Thread: Real Furniture Made From Wood

This depends on who's taste your buying for her's or your's or to impress or enjoy..

Christos I saw $4k wasted on a dinning setting which was made from recycled pallets its neat looks good but the quality of pine used is like going to Macca's for a burger instead of going and buying a pine setting from Knots Pine which I'd compare that to an good old Aussie burger with the works for $2k.

I guess as I said it comes down to use of.

I avoid errors due to taste, timber selection and finish by going direct to Damn Fine Furniture every time Great timbers, excellent finish and great after sales. Works for me.

Regards

What about antique or collectable? That might at least get you some resale value when you are finished with it. I'm continually amazed at the amount of furniture that's left on the side of the road with a 'free' sign on it. The sort of stuff you'd pay good dough for from Hardly Normal or one the other stores.

Originally Posted by burraboy

What about antique or collectable? That might at least get you some resale value when you are finished with it. I'm continually amazed at the amount of furniture that's left on the side of the road with a 'free' sign on it. The sort of stuff you'd pay good dough for from Hardly Normal or one the other stores.

The stuff from Harvey Normal and Fantastic Furniture et al is a classic example of trying to make a silk purse from a sow's ear. It's all just Pine or a cheap hardwood, stained or coloured to look like something else. It doesn't work. It still looks cheap and doesn't last, either as an item or as a style.

If you have to stain the timber you use, IMHO, you bought the wrong timber in the first place.

This is why people who want something that will last and keep it's value usually go for solid timber and good finishes. Even Tassie Oak doesn't need staining if you take the time to select each board for the project on merit.

Regards,

Rob

I tend to go 2nd hand. Avoiding all mdf, chip board and melamine.

Originally Posted by Christos

I expect that this might have been discussed before but I think it is an interesting observation and worth discussing again.
I know most of us are into woodworking as a hobby and on the very rare occasion we have to buy furniture for the house what do you look for?
Getting back at the actual discussion point what do you look for when you go out shopping for furniture?

What goes through your head when you know that this piece is not constructed to last and the better half wants it?

I have'nt bought furniture in a coon's age ....well since this obsessive compulsive tendency to buy tools & fit out a workshop so many years back .Therefore I admit to sometimes building something mainly out of solid timber that my wife or an acquaintance has spotted that they like whilst out and about but won't pay for knowing I may comply to their wishes.
I do try to limit manufactured board unless that is their want!

Cheers

The sad thing today is that real hardwood furnitire can be got today at the likes of hardley normal for less than the cost of buying the same timber. Chances are that the joints are doweled but it is real beech, oak, birch and others. The really sad bit is that in China they are clearing the last remaining temprate forests especially in places like Tibet and the western provences. Same goes with other countries that have tropical timbers. There is supposed to be sustanable stickers on some but not sure I would be 100% sure they were the real deal. Mind you we chop our hardwood into chips to flog overseas too so really sad all round.
Regards
John

John, try not to be too negative, there are still people who appreciate quality and the timber their furniture is made from. Even though the numbers are small, the pleasure and excitment of making pieces for these people is, for me at least, immense.

Regards,

Rob

I did not put forward my thoughts because it might influence peoples replies and I wanted to here what people do.

I think I should do a comparison on a few general household items as this might be better explained.

Let's say you want to purchase a washing machine. Your knowledge of washing machines is very limited but you have access to the internet(Big Library) and do a search on washing machines. You have questions that need to be answered either top loader to front loader. How much water is being used per wash? How much capacity for a single load? What the energy rating is? What brand has a good reputation? How much will it cost? Where can I purchase this? Should I pickup or get it delivered? Other questions a little harder to answer, what type of motor? How long has it been in production? How many of this type are sold in Australia? Where is it made?

These questions are also valid but often slightly different when you want to purchase a television, vacuum cleaner, microwave, car, computer, mobile phone, paint, the list goes on and on.

Surly our knowledge is not unlimited in all these things and we do some research either from the internet or walking into a shop and asking the sales person or reading the little stickers on the items of interest.

When it comes to furniture the features that are quoted on the little sticker are on the style and colour not the joints and construction methods. This furniture that we are paying for is almost like clothing which after a while is no longer stylish or in fashion.

You have srt of answered your own question I feel Christos.

Sale staff are often just that, they do not want to know about who, how or why the joints were made like that. Females in particular this is due to its the male who goes through woodwork at school and at least they will have a little knowledge of such matters.

Now there's a suggestion you can put to Hardley Normal send his sales staff to seminars/workshops to see how real woodwork is done then send them to the OS production plants where they are mass produced. Knowing the likely reaction of Mr Hardley he'll email staff with some decent Utube sites to go watch in their own time.


