Today at the furniture store
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We have been in search of a new sofa for our new open concept living room. Today we visited a few stores from inexpensive to luxury brands. At the expensive place, called Restoration Hardware, I was lounging around in the showroom when in walked a large and rather beautiful human who had the air of an athlete. Didn’t think much of it, but as it happened, he was asked his name by the sales manager, and when he gave it, it rang a bell. Mario Williams, former first overall draft pick of the Houston Texans. He’s retired now. I don’t think God makes very many people who strike you that way just from seeing them. And sometimes immediate impressions don’t deceive. Anyway as a fellow elite Houston resident, I was shopping for the same sofa he was. I have not had 100 million dollars of income though, and may have to pass. That brand has an outlet store near by to where we’re moving, and we will play the lottery by going there in search of a return. Maybe Mario will return his. Then I could get an awesome inexpensive sofa that used to be owned by Mario Williams.
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As John said, it’s good stuff but over priced.
I’ve collected Stickley for 2 decades (Mission fwiw). Prior it was Drexel Heritage. When we got cats I transitioned to leather. My kid was at RH a couple of months ago & sent me a pic of a tufted leather “library” style couch he liked. I checked out its specs as I was getting an almost identical Stickley couch for myself. They seemed comparable but the Stickley was $1800 cheaper. Stickley has way better resale. Do ask your RH people where their couch’s are made, where they source what hardwood materials & dig deep with your questions. Look at rub test data for fabrics & educate yourself of leather. Make sure you’ve a quality spring system for seat cushions, and learn about foam, feathers & fibrefill. High density foam was in short supply in North America during Covid. Ask about wait times for delivery. Ask if you can buy “off the floor”. -
Thanks, Blondie. That's good advice for everyone.
How do you keep cats from clawing the leather?
Training, some kind of spray? -
As John said, it’s good stuff but over priced.
I’ve collected Stickley for 2 decades (Mission fwiw). Prior it was Drexel Heritage. When we got cats I transitioned to leather. My kid was at RH a couple of months ago & sent me a pic of a tufted leather “library” style couch he liked. I checked out its specs as I was getting an almost identical Stickley couch for myself. They seemed comparable but the Stickley was $1800 cheaper. Stickley has way better resale. Do ask your RH people where their couch’s are made, where they source what hardwood materials & dig deep with your questions. Look at rub test data for fabrics & educate yourself of leather. Make sure you’ve a quality spring system for seat cushions, and learn about foam, feathers & fibrefill. High density foam was in short supply in North America during Covid. Ask about wait times for delivery. Ask if you can buy “off the floor”.@blondie said in Today at the furniture store:
As John said, it’s good stuff but over priced.
I’ve collected Stickley for 2 decades (Mission fwiw). Prior it was Drexel Heritage. When we got cats I transitioned to leather. My kid was at RH a couple of months ago & sent me a pic of a tufted leather “library” style couch he liked. I checked out its specs as I was getting an almost identical Stickley couch for myself. They seemed comparable but the Stickley was $1800 cheaper. Stickley has way better resale. Do ask your RH people where their couch’s are made, where they source what hardwood materials & dig deep with your questions. Look at rub test data for fabrics & educate yourself of leather. Make sure you’ve a quality spring system for seat cushions, and learn about foam, feathers & fibrefill. High density foam was in short supply in North America during Covid. Ask about wait times for delivery. Ask if you can buy “off the floor”.We did take samples of the stain resistant fabric home, to test them against competitor fabric. Crate and Barrel in this case. The stain resistance was not a close competition - RH was much better. We are concerned with our dogs and their spills, so would like leather, but RH is asking 23k for their leather sectional. The fabric one is about half that. Then C&B’s offering is half of that. I’m not familiar with Stickley.
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Stickley is really great stuff, if you like the Mission style. Really great.
Blondie, one of our two cats is good as gold and only scratches the things we have put out for them. The other devil child scratches my leather armchair to get our attention. We've taken to spraying her when she does it.
