Len Lewin

Wow! Thank you so much for responding! I rarely check this email address, and honestly didn’t expect such a speedy response. We really appreciate you taking the time to help us out during our furniture quest!

I believe we are going to go with the Drexel furniture. Overall, we were just very happy with the quality. Below I have included my entry on my weblog. I thought you might like to know about our research and our review of the Furniture Mart.

Laura

Hickory Furniture Mart

What to bring with you?

Good walking shoes. You are going to be on your feet all day long here, with an occasional rest. Be prepared. This place is basically an indoor mall of furniture stores, comprised of four levels, which makes for a lot of walking.

A good mindset. If you don’t have a positive outlook and a good disposition, don’t go. Grumpiness is not going to help you when furniture shopping. Also, unless you are a veteran marathon furniture shopper, don’t go looking for furniture for an entire house. You will be overwhelmed.

A laptop computer with wireless capability. For us, this was great to have. At the coffee shop, we browsed the Internet, compared prices and called other stores closer to us to find out if we were getting good deals or not. If you are really wanting to make sure that you are getting the best deal possible, you will want to do some web browsing.

Supplies. Make sure to pick up a map at the entrance. Bring a pen, some paper and a tape measurer and measurements from home. Color swatches would be great to have if you are trying to match existing upholstery or curtains. I saw one man carrying around a pillow!

What not to bring with you?

Children. Let’s face it. Adults can be miserable furniture shopping, why torture kids too?

Drinks and snacks. There’s a restaurant on premises. If you don’t want to hassle with bringing along food, just order up at the restaurant. (We packed sandwiches, so I don’t know how expensive the food was, or what was on the menu) The coffee shop on the first floor not only offers coffee drinks (and wifi), but spirits as well. If you just need a snack, several of the stores offer freshly baked cookies, Coca-Cola in little glass bottles and water - all complementary. It definitely was refreshing to find a store with snacks inside. Unfortunately, you will have to search for the snack stations because they are hidden, but if you step inside, your nose will be able to spot if you’ve reached jackpot.

What we liked.

The service. Let’s face it. Where can you get good customer service these days? I was thrilled with how the sales personnel approached you, with the exception of a sleazy looking salesman in the Amish furniture store. My favorite sales person was at the Thomasville store. She was informative, very helpful and not pushy at all. When we returned to the store in the afternoon she was visiting with past clients who just came by to chat with her, which in my mind speaks mounds about how she conducts business.

The selection. Since we have little experience shopping for furniture we were able to compare quality and price all in one stop instead of driving all around. Although it was quite a drive for us, we could have easily spent that much time driving from store to store over several weekends.

No crowds. I don’t know if the crowds can get bad here, or not, but we had absolutely no problem with too many people, which was a concern of ours. Maybe it was because we went when the weather was nice, when the weather the following day turned rainy? I don’t really know. I would imagine if it were more crowded we wouldn’t have had such a positive experience.

Overall view…

Is it worth it to drive to Hickory? With so many mainstream furniture stores these days, I don’t think that the prices here were astonishingly low. We went when they were having a Mark Down sale, where most things were 10% off, but for us, we weren’t seeing huge, slashing discounts. However, we were only looking at bedroom furniture and we really didn’t linger long in the stores with clearance and discontinued items. We did see a really neat coffee table for under $300 that we thought was very reasonable. The sales lady said that her store was no longer going to be carrying the item, it was going to another store with a substantial markup. Our leather couch we bought earlier this year (at 45% off) was only $50 cheaper at the Mart, so we feel like we got a good deal. The shipping prices we were quoted, however, are substantially cheaper than what you will find locally and several people I have talked to have had excellent results with their furniture being shipped from the Mart. If you do find something you like, call up the Mart to see how they price it so that you are able to compare.

The first bedroom furniture candidate is made by Thomasville, a well-known North Carolina based company. Their Cinnamon Hill line really caught our eye. With tailored clean lines, a high foot board, and versatility (you can have high posts on the headboard or low posts) we immediately put this one down as a possibility.

The second bedroom set we came across is made by Villageois, a Canadian-based company. Their Bannister Bed from their Cherry Classic Collection is very substantial, solid and well built. As with the first set, we liked the high foot board, and the classic design.

