Confused by furniture choices. Please help?

[rjc5555]

Hi I am new to the forum and have found a lot of useful information.

I am looking to buy new furniture for a bedroom and a dinning room but have been overwhelmed by the number of choices. I am aiming to purchase both for around $10,000 total. Looking for dining room table, 6 chairs, and serving buffet. Bedroom looking for king bed, dresser, 2 night stands, and armoire. Is this a reasonable budget for this or should I plan on just getting one this year and one next year. I have looked at some local furniture shops and online.

My wife has found a dinning room set that she likes from Pennsylvania House (Forecast Collection) made by Universal furniture in China. The salesman stated that it is a solid wood collection. When looking at the construction I could see that it looks like it is sandwiched together. The oak top looks solid but is a combination of 3 layers of approximately 1/4 inch each. The salesman stated this is a common technique and gives extra strength similar to an engineered hardwood floor. Is this a common construction technique? I have not been able to find any reviews on this collection - Does anyone have any experience with this manufacturer?

I have also been looking at furniture from Durham, Thomasville, and Henredon. These seem to be a little more pricey but I' m not sure if it is better to buy less if it means getting better quality and being happier overall. Any suggestions on case good manufacturers that would be within my budget and good value?

[drcollie]

Welcome!

There are different ways to approach your furnishings challenge.

On one hand, $ 10K will buy you all those pieces in a lower/ middle grade, Made-in-China grouping which will give reasonable service duty over a period of time in a utility manner. As long as care is taken with the pieces and they are not over-stressed, that will suffice as long as you are not looking for the 'art' of furniture or heirloom quality.

The flip side is to acquire high-quality pieces as you can afford them, either new or pre-owned. This requires more budgeting and patience over time. In my store, for example, $ 10K will buy the dining room table and chairs but not much else (and I have aggressive pricing), but they will be solid wood, made in the USA, and the pieces themselves will be around for several generations.

I love sales droids that tell you that plywood and veneer are made of 'solid wood'.

Yes, plywoods and veneers are common when the maker wants to make furniture as cheaply as possible. Good on you for having the eagle eye and picking up on that. It's an economical thing ONLY - it never adds strength, plywood has no torsional rigidity (to flex), it out-gasses from the formaldehyde glues used to make the layers, and if you ever get it wet, its done for. You cannot beat solid wood construction using wood joinery techniques. That's been the gold standard for over 500 years, and continues to be ever since furniture was 'invented' as we know it today back in the Middle Ages.

Look under the WOOD category for how to build it right. I have a lengthy posting there and once you learn what makes good from not-so-good, investigate the pieces pre-purchase by pulling drawers and spinning around to look at backs, not what some salesman says who probably doesn't know a mortise and tenon joint from a doweled one!

[simplyjeff]

Pennsylvania House was a very good company for a number of years, manufacturing excellent quality solid wood furniture in the upper medium price range. The company, however, went bankrupt several years ago and sold off all their assets. One of those assets was the well-known name of the company which was bought by Universal. The Pennsylvania House furniture being produced today in China has absolutely no relationship to the old Pennsylvania House company.

Jeff
Simplicity Sofas

[aaron]

Yes, plywoods and veneers are common when the maker wants to make furniture as cheaply as possible. Good on you for having the eagle eye and picking up on that. It's an economical thing ONLY - it never adds strength, plywood has no torsional rigidity (to flex), it out-gasses from the formaldehyde glues used to make the layers, and if you ever get it wet, its done for.

If plywood is of reasonable quality it should have greater dimensional stability than solid wood. That's because the grain of the wood for each layer should be perpendicular to the layer above or below it. That means that the wood should more consistently maintain its original dimensions than solid wood. Also, think of a karate demonstration where kids punch through solid boards - they use real wood so they can split the wood with the grain. A 1/2 sheet of solid pine is pretty easy to split; a 1/2 piece of pine plywood is likely to hurt your knuckles.

Note that dimensional stability does not of itself mean "better quality" or "longer-lasting" - MDF (medium density fibreboard) has great dimensional stability but it's prone to deterioration, if not specially treated will soak up water like a sponge - and become puffy and brittle in that area - and has a lot more chemicals in it than plywood. If you've ever seen the cabinet under the sink of a cheap bathroom vanity, you may have seen that effect. As Duane indicates, that's also true of plywood - and if moisture gets between the plys it can cause them to separate. Also, depending upon the adhesive, heat may cause separation. And although I'm not particularly concerned about plywood in general - my house has a plywood subfloor - I am more concerned about chemicals that might be used to make Chinese plywood. Also, with due respect to coffee tables that collapse when used as chairs, I've never been worried about splitting a decent piece of furniture because it was made of solid wood - they're not using "karate school grade" pine boards or balsa wood, save maybe for breakaway furniture on movie sets.

I've seen some fascinating furniture and high end furniture built from fine layers of wood, glued together in the manner of plywood. But the exception doesn't prove the rule. Other than for a handful of woods that are so dimensionally unstable or are so expensive that you would not see them in furniture except as veneers, my experience certainly is that your best, longest-lasting furniture is going to be produced from quality, solid wood. Duane joked with a person a while back who was asking how long a particular table would last that, if she refinished it every fifteen years, it should be good for 300 years. Not everybody cares if their furniture lasts for generations, but if you buy furniture that's made from plywood you can be pretty sure that it won't - and you should also keep in mind that a furniture manufacturer who is using plywood is probably taking other shortcuts that could affect the lifespan of the product. Duane mentions joinery - it's much more difficult to create a good, lasting joint with plywood because when you stress the joint you can cause the plys to come apart.

At a furniture store recently, I saw some manufacturers using dovetail joints on plywood drawers - because people associate dovetails with quality. But you don't dovetail plywood - the net result is a weaker than necessary joint to create an illusion of quality.

I've seen some "solid oak" furniture made with strips of oak, about an inch wide, instead of actual boards or planks. Effectively, the "solid oak" is manufactured from scrap. It sounds like this plywood approach - a 1/4" top surface of oak - may be a similar cost-saving technique - you get three to four times the surface area out of the quality wood you buy, then can use a different wood or scrap material to create the middle and bottom layers. I suspect that, like most aspects of the "imported from China" furniture trade, this is not about getting "extra strength similar to an engineered hardwood floor" but is about saving money on materials to achieve a lower price point.