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Looking at the stickley website, turns out we did visit a retailer of theirs called Gallery Furniture. Cool store, with a cafeteria and even a bank inside. Saw a nice quote on the wall, “you don’t rise to an occasion, you fall to your training”. Actually chose a dresser and nightstands from there. I don’t know if they are Stickley. I also don’t know if Stickley allows retailers to rebrand Stickley stuff.
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@Rainman For our 3 cats, they just avoided clawing it. Leather just didn’t seem appealing. Their go-to was the carpet on the stairs. We kept their nails trimmed too.
@blondie said in Today at the furniture store:
@Rainman For our 3 cats, they just avoided clawing it. Leather just didn’t seem appealing. Their go-to was the carpet on the stairs. We kept their nails trimmed too.
I have one cat. With claws.
He likes leather. Including the piano bench.
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Two young "adults" + two dogs = IKEA
Dammit.
I was only joking
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Two young "adults" + two dogs = IKEA
Dammit.
@Doctor-Phibes said in Today at the furniture store:
Two young "adults" + two dogs = IKEA
Dammit.
After my kids managed to tear up a couple of decent Broyhill bedroom sets, a wise lady told me to never buy a piece of new furniture for any human less than 21 years old.
Buy decent, middle-class furniture, but buy used.
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Maggie has one spot on my leather chair that's attracted her. This seems to have stopped it. She doesn't even come near it now.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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I wonder if you can buy Young "adult" Training Tape.
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I wonder if you can buy Young "adult" Training Tape.
@Doctor-Phibes said in Today at the furniture store:
I wonder if you can buy Young "adult" Training Tape.
You can, but you have to cut them out of it for them to use the loo.
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@blondie said in Today at the furniture store:
As John said, it’s good stuff but over priced.
I’ve collected Stickley for 2 decades (Mission fwiw). Prior it was Drexel Heritage. When we got cats I transitioned to leather. My kid was at RH a couple of months ago & sent me a pic of a tufted leather “library” style couch he liked. I checked out its specs as I was getting an almost identical Stickley couch for myself. They seemed comparable but the Stickley was $1800 cheaper. Stickley has way better resale. Do ask your RH people where their couch’s are made, where they source what hardwood materials & dig deep with your questions. Look at rub test data for fabrics & educate yourself of leather. Make sure you’ve a quality spring system for seat cushions, and learn about foam, feathers & fibrefill. High density foam was in short supply in North America during Covid. Ask about wait times for delivery. Ask if you can buy “off the floor”.We did take samples of the stain resistant fabric home, to test them against competitor fabric. Crate and Barrel in this case. The stain resistance was not a close competition - RH was much better. We are concerned with our dogs and their spills, so would like leather, but RH is asking 23k for their leather sectional. The fabric one is about half that. Then C&B’s offering is half of that. I’m not familiar with Stickley.
@Horace It’s real good you’re researching these things. Many don’t & many sales people haven’t a clue what they’re selling.
Perhaps TMI (but in a past life I schooled with a master Brit seamstress learning of upholstery covers) ..
Rub resistance and stain resistance are 2 important things. You yourself can apply (& re-apply) stain protectors to upholstery & also manufactured “stain-resistant” fabrics. Think 3M Scotchguard. Rub resistance though has to do with the fibre components & the warp-weft weave of the fabric. It’s rated as a Wyzenbeck score (for fabrics sold in N. America). I’d have to re-look this up, but I believe every fabric gets tested for a set #thousand abrasive rubs then given a score for durability of the fabric (be it polyester, nylon, polypropylene, cotton, linen, mohair, whatever the fabric is made of). I look for this rub data (printed on the back of the fabric swatch) first before I look at stain resistance. Your salesperson should be knowledgeable of this. If you’re a big guy, if you live in Denim, if you’ve bouncy kids, if you’ve big dogs, if you sleep on your sofa lots, you want a durable fabric that won’t overly pill, fray, wear thin, stretch, etc. Do know the vast majority of fabrics are made overseas and are cross distributed to use by different sofa manufacturers in N. America. Some furniture manufacturers (E.g. Stickley) only have fabric manufactured just for themselves overseas & some manufacturers (like E.g. Stickley) do not put anything on their sofas with low rub resistance. I only use Stickley as an example. There are a number of reputable N. Carolina, Eastern & N. Eastern U.S. furniture makers who do the same. There are some stores who drop-ship sofas, see in store, buy online, in set choose your color fabrics but do research of the manufacturing process & read customer reviews of that particular fabric’s abrasion data before you buy.