At the same store we found something comparable to the Villageois set, but was considerably more affordable. Chatham Furniture Reproductions, Inc. had several styles we liked. The Kittery Point Collection has the same look as the Villageois, but with a little more casual feel. The Kittery Point Collection has a little more of a distressed look than the finish we were looking at, but the bedrooms sets are the same. Very similar in design as the Villageois, almost as solid, but for a much more reasonable price.

The final bedroom set we liked was at a Drexel Heritage store, also a North Carolina based company. We went in this store to check out a Mission Style bed, but also ended up finding another set we liked, under their Postabello Home Collection. While this style was much different from all of the others we were considering, we were drawn to the bed. Again, versatility was a big plus. The posts on the headboard and foot board can either be high or low and the hardware on additional pieces come in both pewter and wood, allowing the set to take on different looks.

At lunch we sat down, reviewed all of our choices, referred to a great book I had found called Shopping For Furniture, and went back to the showrooms to look over our final choices. We re-evaluated the sturdiness, the construction of the drawers, the colors and of course the price before coming to a final decision.

Leonard,

Feel free to include the review of the Furniture Mart on your site. I think the more information we share with each other, the more informed we are, and in turn, we make better decisions as consumers.

To answer your question, I don’t do a lot of reviews on furniture shopping. This is only my second time furniture shopping - most of what I have have been antiques given to me, or stuff I’ve picked up here and there. I plan on writing another entry talking about how we came to a final decision. I’ll be more than happy to email that to you as well after I am finished.

Oh, and don’t you worry. I wouldn’t have missed North Carolina BBQ for the world. Vinegar based BBQ is one of my absolute most favorite things!!! See my review below of the place where we ate! I can recommend a few good joints in Virginia and North Carolina, but I’m guessing you are located on the West Coast… I’d be happy to send you a recipe, too, if you are interested.

Laura

Shell’s Diner

2609 Springs Road

Hickory, NC 28601

1.828.256.2275

If you go to the Hickory, North Carolina to do some furniture shopping, be sure to go get some good North Carolina barbeque at Shell’s Diner. The food was good and the service was phenomenal. When we placed our beverage orders, I inquired about their slushes, but decided to stick with sweet tea. However, the server brought us a sample of their slush mix to taste, since it is their most popular drink (the people beside us ordered four tall glasses of the slush!). Before she placed our barbeque order she brought us some to sample. She wanted to make sure we would like the tangy, vinegar based barbeque before ordering a plate. For $7.00 we got a plateful of barbeque with slaw, fries and huspuppies. The sweet tea was as thick as syrup and wonderfully refreshing. Our waitress even asked us if we wanted some sweet tea to go! When’s the last time you had that kind of service?

Len, My husband and I spent the day at the Hickory Furniture Mart in Hickory, North Carolina yesterday. Overwhelmed we scanned the entire place, going back and forth between manufacturers, and diving into your book!, before deciding on a Drexel bedroom set under Drexel’s Postobello Home series.

The Byron bed, two Gina nightstands, a Monaco dresser and possibly a Palo chest to provide a complete set for us. We are going to wait until the end of the month to order, though, because they are offering a 10% discount on the series. Prices at the mart are not that great of a deal. We called a Drexel Heritage store in Sterling, Virginia (near Washington, D.C., the closest Drexel Heritage store to us), and the prices we received from the Sterling store were $5 more per piece than what we would be paying at the Furniture Mart, but the shipping prices out of the mart are much more competitive, since Drexel furniture is made just down the road from the mart.

So, our concern is about the drawer construction. Your book recommends dovetailing, but from the research I did on the Internet, there are several different ways to dovetail. Many of the furniture we saw today is constructed with an English dovetail (what I thought was the only way to dovetail before yesterday!), but the drawers in the Postobello series have English dovetails on the back of the drawers, and what appears to be french dovetails on the front. Should this be something we should be concerned about?

