Bar stool comparison: Hancock and Moore vs. Jessica Charles vs. Taylor King

[Kevin]

How does the construction and quality of the bar stools in the three furniture lines that The Keeping Room carries compare to each other: Hancock and Moore, Jessica Charles, and Taylor King?

I am attempting to narrow down choices to either the Jessica Charles “Charles Bar stool” (90-30-S), the Hancock and Moore “Burberry Bar Stool” (105-30), or the Taylor King “Hadley Bar Stool” (L6911-89).

From a design perspective, my wife likes the simpler lines of the Jessica Charles bar stool and the Hancock and Moore Burberry is a close second. The Taylor King Hadley Bar Stool (L6911-89) is a distant third but is still in the race.

Considering these bar stools will see daily use at breakfast and after dinner, which type of leather would you recommend, protected leather or unprotected? I read your “A primer in selecting leather” thread where you stated that you tend to recommend protected leather for bar stools. However, I also know there are exceptions to every rule.

[drcollie]

Actually. the construction on the barstools is very similar, and they are almost all imported frames. They may even come from the same supplier, that I do not know for sure. I can tell you that all three are premium units, and I have a set of H&M Steele Farm Armless ones in my own home that get used all day long. If anything, they may be over-built and more robust than they really need to be. These are mine in this thread posted below, and are now four years old as you can see from the date of this post. They arrived in December 2011.

http://www.myfurnitureforum.com/show...ht=steele+farm

They get used for 90% of the meals in the kitchen, and I read the whole Sunday paper as well as do projects in them at the counter. Kids did all their homework here when they were in High School, too. I use these more than any other seat in the house, actually. Here's what they look like tonight - just walked around the corner and took these shots.. Compare to the above when they were new. I clean and condition them every 6 months using the Leather Solutions kit, and that's really the key to keeping them up and looking good.



Now, if H&M asked me what i would change on them i would say they could be a little lighter and don't need to be built to withstand an earthquake. They are truly over-built and heavy enough that my wife comments they are hard for her to move to clean the floor around them. I have a pure aniline on mine, a Burnished leather - and that's all I will ever buy for my own use (no finished leathers allowed in my house!). Why? I enjoy the feel, markings and texture of a pure aniline, and am not a worry wart about a stain or a sun fade issue, etc. I get what I want to enjoy, not to fuss over. As you can see, even in a high use kitchen environment they have no stains or dirt or color issues.

All of us in the leather business tend to recommend finished leathers because we don't want to get that angry phone call from that one-in-a-thousand customer whose kids stained the leather with something, and want our head because we suggested a pure aniline (yes, that does happen). But those of us in the trade that know, understand leather, and appreciate fine hides usually will not buy a Finished leather for our own use.