For starters, I know there is always going to be some risk in buying a pre-owned piece of furniture without actually seeing it with your own eyes.

I am really interested in a piece of furniture that I found online, but it just isn't possible for me to get to the area where the furniture is, at this time. I have seen several pictures of the piece from multiple angles and everything looks as described.

Does anyone know if there are services available that will go and look at a piece of furniture for you and give you a report of anything that may not be properly described by the owner? I know there are such services when buying a car and larger items online, but I was wondering if there was a similar thing for smaller items, like furniture.

Also, the person selling the item has in their listing that they are only offering local pickup, no shipping options. Can someone recommend a shipper that would offer "white glove service" from another residence to my home?

I haven't reached out to the seller yet, to see if they are flexible on this or not, but I wanted to exercise my options before contacting them.

If it helps, the piece of furniture is in the Boston, MA area and I live in the Shenandoah Valley area of VA.