The argument your after is what joint is better, what finish is best, what timber, price etc etc. Thats an unending question with no real answer.

Ah! One of the worst things to do is assume. But for the sake of the discussion let's assume that sales staff are exactly that knowledgeable in sales thus are not at fault for the decisions we make as consumers.

Going by what I have just said, we as consumers should know what basic requirements we will accept for an item, a sort of compromise.

So where do we draw the line? When so many of my fellow consumers have not done the research on the item they are about to purchase. The line will continue to move towards disposable furniture.

I would love to walk into a furniture showroom and see more people look under the table, chair's, desk and inside draws. Asking questions similar to what I have stated on the previous post.

I used to know uni students(as others have) who had a table cloth draped over a plank with two milk crates for legs and that was their coffee table. The thing was you could sit on that coffee table and know that it could take your weight. Not like some coffee tables being produced these days.

Originally Posted by Christos

Ah! One of the worst things to do is assume. But for the sake of the discussion let's assume that sales staff are exactly that knowledgeable in sales thus are not at fault for the decisions we make as consumers. So who do you ask when in the store, do you suggest each manufacturer has a website linked to the re-seller or broachers with all relevant information as you suggesting should be looked/researched for.

Going by what I have just said, we as consumers should know what basic requirements we will accept for an item, a sort of compromise.

So where do we draw the line? When so many of my fellow consumers have not done the research on the item they are about to purchase. The line will continue to move towards disposable furniture. As is he same with any other item bought these days, then we have those who troll sidewalk dumping to take those things home show some TLC and we have a restoration.

I would love to walk into a furniture showroom and see more people look under the table, chair's, desk and inside draws. Asking questions similar to what I have stated on the previous post. I'd like to see a store in which there was enough room to do that even if I walked in.
I can see it now people rolling round on floors as the do on beds to test them out, lets just hope they don't take it to far


I used to know uni students(as others have) who had a table cloth draped over a plank with two milk crates for legs and that was their coffee table. The thing was you could sit on that coffee table and know that it could take your weight. Not like some coffee tables being produced these days. Ah yes the days of FREE education ad the higher was not about actual learning

Christos I have berated a store who advertised a dinning suit as solid timber yet when we went into buy it it was in fact chipboard, laminated frame so I do see your point.

I feel the same way about people who buy cars and other auto's yet expect the under powered, under sized vehicles to do work of say a 4t truck might do.

I know this topic is on checking the integrity of a furniture piece before buying no matter where.

Why does anyone buy without a thorough going over of the item, rather than a cursory look at it or being "caught up in the moment" of a purchase or whether it's a matter of time constraint.

Sometimes a purchase might be of a romantic notion that the piece will suit a particular place in the house rather than it is constructed to a more befitting use.
The wise old saying you only get what you're prepared to pay for may be a truism long held over however that does not mean you have to pay for rubbish or poorly designed/constructed furniture.

Cheers

There's really only 3 things I look for if I'm buying furniture rather than building it.

Design, price and can I fix it...

Perhaps this is because I'm only ever buying at the cheap end of the market for something to use as a stopgap until I build something. I never expect anything to last so I'm rarely disappointed

About 5 years ago my wife and I went looking for dining chairs as I'd built a table but didn't have the time or equipment to build chairs.

What we wound up with was the cheapest, best looking chairs that I knew I could fix.

Bolts to hold the legs on that I could tighten- Check.
Seat fixed with screws that I could tighten - Check.

Every now and then I go through and retighten them and they've lasted quite well for $80 a chair.

All my other bought furniture has been from places like Ikea where you pretty much know what you're getting yourself into and it's cheap with a decent warranty.

I'd say it's a veritable minefield at the mid end of the market like Harvey Norman and those sort of places. I can't see you'd ever know the finer details on how it was constructed any more than you'd be able to find out the metallurgy of the pistons in your new Honda.

If I was buying at the top end of the market, all I'd really be interested in was the design and reputation of the builder. Unless the joints have some sort of design aspect to them I don't care about what I can't see as long as I trust the person that has built it has made sure it's strong enough to stand up to use. Trust is a hard one to quantify I know but I feel there's so much in furniture that's unseen, you can't really get wrapped up in dissecting every aspect of it. What glue did they use, were the timbers in that table top twisted and forcibly flattened under lamination etc etc. All things that might show up in 10 years but you can't see now.

To be honest, I'm quite happy with the big chains churning out overpriced crap. I'm not interested in building quantities of furniture down to a price and if the midrange is expensive and wobbly, it strengthens the position of those of us doing pieces for the top end of the market. It's here where people are prepared to pay for you to be able to answer questions about the construction and where the timber came from.