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Crate + Barrel Furniture

post #1 of 45
7/31/10 at 11:33am
Thread Starter 
what is crate + barrel quality like? the have alot of nice pieces and everything looks/feels great but I have neevr owned anything from them. Some of the stuff is quite expensive (i.e., $3k chair) so before dropping $$$ I wanted to get some opinions on the quality.
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post #2 of 45
7/31/10 at 12:15pm
I've had a few of the lower-end upholstered pieces in the $500 - $800 range for a few years now - seem to be holding up quite well. I don't have much knowledge as to what constitutes quality construction but I believe consumer mags used to rate them pretty highly.

I can say the customer service is top-notch. I noticed a flaw in a coffee table after delivery and they came back with a replacement scheduled at my convenience - no muss no fuss.

If you live within a certain radius of one of their stores there's a flat shipping fee which was pretty low last time I checked. Remains the same whether you're buying one or a dozen pieces.
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post #3 of 45
7/31/10 at 12:30pm
Thread Starter 
I live in MA. as well, didnt use to live too far from Andover either. Just went to the C+B Burlington location and it was very nice, great layout and large. I think she said the delivery fee was like $125 flat no matter how much I ordered.

Need to buy furniture for my whole house from scratch so its quite a bit. So far I have looked at:

pottery barn
west elm
cicrle furniture
crate + barrel
boston interiors
ethan allen

The only place I liked anything was crate+ barrel...

Still gotta check out Mitchell Gold Bob Williams in Natick and Restoration Hardware in Chestnut Hill. Not even going to bother with DWR tho as they are prob. a bit out of the price range I want to be in. If I had only one room to do, maybe, but whole house would cost big big $$$$.
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post #4 of 45
7/31/10 at 12:42pm
If you are in your 20s and going to move gazillions of times from place to pace enjoy Crate and Barrel furniture. Which is nothing but painted plywood at best and glorified Ikea at worst. If you value quality and longevity and want to keep your furniture for life. Do not shop at one store (especially C&B) acquire your furniture piece by piece from Antique stores, Craigslist, estate sales, relatives etc. For custom upholstered pieces there are two makers in US that deliver hand made in US quality furniture at C&B prices: Hancock and Moore and Leathercraft. To sum it up : Do not waist your money on chinese disposable garbage. You never going to enjoy cheap ,disposable furniture, and there is nothing enjoyable about making your home to look like C&B clone.
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post #5 of 45
7/31/10 at 12:51pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pezzaturra View Post
If you are in your 20s and going to move gazillions of times from place to pace enjoy Crate and Barrel furniture. Which is nothing but painted plywood at best and glorified Ikea at worst.
If you value quality and longevity and want to keep your furniture for 20+ years Do not shop at one store (especially C&B) acquire your furniture piece by piece form Antique store, Craigslist, estate sales etc.
For custom upholstered pieces there are two makers in US that deliver hand made in US quality furniture at C&B prices: Hancock and Moore and Leathercraft.

To sum it up : Do not waist your money on chinese disposable garbage. You never going to enjoy cheap ,disposable furniture, and there is nothing enjoyable about making your home to look like C&B clone.

1. every piece of crate and barrel I looked at was 100% solid wood, not one piece was plywood or veneer. All of the stuff I saw was made/designed by well known furniture makers/designers that the C+B buyers had simply selected. None of which was made in China.

2. dont have time to custom order stuff as it will take months to arrive, I am moving into my new house in 5 days and have zero furniture, its 3800+ sq. ft.

would love to have the time to explore estate sales, antique stores etc. but its just not plausible w/ new profession, moving time constraints etc.

My home is going to be furnished/decorated pretty much with select DWR pieces, restoration hardware, and c+b... and prob getting my couchs/chairs from MG+BW because I really like some of the stuff I have seen on their website.
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post #6 of 45
7/31/10 at 1:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by pg600rr View Post
1. every piece of crate and barrel I looked at was 100% solid wood, not one piece was plywood or veneer. All of the stuff I saw was made/designed by well known furniture makers/designers that the C+B buyers had simply selected. None of which was made in China.

2. dont have time to custom order stuff as it will take months to arrive, I am moving into my new house in 5 days and have zero furniture, its 3800+ sq. ft.

would love to have the time to explore estate sales, antique stores etc. but its just not plausible w/ new profession, moving time constraints etc.

My home is going to be furnished/decorated pretty much with select DWR pieces, restoration hardware, and c+b... and prob getting my couchs/chairs from MG+BW because I really like some of the stuff I have seen on their website.

You're making quite a mistake by furnishing your home immediately. If you don't care about being generic, then go ahead, (and this isn't something a lot of people care about)... but the best furnished homes evolved. Don't buy everything at once, it's ok to be a bit sparse at first. Why spend money on mass produced shit?

C+B is objectively quite poor. It's like buying your entire wardrobe at Gap. You'll end up spending a lot of money on crappy, ubiquitous furniture. Let your house grow over time... buy furniture in your travels. Do you really need a fully furnished house ASAP? Why not let it evolve over time and actually take on a real character, and be furnished with true quality pieces?
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post #7 of 45
7/31/10 at 1:28pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by SField View Post
You're making quite a mistake by furnishing your home immediately. If you don't care about being generic, then go ahead, (and this isn't something a lot of people care about)... but the best furnished homes evolved. Don't buy everything at once, it's ok to be a bit sparse at first. Why spend money on mass produced shit?

