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Thread: Glad we took the "risk" ordering across country! H&M, Keeping Room & shipping review

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    San Diego, CA
    Posts
    24

    Default Glad we took the "risk" ordering across country! H&M, Keeping Room & shipping review

    Long review, but I feel the story has to be told to convey what a marvelous experience working with Duane was. Maybe about 6 years ago I stumbled on this website shortly after learning about Hancock & Moore to check for information on buying used on CL. Duane @ The Keeping Room was very helpful and informative and at some point suggested we look into Bradington Young with our budget when we were ready, but there was no pressure sales pitch and he seemed perfectly happy to weigh in on CL finds as much as any piece he could have sold us. Fast forward a few years to when we were both out of school and had moved to my husband's new duty station in S. California - and it just so happened he would have to go to DC for some advanced training. I asked him to please, please, please make the trip to Duane's store and try out the BY sectional we'd picked out online, though we didn't quite love the aesthetics of because ordering from afar sight unseen was a scary endeavor...and I warned him NOT to look at or sit in the H&M because they were out of our budget! I guess it was hard to avoid, because he tried the BY and then ventured over to the H&M Lacross and fell asleep test-sitting in it. He told me it was SOOO much better than the BY, so we just had to make it work. Duane helped us get a store charge card with introductory zero interest and we split the remainder over cash and another credit card so that we could pay it off over the coming year. About 30 (or more?) leather samples and somewhere near a zillion emails back and forth, Duane helped us select:

    -the sofa-sofa configured Lacross sectional
    -in Tuscany Indigo
    -with silver nail trim
    -driftwood finish feet
    -and firm cushions,

    making sure it'd fit in our room without being overwhelming and especially that it'd fit through the door! With much anticipation due to a production delay with the leather we chose, it was shipped with Duane's recommended shipping company (can't remember the name, but I believe it was "white glove" as they delivered it and set it up in our home - I think maybe West Express?) but it arrived with a leg broken completely off (we saw it in the truck and I suspect something tipped into it as it was standing on end). Of course it was late on the west coast and the Keeping Room was closed, so we did as Duane had previously recommended and refused the damaged shipment -- then watched in sadness as off it went all the way back east to be repaired. I was very worried it was going to be an inferior fix compared to undamaged H&M quality, but Duane reassured me multiple times it would be good as new and when it arrived again, he was proven correct - can't even tell which leg it was and have had no issues with sturdiness. Another 2 years later we finally ordered:

    -the Plantation Ottoman
    -in Weston French Blue
    -with driftwood finish on the feet
    -delete wheels
    -and silver nailhead trim.

    That was a process just as difficult as selecting the color on the sectional as I wanted something coordinating but not identical, though I had guessed it was going to be easier....thank goodness Duane is a patient man!! You can see from the photos the shape of the feet between the 2 pieces is different, but coordinate with the same finish. It was delivered by the same company and we again had a good experience with careful and friendly handlers (and we were sure to tip them for their efforts both times!). I'm surprised at how heavy the sectional is and how light the ottoman is. Both have gorgeous tufting, are very well made, have the character of being individually hand made, and have amazingly lush leather. The Tuscany is a little more thick and waxy and that makes it feel more durable which we love for the wear and tear of seating, while the Weston is more buttery. We let the dogs on the sectional and it does get scratched but the pull up leather is easy to "buff" most scratches out and the color is very good at hiding them (you can see in the photo with the flash but almost invisible without - and the without represents the natural light level in the living room and true color of the leather, so we never really see them and these in particular we haven't tried to buff so this really is our sectional at its worst). We clean the sofa with the kit recommended by Duane about every 6 months. My only irk is that the dark shows the dust that collects on the back behind the cushions and the tufts are magnets for dog hair, but I guess that just shows us how often we should be dusting and the tufts vacuum out with no effort. You can see how well it has held up after a little more than 2 years with some sag to the cushions and puddling of the leather (as creatures of habit, we tend to sit in the same 2 spots and have no children other than the dogs, so we try to rotate the cushions but probably not as frequently as we should) and the leather still smells very 'leathery'. The ottoman we've had for about 6 months and we do use it as a foot rest and a cocktail table, even eating dinner over it frequently. Have spilled and splattered on it and it cleans up easily with warm water and any discoloration shows as slightly darker and fades away gradually and almost completely (have spilled water, misc. drinks, and splattered oily foods and spaghetti sauce on it, and of course dog drool and even a drip of nail polish), though we are super quick to clean it up. The ottoman is the perfect height for using as a foot stool and table without the wheels and we think would have been too high with them (however we originally decided to have them deleted because they only came in a brass finish, which would have clashed with the silver nail finish, but are very glad we did for the height). It's a generous size that matches perfectly in stature with the size of the sectional and I think would still be a perfect fit even with a sofa-loveseat configuration. After it's all said and done, the stress and worry was over nothing as they are comfortable and beautiful, fit our home perfectly (except they'll look better once we get new carpet!), and Duane was wonderful during the entire process and never seemed short or annoyed with all my what-ifs and offered his expert opinion throughout the process which put us at ease and ensured we were 100% satisfied in the end! Also, ordering from Duane was a massive savings over identical pieces locally and on top of that not having to pay sales tax more than covered the cost of shipping....and he's a good human being, someone I'd like to take out for a beer and learn some things from, whereas they were a bit snobby here locally and didn't seem to have time for us common folk. Wouldn't hesitate to buy H&M or any other furniture from Duane to be shipped to us here or at any future duty station in the future....and am in fact trying to decide which recliner to get next!
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  2. #2
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Location
    Alexandria VA
    Posts
    15,887