I believe the family sofa is the most important piece of furniture in our homes, but $23K USD for a leather sectional is obscene. Even if you’re aiming for 12 yrs from it. My tufted leather hob nail 98” Stickley was $9K CAD. It’s leather couch #2 & will give me 12 yrs. Think of a sectional price x 2 approx. You can do as well for less than $23K. I do know of one Canadian manufacturer (using maple hardwood frames, a good hand tied spring system, top quality cushioning, leather, workmanship and detailing) that sells a good leather couch. I purchased 2 (albeit fabric) sofas of the same model for a condo last year (‘Prentice’ by Brentwood Classics) but saw & did research of their leather.
Stickley authorizes some stores to sell their stuff. It may be similar to pianos & Steinway, their “Stickley Gallery”, but they have to agree to Stickley’s standards & terms to be a dealer. Stickley also has “entry level” lines and they too offer some models of sofas at lower than their usual prices when they are introducing new “lines”. I’m too verbose, but I like furniture, I sew, have learned lots of fabric. -
Two young "adults" + two dogs = IKEA
Dammit.
@Doctor-Phibes said in Today at the furniture store:
Two young "adults" + two dogs = IKEA
Dammit.
There’s so much truth in this statement. I know many who avoid good furniture, be it leather or fabric, due to pets & family members. This is where IKEA shines. In my earlier years I made 2 rounds of slip covers for a worn down Canadian made sofa & loveseat set. That set lasted 10 years. In retrospect, given the price of fabric & my labor, I should’ve gone to IKEA.
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@Horace It’s real good you’re researching these things. Many don’t & many sales people haven’t a clue what they’re selling.
Perhaps TMI (but in a past life I schooled with a master Brit seamstress learning of upholstery covers) ..
Rub resistance and stain resistance are 2 important things. You yourself can apply (& re-apply) stain protectors to upholstery & also manufactured “stain-resistant” fabrics. Think 3M Scotchguard. Rub resistance though has to do with the fibre components & the warp-weft weave of the fabric. It’s rated as a Wyzenbeck score (for fabrics sold in N. America). I’d have to re-look this up, but I believe every fabric gets tested for a set #thousand abrasive rubs then given a score for durability of the fabric (be it polyester, nylon, polypropylene, cotton, linen, mohair, whatever the fabric is made of). I look for this rub data (printed on the back of the fabric swatch) first before I look at stain resistance. Your salesperson should be knowledgeable of this. If you’re a big guy, if you live in Denim, if you’ve bouncy kids, if you’ve big dogs, if you sleep on your sofa lots, you want a durable fabric that won’t overly pill, fray, wear thin, stretch, etc. Do know the vast majority of fabrics are made overseas and are cross distributed to use by different sofa manufacturers in N. America. Some furniture manufacturers (E.g. Stickley) only have fabric manufactured just for themselves overseas & some manufacturers (like E.g. Stickley) do not put anything on their sofas with low rub resistance. I only use Stickley as an example. There are a number of reputable N. Carolina, Eastern & N. Eastern U.S. furniture makers who do the same. There are some stores who drop-ship sofas, see in store, buy online, in set choose your color fabrics but do research of the manufacturing process & read customer reviews of that particular fabric’s abrasion data before you buy.
