Another trip to Hancock and Moore's Factories May 2021

[drcollie]

I made a trip to Hancock and Moore last week on Wed/Thur which was a 7 hour drive from my store. I had not planned to go there, however the prior week I was unpacking a larger order for delivery to a client in Richmond and cut the leather on the outboard arm ever-so-slightly. In thirty-five years, this was the third time I have done this out of thousands of pieces. An expensive chair in Markle Graphite, this leather is non-repairable. I took this photo and sent it to the customer prior to delivery and offered him $ 500 off the price of the chair to keep as is (this was not cut all the way through). The customer declined and wanted it fixed, which meant a return to H&M for re-leathering of the arm. Normally, I would pack the chair in a box, ship it there and then it would take 6 weeks to cycle back.

However, I had some sun-faded chairs and footstool in my own home and also there were about ten piece ready to ship at H&M. I decided to make the trip in my truck primarily to get a quick turnaround on the damaged piece. I worked it out with everyone ahead of time and if I could be at the Motion Plant loading dock at 6:30 a.m. they would have the chair fixed and ready by 2:00 p.m. Then I could deliver it on the way back to my store as the client lived in Richmond (hour and half south of my store). They could also repair my sun damaged chairs at the Main Plant loading dock by 7:15 a.m. The two plants are 15 minutes away from one another.



I dropped off the Westwood Tilt Back Chair in Markle Graphite at exactly 6:30 a.m. and they already had the leather pulled based on a swatch that I had sent them days earlier and the arm pre-sewn. They got right on it and worked on it the whole day. This was very complex and not a simple task. Turned out they had to run over to the frame shop and get an entire new left side arm made, Hancock and Moore frames are not designed to come apart, and the entire left side was removed from the chair and replaced. When done at 2:30 p.m., it was perfect, and I delivered this back to the customer in Richmond at 8:20 p.m. that evening. It was a very long day (didn't get home until 11 p.m)

I have two 11-year-old Tannery Chairs with a boot stool from H&M that are in my home library and were sun-faded. I took those to the main plant and Melissa, who is the burnishing guru at H&M said she would fix me up as good as new on them. The original color was Hand-Antiqued Sunset Burnished, and here's what they looked like when I dropped them off. Melissa asked me what "Tone" did I want, Red? Brown? Amber? I said "surprise me, you have artistic freedom" and she got to work, while I went over to Taylor King to pickup three pieces of furniture they had ready for me that my decorator customer was begging me to have my Monday the 26th, so I decided that was critical load and I would get on the trip as well



And here's the road you take from Hancock and Moore Plant 1 to Taylor King, Beautiful Country!



After I made the pickup at Taylor King I returned to Plant 1 at H&M and Melissa was working away on my chairs. Wow.



The next four hours I went all over the plants (more later on that) with Phil Brown, executive VP and have lots to share about that in a later post. Melissa finished up my two chairs and Footstool, and here they are the next morning at my home after I unloaded them. Amazing work! These are like new again.



And here's the thing. Hancock and Moore is the ONLY maker I know that will do this for any of their customers. You get the piece back to them, they will fix it up for you. If there is a charge, its nominal. Every other maker will just laugh at you if asked to do some restoration work, they would say "sorry, but you have to buy a new chair". Not H&M, their work ethic is quite simply "We want the customer to be happy. We build the best furniture in America and are proud of that, and we do this for our customers". It's not a slogan, its the truth. Sure you have to get it back to them, but this part of America is so beautiful, make time to drop it off yourself, and go to Asheville or the Smokey Mountains for a day or two and they will likely have it ready for you in a day or so to take home. My wife was thrilled with how these came out, and so am I. Melissa did an amazing job.