I’m looking for a dresser. I want it to be made of solid unpainted un-stained-a-weird-color wood (but finished – I’m not going to work on it at all myself). If that’s not feasible, I’d like large portions of it to be made of (unpainted) wood. I would prefer cherry or maple or birch or other hardwood but pine is okay. I’d like the craftsmanship to be reasonably good, like, the drawers should be fairly easy to open. If it’s cherry or maple I expect very good craftsmanship.
Of course as cheap as possible is nice too, though I know hardwood isn’t going to come cheap.
IKEA used to carry a line of pine furniture that fulfilled all these requirements for I think no more than a couple hundred bucks, but no longer. I think all its dressers now are straight particleboard.
I feel like I’m not asking for all that much, but for some reason I’ve found it very hard to find it. There’s a pine wood furniture place in town but the quality is really bad (the drawers don’t even fit right – there are huge gaping holes between the drawer and frame, etc. – much worse than IKEA, the quality level of which I’m willing to accept), and most places feel the need to paint their furniture. Or it’s expensive AND poor quality. Or it’s stained.
I’ve found a couple places online (e.g., http://www.rileysrealwood.com) that might fit this bill but I’d really like to see the furniture before committing to buy it.
Plummers furniture seems to have a couple of things that fit my requirements (their Columbia line; the Reflections one looks even nicer but is a little too floofy for me, I’m a kind of boring person). We’d been before and weren’t greatly impressed by anything except the Reflections furniture, but I can’t remember if they had the Columbia line in then.
Answers by tomorrow/Sun. are appreciated as we’ll be traveling around LA this weekend and will be able to look around a bit more than we normally do. Thanks!
Hmm, Craigslist is a distinct possibility. I’ve checked it very intermittently before with no luck, but I should be more assiduous about it. Antique shops we’ve tried, and they tend to be over-stained or horribly overpriced.
HelloAgain, thanks for the correction. Hmm, that might be a possibility, then, though they look like they might be overly stained for me.
I’ve bought several good pieces from Henderson’s in Lawndale over the years – a table, bookcase and dresser, all of which were simple & made of solid pine. Also, Culver Furniture sells unfinished, solid wood furniture that gets good reviews. I’ll may check it out today; if I do, I’ll post an update: 4366 Sepulveda Blvd., Culver City.
I bought shelves at an unfinished furniture place in Dallas a few years ago.
They offered a service (for a fee, of course) that let you choose the stain and/or finish and they would finish it for you.
Do any of the LA unfinished places offer something like that?
I finished my shelves on my own, but a friend had purchased a bedroom suite there and paid for the finish so she could be sure they all matched.
groo, we didn’t get a chance to check out the Lawndale and Culver City places because our schedule was tighter than I thought it would be, but that looks EXACTLY like what I’m looking for. We’ll probably go back to LA in a couple of weeks and go there then. Thanks!!