- Chelsea J Marshall
Is Amish Furniture Worth It?
Amish furniture comes with a reputation of being durable and high-quality, but also expensive! A lot of people wonder, is Amish furniture worth it? Of course, at The Amish Home, we only sell Amish furniture, but we understand that it’s not right for everyone. In our opinion, when considering the price point against the furniture quality and custom options, Amish furniture is an exceptional value when compared to other options in the same budget.
Our builders start by focusing on high-quality features that matter most. First and foremost, that means building furniture out of solid American hardwoods – red oak, white oak, brown maple, cherry, hickory, elm, and walnut. They also use classic joinery techniques – dovetails, mortise-and-tenons, etc – and quality hardware, like heavy-duty full-extension drawer glides. The finishing is equally important as well. Our furniture is sanded and stained by hand to beautifully highlight the natural wood grain, then finished using a catalyzed topcoat, for an ultra-hard finish that protects your furniture against wear and tear.
Other times, our builders may choose to sacrifice a feature as a budget consideration while offering the feature as an upgrade. A perfect example of this is the drawer glides on our dressers and other bedroom case pieces. The standard drawer glide is a durable, heavy-duty full-extension ball bearing glide that will withstand years of use. Soft-close drawer glides are offered are offered as an optional upgrade because otherwise it would raise the price out of many people’s budgets. Let’s use our popular Empire Mission Tall Dresser as an example. The dresser has nine drawers and costs $1460 in rustic quartersawn white oak (as of this writing – price is subject to change.) Soft close, full extension side mount slides add $20 per drawer, times nine drawers in the dresser, for an upgrade of $180, bringing the price of the dresser to $1640. If you prefer the Blum Motion undermount soft close glides, the price is $35 per drawer, which brings the price of the dresser to $1775. It’s easy to see how adding these premium slides to the base price of a dresser would push our furniture out of a number of customer’s budgets.
Finally, there are some markers of quality that are simply beyond what our builders offer. That’s not to say that there aren’t Amish craftsmen who offer these features – we’re only talking about the Amish craftsmen that our store works with. A great example of this is the misconception that the Amish won’t use screws, nails, or brackets. Our builders choose a combination of classic joinery techniques with heavy-duty hardware to maximize durability and affordability. Other instances are choices that our store has made. For example, our live edge dining tables are what are known as glue-ups, which means that cut lumber boards are glued to pieces with natural edges. We have chosen not to offer live edge slabs, which is a single slice out of the tree. We made this decision because we felt that the higher price point (slabs can cost 2-3 times over glue-ups) demanded more showroom space than we had to offer.
So, is Amish furniture worth it? We obviously think so. If it’s in your budget, it will offer you years of dependability, and if what you see isn’t quite what you’re looking for, let us know and we’ll see what we can do for you.
