American-made Style Guide & Furniture Primer
Want to totally win the holidays this year? Instead of going to the mall and shopping the same old stores you go to every year, get your loved ones these unique, lovely gifts. All are made in America and none will break the bank. (And while you’re at it, go ahead and get something for yourself, too!)
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One of our go-to ways to design a room is to choose the rug and then base the design off of that. It’s easier to pull colors from the rug and pick upholstery fabrics in those hues than it is to find a rug to go with an existing upholstered piece. To show you what we mean, we’ve put together a choose-your-own-adventure design strategy based on our Tennille area rug.
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Shopping for high quality wood furniture can feel so frustrating. Something may look great in the store, only to start to fall apart once you bring it home. The thing with furniture is that it’s what’s on the inside that matters–and that can be hard to figure out. For an in-depth article on what to look for while you’re shopping, visit our High-Quality Wood Furniture blog here.
We go into way more detail on the different aspects of wood furniture quality in other blogs, but the main things you want to look for are:
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It seems like everywhere you turn, there’s something lurking in a product ready to kill you: nitrates in your bacon, parabens in your face lotion, even food dye in your delicious cupcake! And sadly, furniture isn’t innocent. The problem is that plenty of manufacturers use toxic materials, from glue to foam to finishes. In fact, many of the products used in furniture construction can contain cancer-causing chemicals. You can’t avoid them completely, but you can greatly minimize your exposure by shopping for less-toxic products. You just need to know what to watch out for.
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A lot of people believe they shouldn’t invest in good furniture because they have small kids full of destructive tendencies. While this logic may sound solid on the surface, it ends up falling apart when you dig a little deeper.
If your furniture is getting trashed by your kids, it’s probably because it’s poorly made. If you invest in quality, American-made furniture, it will stand up way better to daily assaults from the little ones. It’s also better for the environment (less junky furniture in landfills), costs you less money in the long run (you don’t have to keep re-purchasing sofa after sofa every few years), and it means you can create the house you want now as opposed to waiting until your kids graduate from high school.
Here’s why high-quality wins out in the battle for kid-resistance furniture:
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The majority of people we help with furniture shopping bring up that they have a cat or dog at home. That’s not surprising since 68 percent of households have a pet (ours included!). The NUMBER ONE thing you can do to protect your furniture is to not let your animals on it. But we know from personal experience that cats do whatever they want and dogs eventually figure out how comfy a sofa is–even if they only sneak onto it when you’re out of the house. And if you’re lucky enough to have pets that don’t get on the furniture, they probably still enjoy laying up against it. That’s why we suggest all pet owners keep in mind a few things when choosing new furniture.
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