Restoration Hardware, or Sams club?

[Enidigm]

Seperated at birth? You decide:


Sam's Club 500$ console (http://www.samsclub.com/shopping/navigate.do?catg=535&item=383981&prDeTab=2#A)

http://www.samsclub.com/shopping/navigate.do?dest=2&item=383981

Restoration Hardware's 2500$ clone? (http://www.restorationhardware.com/rh/catalog/product/product.jsp?productId=prod1418013&navCount=12)

http://www.restorationhardware.com/rh/catalog/product/popup/po_larger.jsp?productId=prod1418013&undefined

[Athryn]

Fail. They're similar designs, but not identical. The price probably accounts for actual hardwoods used in the one from RH, as opposed to probably mostly veneered soft woods in the Sam's Club one.

But I do agree that RH is generally a total ripoff.

[Enidigm]

They're not identical? They're like variants coming out of some Soviet-era factory. The Restoration Hardware one has some columns on the front to embellish the look and a different stain, but even the hardware (knobs) are the same. I just looked at the one at Sam's Club, btw.

Which makes me sad... because i was going to buy some Restoration Hardware because i thought it was a mostly American-made company. Silly me. Where are those Amish furniture catalogs again?

[Skipper]

Actually they are different. But score on the cheap one while you can, hell I'd buy that for $500 if I had room for it. I'm not so hot on the wood stain color choice though.

[Athryn]

Restoration Hardware is a way to fleece yuppies by pretending to be a retro "authentic" hardware store. If you want quality furniture, Ethan Allen is probably your best bet.

[Enidigm]

/yuppie ducks and covers

The problem is i like the style of Restoration Hardware's furnature, or at least some of it, in general. Sure i can get some of the awful crude ornamental claptrap locally that attracts 50-something matrons like flies to honey, or go to my local oak outlet express (Furnature Row et al), or buy pressed furniture-shaped paper at Ikea while stepping over all the vomit from customers throwing-up after eating "authentic" Swedish cuisine; but i'd rather not.

If i'm going to buy cheap, i'm going all the way cheap. If i buy something nice, i want it to hold value (which is why spending real money at Ikea is insane). I don't want to get some medium priced stuff and just go halfway....

[Talisker]

Was looking for something similar a while back, this $179 unit from Ikea worked out perfectly:

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/70115187

No drawers or anything, though, if you want things you can pull on. Has a nice 1" gap between the back of the shelves and the rear of the unit for cords and stuff, works great.

[Athryn]

There's also Drexel Heritage, which has some heirloom quality furniture as well, in the style you're looking for.

[Enidigm]

Arg! I just went to Drexel last weekend and couldn't stand any of it! It's all. so. ugly. Thanks for the suggestions though. :)

[bloo]

They're probably made on the same manufacturing line. That happens a lot with furniture. The RH has rounded pilaster, Sam's club doesn't.

RH: "Handcrafted of solid hardwood with fine mahogany veneers"
Sam's: "Extraordinary detail and hand carved hardwood construction"

I'd wager that under the veneer and finish, except for the rounded pilaster, they're identical.

[Enidigm]

Hey Athryn, maybe you can help me out?

I'm looking for furniture for a bachelor pad, but more along the lines of "late 20s-early 30s", so not beer signs and milk cartons, but not like i just inherited my grandparents' furniture either. If it has to be ornamental, more on the side of fresh eclectic rather than 19th c. Victorian. Any ideas?

[Athryn]

Hey Athryn, maybe you can help me out?

I'm looking for furniture for a bachelor pad, but more along the lines of "late 20s-early 30s", so not beer signs and milk cartons, but not like i just inherited my grandparents' furniture either. If it has to be ornamental, more on the side of fresh eclectic rather than 19th c. Victorian. Any ideas?

Hmmm

Wait, when did I suddenly become the QT3 interior decorator? I think I've been watching too much HGTV now that I get it in HD ....

It really depends on your budget and style. If you think Ikea is too cheap, and DH is too dowdy, depending on your budget you might take a look at Ethan Allen (http://www.ethanallen.com), which has a wide range of diverse styles. There's also Thomasville (http://www.thomasville.com/) which has some cool stuff, but sometimes can be plain.

And really, the best thing to do is to start by wandering around furniture stores and looking. The internets don't really do justice to furniture shopping, because it's hard to get a sense of scale and stuff.

[ElGuapo]

I'm partial to this place out here called Haverty's. I got my couch there and I like it. Saw some nice buffet tables and stuff there as well.

[Enidigm]

Ah, Thomasville, now you're on to something! Thanks Athryn. Havarty's is not bad either though, thanks for that one as well ElGuapo.

If Athryn ever run for the office of Decoratrix of Qt3, she have my vote.