I believe the family sofa is the most important piece of furniture in our homes, but $23K USD for a leather sectional is obscene. Even if you’re aiming for 12 yrs from it. My tufted leather hob nail 98” Stickley was $9K CAD. It’s leather couch #2 & will give me 12 yrs. Think of a sectional price x 2 approx. You can do as well for less than $23K. I do know of one Canadian manufacturer (using maple hardwood frames, a good hand tied spring system, top quality cushioning, leather, workmanship and detailing) that sells a good leather couch. I purchased 2 (albeit fabric) sofas of the same model for a condo last year (‘Prentice’ by Brentwood Classics) but saw & did research of their leather.
Stickley authorizes some stores to sell their stuff. It may be similar to pianos & Steinway, their “Stickley Gallery”, but they have to agree to Stickley’s standards & terms to be a dealer. Stickley also has “entry level” lines and they too offer some models of sofas at lower than their usual prices when they are introducing new “lines”. I’m too verbose, but I like furniture, I sew, have learned lots of fabric.@blondie said in Today at the furniture store:
@Horace It’s real good you’re researching these things. Many don’t & many sales people haven’t a clue what they’re selling.
Perhaps TMI (but in a past life I schooled with a master Brit seamstress learning of upholstery covers) ..
Rub resistance and stain resistance are 2 important things. You yourself can apply (& re-apply) stain protectors to upholstery & also manufactured “stain-resistant” fabrics. Think 3M Scotchguard. Rub resistance though has to do with the fibre components & the warp-weft weave of the fabric. It’s rated as a Wyzenbeck score (for fabrics sold in N. America). I’d have to re-look this up, but I believe every fabric gets tested for a set #thousand abrasive rubs then given a score for durability of the fabric (be it polyester, nylon, polypropylene, cotton, linen, mohair, whatever the fabric is made of). I look for this rub data (printed on the back of the fabric swatch) first before I look at stain resistance. Your salesperson should be knowledgeable of this. If you’re a big guy, if you live in Denim, if you’ve bouncy kids, if you’ve big dogs, if you sleep on your sofa lots, you want a durable fabric that won’t overly pill, fray, wear thin, stretch, etc. Do know the vast majority of fabrics are made overseas and are cross distributed to use by different sofa manufacturers in N. America. Some furniture manufacturers (E.g. Stickley) only have fabric manufactured just for themselves overseas & some manufacturers (like E.g. Stickley) do not put anything on their sofas with low rub resistance. I only use Stickley as an example. There are a number of reputable N. Carolina, Eastern & N. Eastern U.S. furniture makers who do the same. There are some stores who drop-ship sofas, see in store, buy online, in set choose your color fabrics but do research of the manufacturing process & read customer reviews of that particular fabric’s abrasion data before you buy.
I believe the family sofa is the most important piece of furniture in our homes, but $23K USD for a leather sectional is obscene. Even if you’re aiming for 12 yrs from it. My tufted leather hob nail 98” Stickley was $9K CAD. It’s leather couch #2 & will give me 12 yrs. Think of a sectional price x 2 approx. You can do as well for less than $23K. I do know of one Canadian manufacturer (using maple hardwood frames, a good hand tied spring system, top quality cushioning, leather, workmanship and detailing) that sells a good leather couch. I purchased 2 (albeit fabric) sofas of the same model for a condo last year (‘Prentice’ by Brentwood Classics) but saw & did research of their leather.
Stickley authorizes some stores to sell their stuff. It may be similar to pianos & Steinway, their “Stickley Gallery”, but they have to agree to Stickley’s standards & terms to be a dealer. Stickley also has “entry level” lines and they too offer some models of sofas at lower than their usual prices when they are introducing new “lines”. I’m too verbose, but I like furniture, I sew, have learned lots of fabric.Thanks Blondie. We are definitely not getting the RH leather option. But the stain resistance testing we did are leaning us towards their fabric option.
