Buying Guide

We would like to make your experience shopping for furniture enjoyable, rewarding, and successful. We realize that purchasing furniture can be quite a daunting task without receiving the necessary help and information. In order to make your experience easier, we offer a furniture buying guide to give you the information you need on all of our products, from Bedrooms to Patio furniture, and everywhere in between. Search through our offerings and learn more about each category of furniture it pays to keep some basic facts in mind before you begin shopping for furniture.

Wood furniture

Wood Furniture Construction
It is common today for many people who own furniture not to know what kind of wood their furniture is made of. Often it is very difficult to determine what kind of wood the furniture is made of if it is not clearly labeled with the furniture. Almost any type of wood could be used to build furniture.

Before 1900, most wood furniture was made with woods like walnut, oak, mahogany, rosewood, fruitwoods, and rare wood veneers and inlays were in commonly used. American Colonial furniture was dependent on the local availability of wood. Their furniture was made with maple, oak, walnut, birch, and cherry, as well as pine. The preferred furniture woods were readily available, so less attractive or durable woods were used only for hidden parts inside a piece. For this reason, pre-1900 furniture is almost always worth restoring. As these preferred woods have become scarcer and more expensive, furniture has been made with more abundant woods; the traditional favorites have become rare.

Today, most furniture is made with ash, pine, gum, fir, and other inexpensive woods that are mostly used for hidden parts. The rare woods like walnut, oak, mahogany, rosewood are used only for very good furniture, and they're often used in combination with the less expensive woods. By you being able to identify the type of wood or woods used for your furniture can help you determine your furniture's real value is. Identifying your furniture's wood can sometimes be the deciding factor in figuring out if your furniture is worth being refinished or if it should be thrown away. Who knows, maybe there is a chance that your beat-up old dresser was built with what today is considered a rare wood and is really a valued piece of great furniture after its refurbishing! To determine things like this you will have to examine your pieces of furniture for their details, identifying marks, and things of that nature to help you identify the type of wood used to create it that piece of furniture.

Wood species
Typical wood species used in furniture, bedroom furniture, Dinning room furniture and home office furniture is Oak, Cherry, Pine and Maple. But the span of species so vast it's impossible to list them all. Wood species very in hardness and wood grains as does the price of furniture constructed with exotic types like Mahogany and tiger maple.

Solid Wood Versus Veneers
If you've been shopping for wood furniture, you may have been told that solid wood is better than veneers...or vice versa. In fact, solid wood and veneers are both good things. Knowing how they differ helps you evaluate what's best for your home and your lifestyle, instead of guessing and hoping for the best. So let's start with basics....

The popularity of solid wood furniture arises from comfort level. What you see is what you get...although stains can give one wood the look of another, especially if the grains are similar. Solid wood construction indicates stability and integrity, the real McCoy. And so it is, especially with such woods as mahogany, cherry, birch, maple and oak. Solid woods also have the advantage of being easily refinished, should the need arise.

However, much of today's quality furniture is a combination of solid woods (providing strength to frames, legs and other supporting components) and veneers, applied to solid wood or wood composition material. This prevents the warping and splitting that sometimes occurs when solid wood expands and contracts from humidity changes.

A veneer is simply a thin layer of wood, chosen for beauty and character, then glued or bonded to another wood surface. It's not a poor substitute for solid wood or a synthetic material printed with a wood grain effect. In fact, bonding a veneer to another surface creates extra strength and allows for surface patterns or designs that would otherwise be impossible.

Levels of Quality
Wood furniture comes in a wide variety of qualities to meet different budgets and needs.

The most affordable wood furniture is RTA or "ready to assemble" furniture. It usually comes flat packed and you put it together yourself. It tends to be a very cost effective way to get furnished.

Most typical furniture you see is a combination of real wood veneers and solid woods. It does not have to be solid to be of excellent quality, in fact solid wood can have problems with cracking and splitting as weather conditions like humidity can cause solid woods to expand and contract. Most very high end and expensive furniture is NOT 100% solid, but a mix of excellent quality veneers to get great wood patterns and finishes.

Wood finishes
Some wood finishes are simple protective covers over stains of color. Others utilize extensive finishing techniques to imitate weathered and worn looks. Many of today's looks also incorporate painted finishes.

Drawer construction
The best quality drawer construction is a technique called "dove tail" type construction where the wood is woven like interlocked fingers to provide excellent strength and durability over time. Other construction techniques are usually just fine, but dove tail is the best.