I have decided against the counter height. I am going to go with a "Boat shaped" table from Saloom. 42 x 66 or 86 with 1 20" self storing leaf. Just going to do 4 side chairs for now.
I have boat/bow shape table from Canadel and we really like it, and Saloom was another brand we really liked the tables from. It's a regular leg table not pedestal so the leaf isn't self storing but lately we have been using it with the leaf in. The size we picked was 42x64x84(w leaf) and six chairs with wood seats.
Glad you found a table!
I had originally picked a canadel, but after further research, settled on the saloom. From what I read both are really good quality.
I went with this pedestal, in boat shape.
This chair, with no arm.
I really would have liked to get 6 chairs, but I need to recoup from my move, and large H&M purchase first..lol My space is not overly big, so 99.9% of the time the table will sit there with no leaf, and the 4 chairs are sufficient. When we have company, I will add the leaf. Even on normal get to-gethers, with my 3 bar stools, I have enough seating since it is usually 7-8 of us max.
Next on the agenda is 3 H&M stools, and 2 more chairs
Very nice, the chairs seem to flow right with the curving of the pedestal. What edge did you elect to go with? I really liked the edge that cuts in (swept?).
BTW I'm curious what differences did you notice between Canadel and Saloom? I remember that Canadel uses birch where I think Saloom uses maple/cherry but couldn't find much else to go on.
I did the swept edge. I am really a big fan of that edge as well.
From my research people felt Saloom was a notch above Canadel in both material, and build quality. More then one person said when they are side by side, there is a CLEAR difference.
I had found a few postings from people who sold both, and it seemed pretty consistent across the board. I also called a few dealers of both, and all had the same opinions.
I had also read quite a few posts about people complaining about the Canadel chairs being top heavy, and tipping with a coat over them, a kid keeling on them, etc. I am not sure if that issue has been addressed, but I did run across it.
I had actually ordered a Canadel counter table Sunday, $3400 with 4 chairs. After some digging Sunday night, and finding the above, I called first thing Monday and told them to cancel the order. I ended up finding the Saloom from an out of state dealer for $2700 delivered/set-up, with 4 chairs. It was $3200 for 6 chairs.
Yes we got the swept edge on our Canadel boat shape and really like it. The dealer we went to actually after finding out that was the edge we wanted gave us very good suggestions for leg/chair options to go with that edge. Now the dealer I bought from sold both brands and he seemed to prefer Canadel but we had already made our mind up due to chair comfort and the deal we were getting from him which was much better than anything we found in town.
Canadel chairs tipping over easily - I also saw those posts so I made sure to check when browsing the showrooms and didn't notice anything too bad with it. The chairs we chose, I can start tipping them where the front legs are a few inches off the ground and soon as I let go the front legs go right back to the ground and I can feel them pulling back down when putting pressure on it so I have no issues with it.
As to quality - I'll keep that in mind next time we go table shopping. Overall I'm very happy with our Canadel set but it's nice to know Saloom is well regarded. When shopping for a table we didn't notice a ton of difference in them but I am a novice when it comes to spotting differences so maybe I missed things that an expert could point out. I will say we had an issue with the table top after delivery where where we noticed with the leaf the table closed together the seams were very tight and good, but when we took the leaf out and tried to close it there was a noticeable gap on one side where if one side was tight, the other side was not and you could actually look through the gap and see the floor. I told the dealer and they got me in touch with their service person who because I wasn't local to the dealership asked me if I could check a few things and send some photos so they knew what to bring out when coming to fix the issue. I took photos, getting a good one of the gap showing the floor and sent an email with all my findings and nothing for two weeks. I decided two weeks was enough time to let them get back to me so I called the dealer and found out the dealer had already contacted Canadel, who was getting a new table top ready for delivery in a few more weeks. A few weeks later they call to setup delivery, come out and install the new tabletop and take the old one with them. Now the new tabletop without the leaf closed up just right, and with the Leaf installed it wasn't as good as without the leaf but it's nowhere near as out of sorts as the first one was so I let the other half decide and she felt it was good so I signed off on it.
I want to say the dealer met and exceeded all my expectations for price, delivery and service.
Last edited by Briant73; 04-14-2011 at 10:53 PM. Reason: Changed some wording
I sent you a PM with more details but the dealer was Fish Furniture in Cleveland, Ohio. I also bought my Durham bedroom furniture from them with no issues. Thankfully I was close enough to be in their "local" delivery area even though they aren't what I would consider local being 80 miles away. Even being 80 miles away it was worth it to visit their showroom because they had a good amount of furniture to browse from.
Last edited by Briant73; 04-14-2011 at 11:30 PM.
That's a nice looking set... Killer price for Saloom.