[Houngan]

The expensive one has mortise and tenon joinery, which is an entirely different ball of wax. The style is defined already, it's a matter of how you put it together and the quality of components that makes something expensive. Hand-joining furniture is the first and biggest price differentiator.

H.

[Enidigm]

So i ordered a couple things from Restoration Hardware. Not everything! Bleh, my sis pushed me over the edge off the yuppie cliff. Anyway, i'm finally in a city on business large enough to carry the chain, so before work today i stopped by a Restoration Hardware. Ok, i ordered a couple of side tables sight unseen. Now I figure i need to check out how fake it all really is and make myself really angry.

So i walk through the tiny, useless, store standing out like a sore thumb for being a guy, and being in there, and being 10:30am, and wearing boots. Hello ladies! So i see... Cedar drawers, lots of veneers. Oh, you tricky hobbits. DIAF yuppie furniture!

So i'm sitting here in my hotel bed at midnight, thinking about just how darn thick those tables were, and for some reason looked up the brand on wiki (supposedly not owned/related to Pottery Barn, supposedly "most" furniture made in the US which has to be a lie), and imagining cutting that crappy veneer table in half and seeing nothing but pitch-soaked pine... and then a memory strikes me.

They had those little round kitchen tables for sale a month ago for 660$, and i didn't buy it. I just looked it up on the net and they're selling "on sale" now for 1350. $#$@$#.

There's a Thomasville store somewhere here in Houston, i saw it on the way to the Galleria district but couldn't figure out how to get over there and it doesn't show up in the Garmin.

[James Gutierrez]

There's a Thomasville store somewhere here in Houston, i saw it on the way to the Galleria district but couldn't figure out how to get over there and it doesn't show up in the Garmin.
South of 59 in a strip mall off the feeder road somewhere between Weslayan and Buffalo - across the freeway from Greenway Plaza.

[Hanzii]

They're both equally ugly?

I have no idea why anybody under the age of 80 would buy something like that... but I've seen MTV Cribs and Extreme Makeover - apparently you can't just buy good taste.

[Enidigm]

Hey, i haven't bought either of them!

[Ben Sones]

I'd wager that under the veneer and finish, except for the rounded pilaster, they're identical.

Hard to say. They are clearly based on the same design, but it's impossible to assess the important differences (if there are any) from low res web images. You'd need to see how they are actually constructed (the RH one says that it has dovetailed drawers and mortise-and-tenon joinery; do they mean that the whole piece was constructed in that manner?). If I had to guess, I would say that there probably are some differences between the two to account for the price differential, and neither one is likely worth its respective price.

And boo to RH for pitching that piece as "Palladian." It looks nothing like the furniture that you would have found in an actual Palladian home.

[AndrewM]

And boo to RH for pitching that piece as "Palladian." It looks nothing like the furniture that you would have found in an actual Palladian home.

Yeah, there's no way Juicers or Glitter Boys would buy furniture like that.

[Ben Sones]

The Old Ones might, though. You never know with them.

[ElGuapo]

Are Glitter Boys the ones that have to bolt/deploy into the ground before they fire? I played one of those in one campaign and forgot to deploy once. The backblast threw me through a barn.

Damn, Rifts would make a kick ass MMO. Make a little twitchy with tons of stats and a solid destructible environment model. Or a single player game, for that matter. Anything, really.

[Lizard_King]

Crate n' Barrel's hilariously WIRED spin off site, CB2 ( I shit you not), has a lot of the same knock offs as Ikea with better quality (eg the drawers don't just slide on wood). The prices are only marginally higher, but overall once you get past the pain in the ass of assembling them they end up looking pretty good.

Of course, it's sort of in a different style direction. Thing with furniture is that the sky's the limit on how much you want to spend for things that look much the same to the untrained eye (or someone who hasn't recently furnished a house and gone through the hassle). The difference between one piece and another could be thousands of dollars for superficially identical pieces, but the price is "justified" by the parts you can't see, the hinges, the quality of the finish. We tend to splurge on the big ticket items that are going in a relatively important spot (eg the tv console (http://www.ligne-roset.co.kr/Images/Product/Brera2_1988003283.jpg) that I look at all the time and then go more conservative (eg CB2) for the things that aren't such a big deal, like bureaus for the bedrooms.

I will say that Ikea is off my list for anything. It's not just that window shopping there is a pain in the ass, although that would be enough. After all of the pain in the ass of fitting all of their little wooden pegs, you end up with something that is fundamentally fragile and cheap looking. CB2 is a reasonable bottom compromise, but I wouldn't use it for a main piece.

EDIT: and I just realized I repeated a lot of the same furniture advice about the contents versus the appearance. Oh well.