From your recommendations, and others on the Internet, Drexel is a quality furniture company, which leads me to think we shouldn’t be worried, but, well, I am. I asked about Drexel’s warranty, and the sales associate told us that on case goods the warranty is just for one year. Upholstery was five years, I believe. I would love to know your opinion on this matter. Thank you so much for writing such an informative and comprehensive book! - Laura

Hi Laura, Wow! You really have done your homework. The days are gone when shopping NC results in significant price reductions. In today’s world most stores from Maine to California have adjusted their prices to be very competitive everyday of the week. So the price difference between NC and your hometown is very close anymore. Plus companies like Drexel-Heritage have taken a very aggressive stance on pricing and publish the prices that they expect their dealers to sell at from coast to coast! But one huge plus remains for shopping NC and that is the sheer quantity of showrooms all close by that allows a shopper to really go from space to space to compare furniture from the different companies.

All of us in the industry considers Drexel-Heritage to be a solid quality company. I absolutely would not be worried about the construction of their drawers. There are 3 basic dovetail approaches (and many variations on the theme) that you will run into in the furniture world: (1) dovetails which show on both sides of a corner joint, (2) lapped dovetails which show on one face but are concealed on the other by a lap or lip, and (3) secret dovetails in which the joint is entirely hidden. The terms, “English”, “French”, etc. are randomly used by different groups, companies, woodworkers, etc. but have no consensus application across the country or world for that matter. It is a fact though that no matter what a dovetail is called it absolutely represents the best way to connect two pieces of wood together at right angles to each other. So what do we have used on the drawers in the Postobello Collection? I expect that the use of another approach for the front of the drawer was dictated by design considerations. Without being totally sure what the term “French Dovetail” represents I would bet that it is referring to the fact that the drawer sides are slotted into the drawer front. This is not an unusual technique. It certainly is nothing to be concerned about.

As to the warranty the days are gone when a “good faith” warranty can be used by any manufacturer. The government insists on a detailed description as to what is warranted and under what circumstances. A printed warranty looks like the legal document it is. Manufacturers have been increasingly taken advantage of by consumers who feels that the manufacturer should be responsible for anything that happens to an item that they have purchased. Doesn’t matter that they could be poor housekeepers, or the hurricane was in God’s hands. If the dresser, etc. is damaged they want it replace for free! So the one year warranty is in place to cover any unexpected manufacture problems that occasionally crop up. After a year if the item is doing what it should then simple good care and common sense will keep it beautiful for years.

Thank you so much for buying my book and I am delighted that you have found it helpful.

Len Lewin; Author, “Shopping For Furniture: A Consumer’s Guide”, 2nd. Edition

Hey Leonard,
I’ve heard that NC is now collecting the sales tax! So the old advantages are being whittled away! Couple this with everystore USA now being a “discounter” and you have NC as perhaps only a spot for BarBQ! Boyles sent me their catalog and my gut feeling was their pricing was about the same as what I can get in Philadelphia. Based on what you are telling me and what I have found anecdotally, I think that rules out shopping NC for me. If its too good to be true…ahh you know the rest!

Is getting the best price on a piece of furniture as easy as taking 1/2 (based on a 2x markup) of the listed pricing and adding something fair in for the sales reps commission? You can buy a car that way, now- a- days with all the invoices available!

Hope all is well.

Ron

My long term contention and I believe it more than ever that the worse way to shop is to shop “discounts” only. If a shopper has no knowledge of the product that they are wanting to buy and has no appreciation of what makes the project good or bad then they are not going to spend their money well. Now if you know what makes Furniture A better than Furniture B then go for it. Keep in mind that
the NC scene is not the deal it use to be.

With every local store discounting everyday of the week the difference between NC and PA has really shrunk. After saying that if you know your stuff and can take a few days to poke around in the Outlets “Outlets” (where they keep the one of kind stuff, the returns, the “damaged”, etc.) then you can make some incredible deals. Of course you “save” the tax also unless you are such a square shooter that you would turn yourself in to the authorizes. Bottom-line: Shopping NC is certainly work the trip and the better you are the better it will be. Plus, if nothing else, the Pork Bar-B-Q in the region is fabulous.

Len

Dear Len,

First, I want to thank you for writing this wonderful book. Furniture shopping can be overwhelming. You really help people become educated consumers.

Here is my question. I was looking for information on a furniture manufacturer by the name of Ashley in your book. The only reference I could find was in relation to the store - Ashley Home Store. We have a store like this by us that I visited today to do some research. The salesperson told me that the store does not hold inventory which helps to keep their prices low. I was hoping to get some insight into the quality of their merchandise and your opinion on their store. Can you help me?

