I bought this
office set from Mealey’s furniture. It cost me $2400.00 and the tag in the store calls it “cherry”.
That’s a hell of a lot of money to spend, but my wife and I figured that since we were building an office we might as well go for broke. Plus we figured that it was a beautiful set, something we can pass down to our kids being that most of the other stuff we have is a short step above junk.
Now I built the office with the specs of this particular set in mind and boy does it look fabulous! No kidding!
It’s a shame that I noticed slight bubbling on the surface of one of the pieces. We called, they quickly replaced the piece. No problem.
Now I found another bubble on another piece. And after really examining this great set, I have found that I bought nothing more than a fancy collection of pressboard, particle board, junk, shit with a nice THIN veneer of cherry glued to the surface! It looks nothing less than a work of art, really. But a fake work of art.
The tag doesn’t say “cherry veneer”, is says “cherry”…fuckers!
I went back to the store and sure enough they’re going to send a guy out. And I bet the guy will reccomend it be replaced with a new piece. So now I have to either accept that we bought a beautiful cherry office set with pressboard as its gooey chocolate center and try to ignore that fact, or fight with Mealeys until they give me a refund, at which point I’ll have nothing, lose/lose for me. Buyer beware.
I plan on talking to management tomorrow but I’m positive that I’ll come out of it with the distinct taste of shit in my mouth.
Not meaning to rub salt in the wound, but I am curious: when you looked at it in the store, did you open the drawers and cabinets and look at the interiors?
Good luck. I bought a piece of furniture (albeit a much smaller, much less expensive piece), and I was really surprised at the vast range and costs of some “executive”-type office furniture that was made out of glue and woodchips.
Seriously, one would think for that kind of money one could get real, chopped-from-the-tree wood.
The mark-up on pressboard furniture has got to be incredible.
If you can get a refund, I’d do it. At least that way you won’t feel like you got ripped off or you’re settling for something you didn’t really want. I’ll be rooting for you, though I won’t hold my breath.
Even if they replace pieces, pressboard shelves and desktops will, over time, sag, so you’ll certainly never be “passing it down” to anyone. Solid cherry would be twice that cost, at the very least, and more likely three or four times that much. On the other hand, $2400 is outrageous for pressboard with veneer, so if you can get your money back, go for it!
Veneers are fine when they’re applied over something with some genuine strength, like plywood. If you want solid wood, oak will be the cheapest, and it’ll last forever. Better hardwoods, like maple, cherry, and mahogany, are going to be a bit pricier.
The drawer interiors are made of real wood (probably other than cherry) and the joinery is nice. By no means does the thing appear to be cheap at all. The only real way for the untrained eye to tell is by A) the bubbling of the veneer and B) climbing up on top of the set and checking out the cross cuts, which are blackened as if from stain or burning.
Having worked with wood a little bit, I can tell that it’s not even plywood because there’s no grain. But you’d really have to climb around on the piece to know the difference, which hadn’t crossed my mind at the time. I’ve bought other things at Mealeys that are really nice so I had no reason to doubt that it was solid wood.
After looking around on the net for a little bit, it seems almost any “executive office furniture” only claims to be a “cherry finish”. So, it’s probably that my expectations are too high.
The bottom line is My wife likes it too much so I’ll probably take it as a lesson learned.
Here are some examples of oak office furniture. This stuff is a combination of solid oak and oak veneers over 3/4" furniture-grade plywood (tough as nails). The setup at the right side of the second row looks to be about the same size/complexity as what you bought, and at about the same price. So, you can clearly do better than Mealey’s!
In looking at the Mealy’s sale brochure here it’s evident that most of their furniture is solidly middle to low middle priced stuff. You have no more chance of buying a solid cherry set from that store than flying to the moon.
Most of the stuff we’re buying for our house is pressed board and veneer, but man, we’re not paying any $2400 for any of it, and nobody’s trying to pretend it’s anything except pressed board and veneer. For $2400, I would expect a heck of a lot more than pressed wood.
As for seeing what your furniture is made of, if you stick your hand in the drawer and feel the underside of the top of the piece, or pull the drawer out and look at the underside of the top, you should be able to see if it’s real wood or not. Nobody bothers to finish the undersides of things.
Well, anyway, it looks very nice, and I’m sure you’ll be very happy with it.
One of the most reputable manufacturers of solid cherry furniture in the United States is Davis Cabinet Company. You may not be able to find the desk that you want at the price that you want to pay, but they should be able to direct you to other reputable dealers.
I have heard a furniture dealer say that Davis Cabinet Company is the name that will be remembered in centuries to come. (And this was not a dealer that I was buying from.)
Have you considered investing in an antique or older desk? There are some beauties out there!
You may want to try to find an unfinished desk in solid oak, and use a cherry stain. You could then get the look you wanted at a lower price. Of course, you have to put in the time and effort of finishing it.
If the desk is meant to always be in one spot I’ve seen very nice cabinets that are made to be office furniture sold in home improvement stores. Look in the kitchen cabinet catalogues. You can get solid wood base cabinets and wall cabinets and whatever counter/ desk top you want. It might be nice to have a more waterproof and scratchproof work surface than wood anyway. The only bad thing is that the cabinets are meant to be attached to the wall.
Can you get to any furniture consignment stores? I’ve found some very nice things there, at very good prices. But get your money back from Mealy’s first!
I just spoke to Joel, my sales person on the phone. Please don’t pronounce it “joel” like Billy Joel. It’s Jo-el, with the emphasis on the EL, like in Noel.
Picture the two gay guys (not that there’s anything wrong with that) from Father of the Bride. There’s the one wedding planner played by Martin Short, then there’s Jo-els evil twin. That’s my guy…“Mista Bonks, eeew look out foowa de doves, hee hee hew”
His manager’s in a meeting right now. I’m sure the meeting’s got something to do with pressboard. Should we use high density pressboard or low density pressboard? Heck, let’s just use cardboard.
We’ll call it Cherry; they’ll never know the difference, and by the time they get it home and find out, we’ll just say we’re in “meetings” {wink wink}.
BWAHAHAHAHA!
