture I own are a sleigh bed and matching armoire from "Mt. Arie" in S. Carolina. I used to think these were pretty well made having bought them before I got into woodworking. They aren't junk but I see more and more how I could make something much better if I had the time and space in my shop to make a large piece like an armoire, not to mention my skill level. I believe in ''universals'' in the philosophical sense meaning that otherwise very dissimilar subjects or items have an underlying connection. How one views a piece of furniture or other work of art or craft, what we do with our spare time (if any), how we feel about something we build with our own hands, the pride we take in them, the not so mundane things around our houses that we see and use every day, the connection to history. If you do surgery for a living you should take the same pride in building a chair. Not that the chair is as important as repairing someone's heart but the pride we take in the work of our hands and minds, watching our skills grow as we practice. Hope that is not too far out. DukeKenneth Duke Masters
The Bill of Rights
December 15 1791
NRA Endowment Member
LEAA Life Member
CRPA Member
"All of this inspires me to replace all our funiture with good pieces I've made myself. The problem is that I'm having trouble finding time to make anything, and the pieces I'd like to build far outstrip my ability to build them. Not to mention the cost in tools and materials. Sigh."
As DW likes to say (& wants on her tombstone), "It's good to have goals!"
Hi All,
This has been an interesting thread to read.
My father said once, I was 12, that the care and skill a master craftsperson puts into his/her work is based on a lifetime of that craftsperson applying the values of integrity, thought, vision and practice to become close to perfect.
It seems that the customers part in this is to spend ones life choosing to select experiences and goods which mirror and appreciate that craftsperson's art. The craftsperson's art needs to be appreciated by a knowledgeable and desiring person to be valued. The two work together one to create and one to value what is created.
So Ikea is rubbish. Moser is middle ground maybe??. Here in the UK we have many small craftshops producing classic and modern furniture where the craftsperson and the customer both value and admire the outcomes of the making. Thats seem to be what is required.
Alan
A hobby wooodworker with aspirations
Yup, you could be ruined if you spent much time in an Ikea store. We don't have them in Maine yet, thankfully, but I was in one in Minnesota this year. I really think you could give most any 10 year old a rusty saw, a wobbly hammer, and a stack of HD pine boards and he could do better than the stuff I saw. Also, I was lucky enough to discover a shop down the coast here that made beautiful reproductions of colonial furniture. Much of that work was hand done, and the prices reflected that. Moser, I guess, is between the stapled together paper covered MDF and the hand done custom pieces, both in quality and affordability. I've seen some Amish stuff in Penn. that was very well done and reasonable. Most of the antique places sell furniture that's very well built at prices that really are good when you price a new piece that's similar. I was talking to a lady once that was looking at a solid cherry chest of drawers that she wanted for one of her kids. It was about $200 I think, and she said she had bought a new one about a year ago for more than that. I had fallen apart in a year and she had thrown it out. But, all of this are just chapters in our education. Ikea and the like in how NOT to build, Moser and company for both building and marketing ideas, and the high end, custom stuff to inspire us to that level. I look at antique furniture for design ideas too, and to see what held up, and what didn't. It's hard to top construction methods that have lasted for a couple of hundred years.
< I look at antique furniture for design ideas too, and to see what held up, and what didn't. It's hard to top construction methods that have lasted for a couple of hundred years.>I love using the web for window shopping French and English antiques for the exact purpose of lifting-err borrowing their methods. I have found awesome inspirations in some of them. aloha, mike
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