Thanks,
Amy

Hi Amy,

Thank you for the nice comments on my book. I appreciate them. Ashley Furniture is the fastest growing American furniture company. They are going, as often as possible, to showcasing their furniture in the dedicated Ashley Home Store one of which is close to you. When I wrote my book Ashley was nowhere near the power house that they have become in the last several years. An overwhelming part of the Ashley furniture assortment is furniture that is produced overseas in China, Vietnam, Philippines, etc. The prices are very reasonable and in the trade the Ashley merchandise would be considered entry-level, modest, starter, etc. But for the money they really do a good job. I definitely would go in and take a look at their assortment. Merchandise coming out of the Far East is very, very, well done. If it has a downside, in my opinion, it is the finishes which I think are a bit on the “dry” side and “thin” side. All in all though take a good look.

Len Lewin

Len, 43 years ago we bought a beautiful and expensive 10 piece dining room set. I would like to know more about the set. Inside the drawers it has the name ROMWEBER. On the order card which I still have, it shows 560 Invicta, Italian period, and the wood is cherry and Carpathian burl. We have just given this set to our daughter and her husband and I would like her to know a little bit about Romweber. It is in a like new condition. When we bought this set, we also bought a Hibriten chair which is hand carved on each side and the chair looks just as good now as when we purchased it, as it was mostly for show in our living room. Can you tell me anything about the chair? I would appreciate any help you can give me concerning these items.
Thank you so very much!

Hi Dorothy,

I remember it well. Actually Romweber is still in business and if you go to their web pages you will get the complete history of the line: www.romweber.com will give you the complete story. It was an excellent line and while I haven’t run across it recently it has a proud tradition. Now Hibriten is gone. Bernhardt Furniture Company, www.bernhardtfurniture.com, bought Hibriten, I believe, in the 70’s and closed them down. It was very fine furniture though. You have given the kids some very, very, nice items. I hope they appreciate them.

Len

Dear Len,
In advance I greatly appreciate your advice.

We are moving from Atlanta, Georgia to Burlington, Vermont. We are weighing the pros and cons of moving our 3 bedroom home full of furniture or selling almost everything and buying new when we arrive in Vermont.

Eventually we would like to buy all new furniture. We would like to purchase solid wood, quality furniture, but can’t afford the retail prices. We could possibly rent a U-haul and move a few valuable items. With that we could stop in North Carolina and purchase new furniture at a big discount with our savings from moving and the money we make on selling our old furniture.

My questions:
1- Is Vermont a good place to buy antiques? or quality inexpensive furniture?

2- Where are the big discount places to shop in North Carolina?

3- We have a leather Whittemore Sherrill love seat and chair. They are big and heavy. We love the design, but the leather has been damaged. They no longer look good. Is the frame worth saving? Should we have them re-upholstered? Who do we contact to have this done? Manufacturer? in Vermont?

Thank you very much.
Lisa

Hi Lisa,

All of New England is a good place to look for “antiques”; but be careful unless you are an expert when it comes to antiques. Now if you see a wonderful, charming, well priced item that you can’t live without…buy it; but if you are looking at a small table that George Washington used and is priced at $18,000! Be careful.

You will be better off looking for “quality” inexpensive furniture in North Carolina or Boston. Carolina is terrific, not because the prices are dramatically better than anyplace else (they used to be but now the difference in price between Carolina and say Atlanta or DC or Philly is not that great) but you do save the tax and the routine discount in Carolina is at least 40% off the suggested retail price. What is dramatically different is the huge quantity of furniture that you will see in Carolina. Go through High Point and stop at what I think are the 3 best outlets: FurnitureLand South, Boyles, and Rose Brothers Furniture. They are all within a mile of each other on Rt. 85 in High Point. These are the biggest and the best. You can trust them and the displays are super. Don’t miss them.

I like Sherrill product very much but in today’s world it just doesn’t pay to have an item re-upholstered. Prices are just too competitive and particularly with leather. You can do better buying new. Much good luck with your move and it will tough to find a more beautiful place than Vermont.

Len Lewin; Author, “Shopping For Furniture: A Consumer’s Guide”, 2nd. Edition