Where to start?

[Overwhelmed]

Hi All,

So, my fiance and I are getting our first house (closing next week!) so we started looking at furniture today (in southern NJ, near Philly). We're looking for a bedroom set, a couch, and an easy chair (possibly 2).

We looked in a La-Z-Boy (found a couple of chairs we liked, possibly a couch as well) and a Raymour and Flanigan (saw a couch we thought might like, but most things there felt very cheap, uncomfortable, and ugly). So the next step of course was to go home and research the things we found to see if they got good reviews. I'm not sure if I've seen less consistent product reviews of anything in my life:

Some seem to say if we don't spend $2-3k per piece, it's all going to fall apart within a couple of years.

Some say we can get things for a few hundred on a chair and get something that is fine. Some say it needs to be much more. Some say, "brand X sucks, go with brand Y" so I go research brand Y, find everyone saying "brand Y sucks, go with brand Z." I then keep going in that pattern until I'm back to brand X again.

So, what I'd really like to know:

For a couch and easy chair, if we look at something in the $700-1000 per piece range, what are the best brands to look at which will be comfortable and last?

For a bedroom set, we've seen things all over the place, from a 5-piece set for barely over $1000 to things for $3500+. What brand(s) should we be looking at, for something more middle-of-the-road, and how much should we see it for?

Thanks in advance.

[drcollie]

Well, here's the thing....this site is different and I don't recommend 'brands' per se. Rather this is a teaching site where you can LEARN what makes decent furniture and then go forth and discover for yourself. The problem with brand recommendations is three fold:

1) There are so many, it would take an entire staff of Consumer Reports examiners to acquire the thousands of pieces needed to evaluate and then take them apart to see how they are made. No one is going to do that because its too costly and who would pay for the information?

2) Brands change their build specs all the time. They are always reacting to marketplace forces driven by what the consumer wants and will change their build specs as time goes by. A company that builds top of the line might be a middle or the road builder four years later. Then go back to # 1, who is going to gather and accumulate that info?

3) All dealers set their own prices. There are wide swings on the price of a given item. You may see a Doowackie Lolling Chair in a GR F fabric for $ 1,200 at one store, and $ 699 at another and its the same chair.

Learn what to look for in a build, then go see for yourself. It's all been posted here on the forum so spend some time and search around a bit. Ask questions when you can't find an answer. Good luck!