While we had plenty of "stuff" in our apartment, now we are definitely lacking furniture. Our 763 SF apartment had one bedroom, a living room, a dining area and of course a kitchen and bathroom. It was plenty of room for the two of us. We had a hideous couch that we had to move several times and also across the country. My wife got it off of craigslist a few years ago paying $20 and we sold it for $200 just before we moved! We sold it so that we could lighten our load as well as the fact that a white vinyl sectional couch doesn't really match the decor of an 18th century colonial. At the time, we did not realize how much volume that couch made up of our now tiny (in retrospect) apartment.
Our antique home has just over 2,200 SF with a formal living room, family room, formal dining room, three bedrooms, a sitting room, a three season porch.... you get the idea. Plenty of rooms and no furniture. So, the wife and I needed to supplement our vacant volume with more "stuff". First things first. A couch!
We do not have a dining table aside from a small "table for two" that we found for free. Our old apartment complex had a freebie stash that people used when they wanted to dump furniture. Yes yes, we "dumpster dove" for it, but so what? You can't beat free! Getting to the point, we currently eat on our coffee table and (ironically) have no couch. So the couch hunting began.
We went to your usual big name furniture warehouses and were not impressed, while also being overloaded with colors, styles and sizes (not to mentioned the vulture salesperson with the greasy slicked back hair). We traveled up to an hour to see these stores and we scoured craigslist (which was filled with retail advertisements). Then, after our move, my wife looked up a New England based furniture store called Puritan Furniture. They had a branch just a mile from our new home. We stopped in with an hour left before they closed and saw this couch. This is Ashley Furniture's Signature Design Dallas Chocolate Sofa and Love Seat (that's a mouthful). It's the appropriate look. Not ultra modern, but not overly dated. It has a couple of touches from yester-year, but sleek enough for an updated look. Those slightly old fashioned touches were button holed dimples. The buttons aren't there but the dimples make for a nice touch. Oh, and the accent pillows were included. Total price for the love seat and couch was $1,015.62, delivered. We were using our plastic moving boxes as seating... our bums are much happier now.
For the future...
I am in love with my wife. Ok, with that being said, I also love D.R. Dimes. They make reproduction furniture using the same methods as those "back in the day". Absolutley gorgeous! We went to a reproduction showroom and came across this tiger maple table along with eight chairs surrounding it. All hand made right here in the USA. There was a price tag hanging from the corner and I was thinking for a hand made piece, this price seemed quite reasonable, cheap in fact. Almost to good to be true. Oh, wait, I said it....
I go up to the salesman, a nice man who also sells his hand-made furniture in the store, and asked him about the price. The conversation went something like this:
"Excuse me, is this the price for the whole set?"
But the piece of furniture that we have yet to own and need is a bed frame and is of course absolutely gorgeous at D.R. Dimes. A canopy bed made in tiger maple in king size will run you.... well, us... a hair over $3,800, shipped and assembled in your home. Each post is hand cut to be narrower at the top than the bottom. No lathe work here... everything is hand made with hand tools! Furniture like this is passed down through the generations, much like our home. Unfortunately, we need generations of wealth to furnish this home exclusively with D.R. Dime's products. Oh, and the dresser in the background (actually called a highboy) is in excess of $10,000. A decorative desk (not show but called a secretary), $18,000. Remember that you truly are getting what you pay for, high quality products that last for generations. We keep telling ourselves that in time, we'll save up and furnish our home bit by bit, perhaps not with D.R. Dimes, but similar.
We went to your usual big name furniture warehouses and were not impressed, while also being overloaded with colors, styles and sizes (not to mentioned the vulture salesperson with the greasy slicked back hair). We traveled up to an hour to see these stores and we scoured craigslist (which was filled with retail advertisements). Then, after our move, my wife looked up a New England based furniture store called Puritan Furniture. They had a branch just a mile from our new home. We stopped in with an hour left before they closed and saw this couch. This is Ashley Furniture's Signature Design Dallas Chocolate Sofa and Love Seat (that's a mouthful). It's the appropriate look. Not ultra modern, but not overly dated. It has a couple of touches from yester-year, but sleek enough for an updated look. Those slightly old fashioned touches were button holed dimples. The buttons aren't there but the dimples make for a nice touch. Oh, and the accent pillows were included. Total price for the love seat and couch was $1,015.62, delivered. We were using our plastic moving boxes as seating... our bums are much happier now.
For the future...
"Excuse me, is this the price for the whole set?"
"Ahhh, no Sir ...dramatic pause... that's just the table," with an obvious look on his face.Well, well, the price calculated was in the $10,000 range for the table and eight chairs! Each chair was around $800.
