Call Ashley and ask them what percentage of their stock is still made here. IF they answer your question, I'll bet it's less than half. Yes, there are still a few furnituremakers on the East Coast, too, but couches, tables, and chairs are commodity items now. Check around and you'll see what I mean.
Me,
If you live in a area with a Japanese community chances are they would have some kind of dept. store that sells cheap Japanese furniture. But remember that cheap Japanese furniture is the same as cheap American, French, Italian, and Scandinavian furniture....it's cheap! If you ever get the chance to inspect a real tansu made by craftsmen in Japan you'll see the difference. It's like the diff between a nice office desk made by craftsmen and one bought at Kmart and put together at home...some how the doors don't line up, the drawers don't slide quite right, the particleboard shelf will start sagging...
I understand you're a poor student who can't afford nice furniture...I almost in the same boat. I'm not a student, but I'm poor...so I decided to learn how to make my own furniture...furniture that's better than the crap you buy at Target and Kmart, and not all that more expensive if you use cheap wood. I use hand tools a lot, though I do have a few power tools.
You could start off by making a small tansu and when you get better you can make bigger ones to match what you need. You don't have to get fancy either. Screw and glue joinery for starts is okay. When you get better you can move on to mortise & tenon and dovetail joints...
Layne
Hmmm. It's long-distance, and I don't care that much- I just know that they're always looking for more manufacturing personnel, and they already employ a lot of folks in the area. There are a number of places like that around my area- like I said in another thread at some point, if people know they have to look their neighbors in the eye at the end of the day, most folks are pretty decent. Arcadia is a small town.
You can look at their website, if you like.
According to them, they're the second-largest furniture maker in the world, if that's true, it'd be awfully tough to claim that furniture-manufacturing is done for in the states.
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