Is it worth having a piece of furniture refinished verses
the option of buying new furniture ?
Today, the cost to refinish and perform the necessary structural
maintenance to a piece of furniture is equal to the market value
of a medium quality piece of furniture.
Almost all furniture on the market today are made with man made
materials such particle board (compressed sawdust) or MDF that
means "Medium Density Fibers" (recycled newspapers).
There are also some beautiful antique reproductions furniture on
the market today, made with real solid wood but unfortunately
such pieces are coming from overseas where the manufacturing
process is not supervised and the wood used is not properly
dried and start developing cracks and shrinkage after the
furniture is placed in a climate controlled home for a few months.
Other new furniture even if manufactured with solid wood (Or at
least the salesman or an attached piece of printed paper is
saying so) are lacking of craftsmanship such joinery and are
assembled with staples and a few screws.
The average life expectancy of a new piece of furniture today is
very short and in the majority of the cases any repair is almost
impossible or extremely cost effective due to the method of
construction with joints that are not reversible (That means that a
piece can not be taken apart, repaired and reassembled).
From the other end, an old piece of furniture that survived
without problems at least 60 or 80 years can be disassembled,
re glued, and refinished to last another 60 years till it is time to
refinish it again. Plus the warm feel of an old piece of furniture
can not be duplicated by the distressing performed on today's
furniture to give that fake antique warm look.
As a word of caution for those that need to go shopping for new
furniture. Here are some examples of how some word can be
misled to something that is not really what it sounds like.
"Manufactured with fine hardwood solids" ( Fine Solids stand for
sawdust that is equal to particle board)
Manufactured with "Genuine ****** Pine" (where ****** stands for a
geographical location) In this case the wood is not real pine
coming from that specific location but that it is the name of the
factory that produced the laminated particle board panels.
One customer sued the factory for saying that the piece of
furniture was "All Solid" The verdict was in favor of the
manufacturer because "Solid is any thing that have a length, a
width and a thickness. While other substances are liquid or
gases.