C+B is objectively quite poor. It's like buying your entire wardrobe at Gap. You'll end up spending a lot of money on crappy, ubiquitous furniture. Let your house grow over time... buy furniture in your travels. Do you really need a fully furnished house ASAP? Why not let it evolve over time and actually take on a real character, and be furnished with true quality pieces?

I agree with this. I bought a bunch of stuff at once and i regret it. Quality is higher than C&B but it's pretty generic contemporary. Starting over, i'd just buy shit at ikea for things i absolutely needed which would then give me some time to buy stuff that was really nice.

My current furniture really doesn't go so well in my much smaller TO apartment. It's a sore point for me. That said, at this point in time i'm not sure that i want to spend more money on furniture given my uncertain plans for the future. In a couple years i'll either buy a place here or hopefully be moving abroad. Either way, any money i spend on furniture now would probably be wasted.
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post #8 of 45
7/31/10 at 2:24pm
FYI.

http://amelydesigns.com/PDF_Files/po...%20article.pdf
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post #9 of 45
7/31/10 at 4:42pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pezzaturra View Post

Pretty damning stuff. You'd have to be an idiot to spend your money there.
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post #10 of 45
7/31/10 at 6:16pm
Sign up for their gift registry and they give you a 10% off coupon. Also try to get your hand on some gift cards at a discount. Check out abcgiftcards.com, craigslist, or ebay to find some. I purchased some furniture from them earlier in the year (basque wood table and chairs made of solid mango wood), but ended up canceling the delivery and getting a full refund because I got a nicer set at wholesale.
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post #11 of 45
7/31/10 at 6:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by pg600rr View Post
what is crate + barrel quality like? the have alot of nice pieces and everything looks/feels great but I have neevr owned anything from them. Some of the stuff is quite expensive (i.e., $3k chair) so before dropping $$$ I wanted to get some opinions on the quality.

they have some nice pieces. we do have a few select pieces from them that we got on sale. also z gallerie (but recently their style is more gothic?)
dont drop $$$ on cb furniture , try to get them on sale. if you really like something though it's fine.

they hold up fine and we moved twice and they are still looking brand new (we dont have kids)
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post #12 of 45
7/31/10 at 6:38pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by SField View Post
You're making quite a mistake by furnishing your home immediately. If you don't care about being generic, then go ahead, (and this isn't something a lot of people care about)... but the best furnished homes evolved. Don't buy everything at once, it's ok to be a bit sparse at first. Why spend money on mass produced shit?

C+B is objectively quite poor. It's like buying your entire wardrobe at Gap. You'll end up spending a lot of money on crappy, ubiquitous furniture. Let your house grow over time... buy furniture in your travels. Do you really need a fully furnished house ASAP? Why not let it evolve over time and actually take on a real character, and be furnished with true quality pieces?

Unfortunatley i do have to furnish asap, I dont really know where else to look locally...I like the stuff I saw at CB and RH, for example:

http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family...c=1011&f=34614
http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=881&f=33233
http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=881&f=14071
http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=911&f=31480
http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=911&f=34584

I would look elsewhere, i.e., mom+pop stores as sugested in the article but I have no idea where to find such stores in the MA/NH area. THe ethan allen I went to had all stuffy trad stuff you'd see in some old womens house, etc. Very boring shit. I am assuming most of the mom+pop stores carry that type of shit.

DWR has stuff I like but it is about 2x the cost of CB. For a 3800 sq. ft. house that gets very expensive.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pezzaturra View Post

that is an interesting article, do you think it has changed at all since 06'? All the stuff I was looking at was solid wood, no particle board, veneer etc., that is why I ask. I may try to find some knock-offs as suggested toward the end of the article.

I am also not really open to ordering furniture sight unseen online so any stores I would buy from would have to be in the area.
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post #13 of 45
7/31/10 at 6:45pm
The one thing I like about C&B is their reclaimed / sustainable furniture. I believe they source it from another company and the material and finishes are top notch. You might be able to get a lower price on those kinds of items directly from where they source it
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post #14 of 45
7/31/10 at 6:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by pg600rr View Post
Unfortunatley i do have to furnish asap, I dont really know where else to look locally...I like the stuff I saw at CB and RH, for example:

http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family...c=1011&f=34614
http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=881&f=33233
http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=881&f=14071
http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=911&f=31480
http://www.crateandbarrel.com/family.aspx?c=911&f=34584

I would look elsewhere, i.e., mom+pop stores as sugested in the article but I have no idea where to find such stores in the MA/NH area. THe ethan allen I went to had all stuffy trad stuff you'd see in some old womens house, etc. Very boring shit. I am assuming most of the mom+pop stores carry that type of shit.

DWR has stuff I like but it is about 2x the cost of CB. For a 3800 sq. ft. house that gets very expensive.


that is an interesting article, do you think it has changed at all since 06'? All the stuff I was looking at was solid wood, no particle board, veneer etc., that is why I ask. I may try to find some knock-offs as suggested toward the end of the article.

I am also not really open to ordering furniture sight unseen online so any stores I would buy from would have to be in the area.

How many people are living in the house? Do you really need to furnish all 3800sq ft at once?

If you are going to be there a while, i'd seriously think about custom furniture. You'd be surprised at the pricing.

Also, if you have kids or whatever, you don't have to furnish their rooms to the same standard as your kitching/living/dining room, etc.
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post #15 of 45
7/31/10 at 7:18pm
Thread Starter 
3 people, no young kids, atleast want to have my sofas/chair(s), dining room table/chairs, EIK table/chairs, and bed ready for move in next week or so. Other stuff I can go w/o and add over the coming months but those things mentioned above are a must have.
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