Another 'Modern Furniture' Cautionary Tale...

Most of the furniture we work with here at the shop are antiques or good quality newer furniture,  but from time to time we get a piece in which makes us sad for our client, and mad at the maker.  You see, so often when modern furniture is made, there are shortcuts taken in the building process which the buyer is oblivious to.  We have had coffee tables come in that are completely made out of cardboard!  We often have pieces arrive that are pressboard or 'particle board' covered in veneer, it is like a wolf in sheep's clothing.  

This time we had a bed frame come to us for stripping.  It was a sturdy looking bed frame with a dark finish.    We put it through the stripping chemicals with no problems and all the finish came off just as it should have.  But then, when it was put in our 'neutralizing bath', we discovered something very sad.  The curved 'sleigh' top of the footboard began to bubble up and stretch as you can see in the top photo.  It was only then that we discovered, that the curved section had been made out of particle board and then covered in paper that was printed with a wood grain on it.  The glue holding the paper on failed and the paper could easily be pulled away from the particle board.   

This means that in the building process, the makers decided to have a curved particle board section pressed into the shape they wanted, instead of having actual wood carved into that same shape.  They chose to do an inexpensive short cut.  Unfortunately it is not inexpensive to fix the mess that has now been made because of that short cut.  The hard thing here, is that so often, there is no way to easily determine whether short cuts were made, before buying a piece of modern furniture. 

The best way to ensure that the piece of furniture you are purchasing is going to me made out of wood, not wood dust, paper or cardboard, is to buy older furniture.  The older it in the safer you are, but just as a point of reference,   Particle Board was introduced in the 1950s,  became widespread in the 1960s, and since the 1970s it's use has been refined, but is still commonly found in furniture of all levels of 'quality'.   If you are planning on purchasing modern made furniture, make sure you do your research.  If you went out to purchase a car, or a home, I am sure you would ask all kinds of questions to make sure that you were getting the best item for your money.  Do the same thing when you go out to purchase your bed frame, dinning table, hutch, etc and you will at least have smaller odds of getting a piece of junk.  

Cautionary Tale Against Modern Furniture

This is yet another cautionary tale against purchasing newly made furniture.  Old furniture you can count on, when it looks like wood, it is wood.  But new furniture, a person never knows.  That is what happened to the unfortunate owner of this coffee table.  It appeared to be made out of wood, then painted  black.  It even had a noticeable wood grain. The coffee table was made with just two legs,  one on each side, and they ran the width of the table.  One of them broke off.   It was only then, that the true nature of this piece of 'wooden' furniture was truly revealed.

This 'Wood' was actually ground wood pulp which had been pressed into hard 'boards'.  The outside of the 'boards' was given a wood grain pattern.  The inside of each board is hollow and actually, (I can hardly believe I am going to say this) actually filled with strips of cardboard! CARDBOARD! I am horrified that someone out there is making this product and calling it furniture!  They are essentially selling fancy painted cardboard furniture and calling it wood.  I wonder what they would say if you asked them what type of wood was used?  Would they try and claim whatever variety was used to make the wood pulp?  

The truly sad thing about this is that an average consumer would have no idea, from looking at a piece like this (with out the break) that this was anything but wood.  They could easily believe that they were actually purchasing a sturdy, genuine wooden coffee table.  And that is where I get back to my original point.  Take buying older furniture seriously my dear readers.   It will actually last, and if some child dances on your coffee table a little to often, and a leg breaks off, at least it is made out of something that can easily be repaired,  wood!