Don’t Judge a Seat by it's Cover.

First off, I’m not here to judge. We all can not afford big brand designer furnishings and the lure of cheaper imitations will always attract us.  (I’m guilty sometimes )

I am here to educate.

This week in the workroom I was upholstering a client’s dining chairs and thought I’d share my findings. They were bought through an online store & looked great. Within a year, the finish was wearing off and the “leather” was no longer pliable and cracking. After a few more years it was time to reupholster them and came to us. 

The cheap imports (not all imports) will claim solid wood or solid plywood construction & they are not lying but not telling you exactly what lies within.  

Paper thin laminated plywood is peeling away.

Canadian 3/4" plywood only has 6 layers. Can you count how many the cheap import has?

Shown above is the import plywood on the bottom compared to North American plywood stacked on top. 

This is just one example of what lies beneath the pretty exterior. The chair frames them selves are also delaminating.  

Forget about the poor quality of the construction and the price savings for a moment and just think about 4x the amount of glue used to hold the multiple wood layers together and the vast amount of broken furniture laying in our landfills. No one fixes them because the cost of a rebuild and recover supersede the original price of the item. I see it happen regularly through our shop. 

We make efforts to reduce our impact on our environment. Be bring our own bags when we shop, we compost, we are recycling. I’m just saying, be aware of the furnishings we are buying. If the deal is too good to be true, it most likely is. 

Rant over.