I've been looking at different plans for TV trays for a few months and haven't gotten around to making them.. material lists, cutting layouts, etc..
We were in the States last week and Wal-Mart had wood TV trays for less than $9 each.. The wife loved them and I liked the idea of buying them for less than I could buy the wood and hardware, so we bought 4 and I'm back on the lathe today, figuring that I dodged a bullet..
Pretty bad when I can buy something cheaper than I can make it, though..
That is what happened to the Computer desk that I spent a year designing. I wanted something to take the computer, printer, and all of the associated items. I had got to the point where I had I arranged exactly as I wanted it.
We went down to the local Lowes and there it was for about half of the cost of wood that I needed to build mine.
On Sun, 07 Feb 2010 16:29:26 -0600, the infamous -MIKE- scrawled the following:
Yabbut, no self-respecting wooddorker would EVER purchase anything made of McWood from Ikea, Sauder, or the others.
Having taken a critical eye into the local Etherized Allen store, I see that they're not any better than Sauder. That $3,500 Queen Anne piece with the sticky drawers, one of which made so much noise, the entire storeful of shoppers turned to look at me (as I exclaimed "$3,500?" in disbelief), was a real treat. I can't imagine how any store manager could leave the thing that way. A bit of beeswax or paraffin would have made it feel worth more than a Sauder QD piece.
-- We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us. -- Marcel Proust
Not to mention you CAN'T get a piece of furniture made in the US anymore unless it's custom made or bought from a specialized shop. Everything sold in the retail furniture stores is made in CHINA.
You can lead them to LINUX but you can't make them THINK ! Mandriva 2010 using KDE 4.3 Website:
Ok, ask any interior decorator if she can get furniture made in the US and she will tell you NO! If they visit the Furniture Conventions in the Southeast all but a few pieces are made in CHINA. I have personal experience in this subject..... Good luck finding anything not made there.
Back in the spring of 2002, we needed to replace a houseful of furniture, following a fire. Most of the stuff destroyed was things I'd made or we had accumulated over the years, including some very high end brand name dining and bedroom furniture. A friend volunteered to help me find good replacement furniture, since I was multitasking on a number of other things at the time. He was a designer, working for one of the large, prestigious design companies in a major CA city. I sent him photos of the pieces and descriptions of what we hoped to replace as closely as possible and he assigned the task of locating them to several of his home design interns.
The email I got from him a couple weeks later essentially set out what had happened in the country over the past few years before our loss. I wish I'd saved it, but it said that his interns had visited a number of upper end furniture stores and even a Furniture Mart looking for comparable, commercially available pieces. They couldn't find any. The domestic product had been reduced to lines and techniques that lent themselves to rapid mass production and the Chinese built furniture, then flooding the market, was very much hand made, hand carved and very, very much superior to the domestic product.
What he told me, after more investigation, was that the furniture manufacturers in the USA could simply not compete when it came to quality AND any handwork. It something could be designed on a CAD system, with cuttings that could be laid out by machine and with no real handwork, then the difference in shipping cost might still give a slight edge to the domestic product. Unfortunately, that product was very plain and was usually in the lower end of the quality and design spectrum. OTOH, the manufacturers could send a high end design over to manufacturers in China and the product being returned in shipping containers was of incredibly good quality, had most if not all detail hand carved and used solid woods for most parts.
With that in hand, I personally visited several furniture stores and came to about the same conclusion. We simply could no longer compete when it came to making good furniture in the USA: the guy sitting at a bench with a handful of carving tools in front of him, turning out rosettes at $.10 an hour was out producing the $8/hour guy in North Carolina in every way.
When it came time to buy our replacement furniture, we visited a large chain and looked at what was available. Yup, there were two types: Made in the USA and Designed in the USA but Made in China. The Chinese stuff we saw was incredible from the standpoint of material, quality and particularly craftsmanship. What we purchased for our living room, dining room and bedroom would probably have cost $100,000 if made in North Carolina. . . if it could have been made there at all. Sure, the joinery was about the same, but every edge was hand carved, molding on the headboard and footboard were hand carved and applied, fluting was hand done, as was piping and other decoration. As a woodworker, I realized that with the balance of my life ahead of me, I could never come close to the craftsmanship in the decoration in what we purchased. The weight alone was incredible: it took 2 big guys to carry the headboard alone up to the bedroom and 4 men to take the dresser. The bed's never been moved since it was set in place.
In some ways, it makes me sick to think of us being overwhelmed with this, but I'd have been a fool to say, "I refuse to buy it." The same thing can be seen in the electronics industry, with one major exception. There, we simply cannot compete on mass produced items. We can design them successfully here in the USA, but to make them economically, we have to send off to China or the Pacific Rim, generally. The exception in electronics is in what's called, "Big Iron." There, infrastructure sized things like routers and switches can be made economically here because of turn-around time, shipping and secrecy.
Sorry for going off on the tangent, but we lost the furniture war and are just holding on by our fingernails to the electronics war.
Take a look at my comments. The furniture you cite is probably very good and has a classic design. However, it's all machine made and I don't see any real hand work like carving or detailing.
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I also am first to recognize that different folk prefer different lines in furniture and that what impresses me doesn't impress others, necessarily. The furniture you cite is very nice. What a little research showed me was that the NC names in furniture were doing the design work for the upper end things, then shipping the work off to China.
Another thing I find sad was that when we lived in NC and the Internet was just getting off to a big start, most of the NC furniture makers and wholesalers boycotted it quite viciously. Many companies told their distributors and retailers that they'd pull their franchise if they were found to be selling over the Internet. They insisted, as many still do today, that their product only be sold in stores. The Highpoint and other Furniture Marts, which meet biannually, are just for the wholesalers and buyers: customers are not welcome. I understand this, but wonder if that business model will be able to continue into the future.
Another specialized shop. Not a chain Located only in Ohio. Could you tell me where I could find Green Acres in California? You made my point.
see they still exist. Really, I hope they stay here!!!
If you look above I qualified my post and you confirmed it. All large chain retail stores,(I'm not talking Walmart either).Thomasville, Ethan Allen, Mathis Brothers, and the like do not carry any furniture made in US. Most all Manufactures of Furniture at Conventions in the Southeast are China born and built. Although it's getting better only because of the internet and Web based outlets.
btw this designer has been in the business for 40 years and seen the industry destroyed by China. She will not buy anything made there and off it on her clients and she finds it harder and harder to get. Only now buys pieces made custom. As far as being out of touch, she's been on the cover of Architectural Digest 3 times. The Premier Magazine of Professional Designers. Home designer don't make me laugh!
There is no reason anything you are talking about couldn't be made here, by machine, and be as good, or better, quality wise. There is no doubt that it would be more expensive but not as much as you seem to be saying.
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