BY Hair on Hide Questions

Duane,
First, this forum is awesome. Thank you for hosting and making such a wealth of information available.

I'm looking at a BY set, but the problem is there are no dealers close to me, and the closet one (2+ hours away) had one leather recliner and one fabric couch in stock. They did not seem to be experts on BY. So I'm trying to figure out as much as I can online. I am interested in a hair on hide (hoh) recliner. On the BY site there is one hoh recliner, #4115, and one hoh high leg lounger #4258. What is the difference between a recliner and high leg lounger? Also, in the store I sat in the Presidential recliner, #4130, and loved it. Do you know if it is possible to get the Presidential recliner in hair on hide?

I also have a question on the leather grade. This set (sofa/loveseat/recliner) will be our main living room set so will be high use. Would you recommend an Analine Plus leather vs Analine because of the heavy use?

I have only sat in the one leather chair and it was heaven. Is all BY furniture so comfortable? I am looking at the Hudson Bay sofa/loveseat, but have not sat in it. I am a little leery of ordering expensive furniture without being able to sit in it first, but if it all feels as good as that chair did, then I'm not really worried. Any thoughts on that?

Thank you so much!

You are welcome, DeeAnn. Glad you enjoy the forum!

To the best of my knowledge, there are no hair-on-hides currently in the B-Y leather lineup. I have up-do-date leathers in my store (even the new ones from October Market now) and none are in the group. I'd probably have to move you over to Hancock and Moore for that kind of leather. If you do a HOH, you don't want it on the seating surfaces - they shed with use. Suitable only on the outback of the chair.

Recliner and Lounger mean the same thing, like soda and pop. Or kleenex and tissue. Many years ago, 'Recliner' was a motion chair activated with an outside lever, and "lounger" was push back on the arms to activate, but the two words merged to mean the same thing about 20 years ago.

The Presidential series is a 'jazzed' up version of the standard model that has additional padding in the arms, a down cushion, and more nail trim on it.

Leather grades are price grades - not quality grades. Its what the maker has to pay the tannery for the leather. Heavy use won' matter what kind of leathers is on it - cleaning and conditioning the leather regularly is what matters. Myself - I only buy pure anilines as my preference is for natural leathers.

BY does tend to sit the same across the whole line for the most part.

Thank you for your reply and information. The BY website shows HOH in their product line, http://www.bradington-young.com/product.asp?pl=HH
so that's what I am looking at....I would think their website would be up-do-date, wouldn't you? I guess I will call them and hopefully be able to speak to someone. Do you still do the leather samples at no cost? - I may pm you for a few samples, if you don't mind.

Again, thank you so much. I am learning so much from this forum. When I was at the furniture store looking at BY, the sales person said she had been in the business 25 years and I knew as much if not more about it than she did! (Not a good sign) -- and I knew nothing before finding this forum. It's a little discouraging -- the furniture stores around here all sell Lazy Boy or Ashley as their main line, and their "top" line is Flex Steel. You have to drive several hours to find a store that's even heard of BY or any other line that is higher quality, and then they don't actually sell that many so they don't know much about it.

That's probably current then, and may require a 'buy-in' from the dealer to get the program and samples. I'll find out on Monday.

The sad part about our industry is few salespeople/dealers - even sales reps - know about the product they sell beyond what they read in the catalog. I've discovered that the ONLY way to find out about quality is to go to the production facilities and take a tour....talk to the workers - observe the production. Look at what's going on around, the morale, the attitudes, the hustle, and if you can get one of the line workers aside for three minutes each, they will tell you all about their job. I look at the materials in use, ask a lot of questions, and get educated about production. You do enough tours and pretty soon you can pick up on the nuances. This is why I'm such a huge Hancock and Moore fan, their production facility operates unlike any I've ever seen. Its more then just a job there, I see PRIDE in workmanship, and camaraderie in the workplace. When that happens, you get a better end-user product