    Default Re: Glad we took the "risk" ordering across country! H&M, Keeping Room & shipping re

    Thanks for the review! I too, am a fan of the Italian pull-up hides and think they look better with use over time, and once you have the nice aniline hides you'll probably never go back to a finished leather as they will seem too plain and uninteresting. I probably get three to four customers in the store every week that say "I don't want a leather that shows marks or any scratches - I can't stand that", and that's fine, there are plenty of options. However, I can't help thinking they probably don't understand this class of leather and have never owned anything in it.

    I appreciate your business!
    Duane Collie
    Straight answers from thirty-six years in the business.
    My Private Messages are Disabled - Please ask questions here in the forum.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jul 2011
    Location
    San Diego, CA
    Posts
    24

    Default Re: Glad we took the "risk" ordering across country! H&M, Keeping Room & shipping re

    I agree - when the sectional first arrived it looked sooo perfect that I didn't want to even sit. I thought I'd be mad about the little scuffs that the dogs leave but now I look at them as markers of all the memories I have of our dogs - of which we've lost 2 since having the sectional. Under the little table in the photos you can see a clear plastic roll - those are Scat Mats that give off a little static shock if the dogs try to get on the sofa when we're not home because our little dog used to like to dig and dig and dig until wherever she was trying to lay was just right. One time our house sitter forgot to put the mats out and our little dog dug up 5 of the 7 cushions - they looked destroyed with so many scratches that they coalesced into giant blobs and it looked like someone poured bleach on the leather and it ate off the semi-shiny finish and lightened the color by at least half. Got out the cleaning kit and "buffed" with a soft cloth and then got 90% better immediately and now about 9 months later they're just like it never happened, in fact forgot it even happened until now. Have 2 H&M chairs that are finished leather and the cat launched off one of them and it raked up the finish in nail tracks and it looks worse the more time that goes by - and they're so uniform that they really are boring, especially sitting next to the Chancellor sofa and ottoman in an aniline leather. Will never get anything but aniline in the future!

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Location
    Alexandria VA
    Posts
    15,887

    Default Re: Glad we took the "risk" ordering across country! H&M, Keeping Room & shipping re

    I have (11) leather upholstery pieces in my own home, and only one is in a finished leather (my wife's desk chair). I'm all about anilines, myself. My H&M office chair at work is in a finished leather (Angelo Ebony) only because my desk area is a rather abusive environment and I like to replace my office chair about once a decade, so no need to get too fancy on it.
    Duane Collie
    Straight answers from thirty-six years in the business.
    My Private Messages are Disabled - Please ask questions here in the forum.

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