The Amish Craftsman

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We made a purchase of bedroom furniture from this store. After waiting for two months to get it, when it showed up, it was not the quality we expected. We ended up not accepting it. This is not Amish, handcrafted old world furniture that you would expect, and not the "exceptional" furniture that the store mentions over and over in it's advertising. It certainly was not the quality of finished furniture displayed in the store.



The solid maple tops on the nightstands had wood grain that was poorly matched. Having worked in a cabinet shop with craftsman when I was much younger, I can speak with some authority on the subject. When a cabinet maker fabricates a piece of wood to be used as a desktop, tabletop, or nightstand top, they take pieces of wood and lay them out flat and glue them together edge to edge to make the flat top. Care must be taken in this procese to match the grains and wood so that when the piece is stained and finished, the grains and the wood matches. The nightstand tops (both of them!) had very dark pieces of wood next to very light pieces of wood, leaving light and dark streaks across the tops of the nightstand. It looked very bad. I was shocked when I saw what the tops looked like upon delivery. Really disgusted after waiting so long for them, and seeing the poor quality. As soon as I saw them, it was obvious no care was taken when selecting this material. When you're mass producing furniture, you can't reject everything because it doesn't match.



In one way, I feel sorry for this small business owner to have to take these pieces of furniture back with the nightstand tops looking like this if the manufacturer will not accept them back because no one will look at these nightstand tops and think they're very good or want to purchase them unless they're heavily discounted. It was very obvious the manufacturer took no care in selecting this material and making sure that the grains and wood texture matches. That care was so very obviously taken in every piece of furniture on display in the store. I find this store owner at fault for expecting me to take this furniture when delivered. They should have returned it back to the manufacturer when they got it at the store and told me I would have to wait a little longer. Rather that, as bad as that would be, then to expect me to accept it.



In one place on the furniture we found a nail from a nail gun that had been shot carelessly, missing the wood it was supposed to hit and penetrating the other side of the piece of wood. It wasn't in a visible place but I was surprised to see nail guns used at all. This is not furniture handcrafted piece by piece, and in hindsight ,I was naive to expect it to be. How could the Amish keep up with manufacturing pieces for stores all over the United States where every big town has an Amish furniture store if they were not using the same mass production techniques all mass production furniture makers use. I don't fault them for that. I should have known better.



When I spoke to the owner, they told me the particular company that makes this furniture is one of their better suppliers. That company has quality control problems if this is the best they can do. One thing I will say for the Amish Craftsman furniture store. When I complained to them after the furniture had been left at my home, they came back, picked it up and refunded my money. That is old world customer service.