[bloo]

Damn, Rifts would make a kick ass MMO.

I wouldn't want to be part of the team who had to balance it on contact with online-griefer-farmer-dom.

[Enidigm]

Hard to say. They are clearly based on the same design, but it's impossible to assess the important differences (if there are any) from low res web images. You'd need to see how they are actually constructed (the RH one says that it has dovetailed drawers and mortise-and-tenon joinery; do they mean that the whole piece was constructed in that manner?). If I had to guess, I would say that there probably are some differences between the two to account for the price differential, and neither one is likely worth its respective price.

I always meant to get back to this point, but um.. just didn't. Anyway, the Sam's Club "Remington" also has dovetailed drawers and mortise-and-tenon joinery. It even has the exact same bevel on the door glass. That's why i posted this thread; clearly there are some shenanigans about what is being made and where. And the Sam's Club piece is a tank, it's so heavy. In fact, honestly, Sam's has the best cheap furniture i've seen since starting this thread; everything there is extremely solid and heavy. Maybe not classy, but at least there is some real wood there.

And boo to RH for pitching that piece as "Palladian." It looks nothing like the furniture that you would have found in an actual Palladian home.

I think Palladian means the "Sam Walton" style.

Crate n' Barrel's hilariously WIRED spin off site, CB2 ( I shit you not), has a lot of the same knock offs as Ikea with better quality (eg the drawers don't just slide on wood). The prices are only marginally higher, but overall once you get past the pain in the ass of assembling them they end up looking pretty good.

Apparently Ikea knock-offs and/or progenitors are the new hotness. There is a store in Austin called "Copenhagen" that sells Ikea like stuff, and i've seen several smaller more upscale stores selling the Ikea look. I'll check out el CB2 tonight.

I will say that Ikea is off my list for anything.

Actually i think you misstated something, perhaps? Ikea drawers are awesome; Ikea's drawers are the sugar and cream in a 4$ Starbucks coffee drink disguising the cheap coffee. Ikea furnitures' hinges and pulls are AWESOME. They have some of the smoothest actions among any furniture, and many of the cabinets and desk drawers use some kind of fake "suction" spring to slowly draw the drawer back in at the last second. Even more high end furniture like Drexel has wood-on-wood action; even if the cabinet you got at Ikea shudders everytime you lean on it, those drawers pull out smoothly each and every time :).

One appeal to the 20-something with Ikea as well is how every piece of wood Ikea sells is sanded to a "mirror shine". Even high end furniture has rough wood grain texture visible and intentional; honestly i think that's a generational preference, for some reason. 50 something adults grew up with board smooth dining room sets, and now feel like rough, heavy cut wood is somehow more substantial, interesting, and memorable. That's going to change i'm sure.

The other reason Ikea's are absolutely great are their compact flourescent bulb prices. I have a hard time finding bulbs for less than 3.50$ and off the shelf bulbs run like 5.00$ or so anywhere else, but Ikea sells them for about 1.00$ a bulb. So, i have a bunch now :).

Arg i was so close to ordering some Thomasville furniture but they don't deliver to Wayoutthereburg. I think there was a local Thomasville dealer, but he was into high-end customers (being an oil boom and all), and quoted me some pretty high prices.

I walked into the other Restoration Hardware because,.. i sort of want that stupid table (please kill me); damn they make me hate myself so much. Janet Jackson blaring on the speakers like some horrible Gap or Abercrombie whitebread teen trap, pimply kids annoyed that this plain, uncool guy is like, making them, like, work or something. You want me to help you, what? No, what? We don't have those here. Yea lol. Ok, whatever. I deserve to be crushed by falling space debris.

[Hanzii]

Apparently Ikea knock-offs and/or progenitors are the new hotness. There is a store in Austin called "Copenhagen" that sells Ikea like stuff, and i've seen several smaller more upscale stores selling the Ikea look. I'll check out el CB2 tonight.


No, IKEA is knocking off the new hotness. They didn't invent the style (which actually draws back to Scandinavian design from the 60's or even earlier). I don't know enough to put english words on the styles but the clean lines and bright colours is just typical of modern Scandinavian (and Italian) furniture design - IKEA isn't stealing designs, they have their own talented designers, but they're going with a style that's not new.
What they're great at is using the same few standard components, self assembly, volume and a lot of cheap wood.
I agree that IKEA furniture works really well - no wood on wood drawers here - but it's not built to last. The smooth finish is both because it's utilitarian style but also because the cheap wood doesn't really work for anything else.

I like IKEA, but my sofa is allready busted.
And their bulps might be cheap but recent tests by our version of the consumer Report shows that they don't last as long, so you're really not saving anything there - their batteries are however a great bargain (long lasting Duracell bateries are a scam unless you just don't like to change batteries).

