Mamas- anyone have experience with Ashley Furniture Homestores?

[Dee150]

We have been needing some family room furniture for a while - just with all the baby stuff happenning, we haven't gotten to it yet. These stores have recently come to our general area, and I checked their website too. Does anyone know what their quality is like? I don't know of the prices, though they seem ('sound'..?) to be fairly inexpensive. DS is 17 mos. old. They have some furniture with "Durapella" fabric that's supposed to be stain resistant- is this similar to 'stain protection' from Scotchgard or Teflon? If so I would look at other options.

I'd appreciate any help on this- I've been procrastinating and now I want to get this over with before the new year. Any other brand suggestions would also be Very welcome!
Thanks in advance!

[Emmas Mom]

I can't tell you about the Durapella fabric but we bought our two oversized leather sofas from them over three years ago & they have held up wonderfully. We love them to this day. It was during one of their sales & we got them both for $1,200.00, which I think is a pretty good deal. That was our only experience with them though, but we liked it. :)

[Pennylane]

We have a few pieces from Ashley and never had a problem with any of them. Their prices are reasonable and with three children, I won't feel as bad if I have to replace them 5 or 10 years down the road.

Here is a link that I found that tells about the Durapella Fabric. None of my furniture has it but it sounds nice!

http://www.ashleyhomestores.com/More_Info/What_is_Durapella.aspx

Ann

[karolyp]

I don't have any experience with the durapella fabric, but wanted to let you know that we did order our bedroom set from them. They took forever to deliver all the pieces. First came the headboard, then they delivered the footboard, then the rails, then the dresser and mirror. It must have taken them atleast 4 or 5 trips and a good couple of weeks before we got everything. And there was a small cosmetic nick in the molding of the bed rails. So we went to the store and complained (yes it was a small nick, but I felt that since we paid full price for the furniture we it should be perfect) and back and forth we went with the manager for a good several weeks again and finally they refunded us about $300!

Since then I've been told that they've changed their delivery policy and won't deliver the furniture to you till they have the whole set instead of piece mailing like they did to us.

Besides the nick, we have had no problems and really do like the set, but just dealing with their crazy deliveries and their grumpy manager and overall lack of customer service was not fun.

HTH

[caridura]

We have leather couches from them and they are great quality. They weren't too expensive, although I can't recall what we paid. I know it was during one of their big sales after Christmas though.

[starrynight]

Don't buy a kitchen table from them! The quality is not what you pay for, the table started chipping very shortly after we bought it so under warrenty the sent us another one. Again started to chip, it also completely fell apart when we moved, now I'm sure some of that had to do with the moving company but I'm going to assume with the poor quality of the tabletop the rest of it wasn't meant to stand up to long use. The chairs haven't lasted either.

I don't have any of their couches or other furniture and haven't bought anything else from that brand so I don't have any other advice.

[crayonblue]

We have a couch, love seat and rocking chair from Ashley. We had a problem with the rocker and the retailer wouldn't fix it so Ashley Furniture contacted another retailer and they picked up the rocker (from our 4th floor with no elevator apartment!), fixed it and then returned it. I was VERY impressed!

Overall, the quality is ok and the prices are good. I am glad we don't have super expensive stuff as I don't want to be worrying about my furniture with a 2 year old running around! After 5 years, the furniture looks as good as new- we sprayed it with Scotchgard once ourselves.

[american_mama]

We just visited an Ashley store last weekend, and looked at it a lot about 3 years ago. The furniture is made both in Wisconsin and overseas and the prices are pretty low. Their furniture is also sold under the same name at other furniture stores (like XYZ Furniture store might have an area for Ashley furniture the same as they have it for Lazy Boy or whatever.) But their Ashley Homestores sell it for less since they cut out the middleman.

Something different from much furniture stores is that what you see in terms of fabric is what you get. If a sofa set is displayed in taupe, it's usually only available in that exact fabric. If a matching chair is displayed in red, that means you can get either the chair or sofa in red or taupe, but nothing else. Also, they have many more pieces of furniture than most of their stores display. So be sure to check their catalog or website and talk to a salesperson if you are looking for something they don't have on the floor.

Three years ago, they had a good website, so be sure to check it out. In fact, looking at the website was a To Do task for DH and I tonight.

[Dee150]

Thanks everyone for all the great responses! I really appreciate it! So off we go tomorrow to the Homestore. I also found out that they have one Very close to my home- so glad I didn't travel miles when there's one almost in my backyard. How are they on delivery times? And is the post-Xmas sale good?
Thanks again!

[Ari]

I read they are doing very well, and their quality is supposed to be fairly decent as well. good luck.