‘GENUINE,’ ‘REAL’ OR JUST FAKE?
Reading furniture labels can tell the truth about what you’re buying
Americans spend billions of dollars a year on furniture, but often they’re not getting what they paid for. A big part of the problem is misleading labels, experts say.
Terms like “genuine leather” and “real wood,” which seem straightforward, can be industry code words for composite materials.
And once items arrive on your doorstep, furniture is often too cumbersome to return.
“The language that companies sometimes use to sell their furniture is so funny and misleading that even I was duped by an online ad into thinking I was getting something made of solid wood,” says Jen Levin, who owns the Maine-based Chilton Furniture Co. with her husband, Jared. They specialize in Shaker-style wood furniture.
“I am extremely particular about wood, and my husband laughed his head off when he learned I’d been fooled into buying furniture made of some kind of composite,” she says. “It’s embarrassing to admit.
Levin and other furniture experts advise consumers to ask questions about what they’re buying. The term “top-grain leather” indicates a higher-quality product than “bonded” or “genuine” leather.
“Solid wood,” or better yet a specific type and quality of solid wood, indicates higher quality than “real wood” or, for example, “cherry coloured wood,” terms often used to misrepresent lower-quality wood furniture.
“The difference is truly in the details,” says Tracy Paccione, senior vice-president of merchandising for Ethan Allen furniture. But, she says, “there are some things you can look for to distinguish highquality furniture from the rest.”
WOOD
“We recommend looking for quality construction details, such as dovetailed drawer corners, mortise-and-tenon joinery on furniture tops and rails, and floating anti-warp cleats on dining table tops and headboards,” Paccione says. “Intricate wood carvings or hand-applied accents can only be achieved with great attention and skill. They’re good indicators that the piece was made with care.”
LEATHER
Ask if the piece is fully upholstered in genuine leather, Paccione says. Some upholstered leather pieces may be vinyl-matched, meaning they are partly upholstered in a vinyl that matches the leather.
Know your leather lingo:
“Bonded leather” is a material
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that has been reprocessed from many leather pieces, which typically have been ground up, reconstituted and glued together into a sheet. It is typically less resilient than hide, and is more likely to crack and peel.
“Genuine leather” is made from
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a hide, but the term doesn’t necessarily mean it is well made. Bonded leather that contains only hide parts can be marketed as genuine leather.
“Top-grain leather” comes from
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the most durable part of the hide. It is lightly sanded or buffed to minimize natural markings.
“Full-grain leather” is unaltered
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by sanding or buffing, so it retains the hide’s natural markings and is often thicker and more durable.
JOINERY
Joinery can be a tipoff to the quality and longevity of a piece of furniture. “Look for a smooth glide when operating the drawer, and be sure it doesn’t tilt down and fall or pit when pulled out entirely,” Paccione says.
Both she and Levin say features to look for include: dovetail joinery on all four drawer corners, dovetail guides and anti-tip rails to prevent the drawer from tilting downward when it’s pulled out, and thicker drawer sides and back.
“Wood-on-wood joinery is top of the line,” Levin says.