I still don't get why anybody under the age of 80 would want heavy dark wood in their home. Here's (http://www.bobedre.dk/cm/1.1000?super=1)some good examples of modern Scandinavian Design - MOMA in NY is also a good place to find the "classics" of that style.

[SlyFrog]

I still don't get why anybody under the age of 80 would want heavy dark wood in their home. Here's (http://www.bobedre.dk/cm/1.1000?super=1)some good examples of modern Scandinavian Design - MOMA in NY is also a good place to find the "classics" of that style.

I'm under the age of 80, and I really do not like light colored wood decor. It looks like it has no substance. I can see why, depending on your personality, that would be a good thing - light, airy, and clean and all that.

[Jon Rowe]

I cannot tell the difference between the red x's

[Ben Sones]

I still don't get why anybody under the age of 80 would want heavy dark wood in their home. Here's (http://www.bobedre.dk/cm/1.1000?super=1)some good examples of modern Scandinavian Design - MOMA in NY is also a good place to find the "classics" of that style.

We've had this discussion before, but popular tastes in the US are just different. The general public here has more of an appreciation for historic architecture and styles these days. Or I should say, a wider range of historic styles, since the stuff that you like is none too recent. Contemporary Scandanavian design takes most of its cues from the sort of modernism that grew out of the Bauhaus and the Vienna Secession. Those styles were something that was really hot in the middle of the last century here (the styles themselves date back to the turn of the century, though) and haven't quite weathered the test of time for long enough for most folks to warm up to them again. That sort of stuff was popular with our grandparent's generation, though. After the Great Depression, there was a general rejection of older styles in favor of the modern in this country. So stuff that you might think is young and trendy (like all of that Bauhaus-y utilitarian chrome tubing and the Herman Miller-style chairs) reminds me of my grandmother's furniture.

Note: I actually like a lot of that stuff, personally--particularly some of the more minimalist designs--but I have wide-ranging tastes. I just think it's funny how cultural perceptions vary, and even funnier that the style that you embrace as young and modern is nearly identical to the sort of stuff that was being produced by Hoffman and Eames and Florence Knoll 50-100 years ago (the black leather chairs and sofas in those photos you linked are almost an exact match for the ones that Knoll designed in the 1920s). And yet, stuff that's only a few years older than that is "old people furniture" to you.

In reality, it's all old people furniture. ;)

[Lizard_King]

Actually i think you misstated something, perhaps? Ikea drawers are awesome; Ikea's drawers are the sugar and cream in a 4$ Starbucks coffee drink disguising the cheap coffee. Ikea furnitures' hinges and pulls are AWESOME. They have some of the smoothest actions among any furniture, and many of the cabinets and desk drawers use some kind of fake "suction" spring to slowly draw the drawer back in at the last second. Even more high end furniture like Drexel has wood-on-wood action; even if the cabinet you got at Ikea shudders everytime you lean on it, those drawers pull out smoothly each and every time :).
All of my ikea bureaus felt like they were on the fast track to disintegration with every pull of the drawer. The CB2 ones I have now have another defect on a much smaller scale (namely, the handles on 2/10 drawers were loose no matter how much a tightened them), and I did accidentally assemble that one upside down (don't ask), but overall I'm much more satisfied with the finished product.

One appeal to the 20-something with Ikea as well is how every piece of wood Ikea sells is sanded to a "mirror shine". Even high end furniture has rough wood grain texture visible and intentional; honestly i think that's a generational preference, for some reason. 50 something adults grew up with board smooth dining room sets, and now feel like rough, heavy cut wood is somehow more substantial, interesting, and memorable. That's going to change i'm sure.
I know what you mean, but I think I still prefer actual polished wood vs Ikea's usual particle board with shiny outer layer (which they have down to a science these days). Or better quality particle board that can fool me better. I think I'm just traumatized from too much furniture shopping in too little time. Don't even get me started on light fixtures.

You want me to help you, what? No, what? We don't have those here. Yea lol. Ok, whatever. I deserve to be crushed by falling space debris.
Yeah, that was another good feature of the better furniture stores. Actual salespeople vs bored teenagers and angry middle aged people who hate their dead end jobs. It occurs to me if you're into the light, shiny wood thing, we got a great, really simple dining room table from these guys (http://www.dwr.com/category.cfm?subc=52), and it quickly became my preferred table in the house for my laptop (they also have somewhat pretentious studios (http://www.dwr.com/studios/index.cfm) for checking their stuff out, if you are somewhere near a major city.

I agree that IKEA furniture works really well - no wood on wood drawers here - but it's not built to last.
Maybe that is a more generally accurate way to put it.