Expereince with Creations Baby Furniture (esp. the April line)?

[BeachSeeker]

Hi - does anyone have any experience with dressers and/or combo dressers from Creations? Creations advertises English dovetail drawer construction, but I noticed that on the case goods (dressers, combos, etc.) the drawer fronts are NOT English dovetail drawer construction. From what I could tell, only the back of the drawers feature the English dovetail drawer construction.

The other thing that concerns me is the all wood-on-wood drawer guides. There appears to be conflicting opinions on the internet about whether this is a good thing or not. When I compared the drawer mechanism on Creations' April combo dresser with Munire's Deco dresser (metal glides), the Creations drawers do not glide as smoothly. That's not to say that the drawers on the April combo is hard to pull out--it just took a little more effort.

So now I'm really confused about the quality of Creations' case goods and I'm not really sure what all this means in terms of durability. I would love to hear from anyone who has a dresser or combo dresser from Creations (esp. the April line). I'm also looking at the April crib so any feedback on that would be greatly appreciated as well!

Thanks in advance from a first time mom-to-be!

[DMR]

Dear BeachSeeker,

The Creations drawer construction utililes two different forms of dovetaling: 1) a full English Dovetail joint along the back of the drawer box, 2) and a Full-blind Dovetail joint in the front (also known as a French Dovetail). In order to see the Full-blind Dovetail on the front of the drawer box you have to pull the drawer out of the case and inspect the bottom. Wikipedia describes the different types of dovetailing much better than I could: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dovetail_joint#Full-blind_dovetail.

The wood-on-wood drawer guides used on Creations furniture are manufactured from an Oak species. The wood-on-wood guides can, at times, seem stiffer on the pull; however, this can be remedied by and application of Pledge, soap, or Vaseline. The reason for using the wood-on-wood guides is straightforward - they are extremely durable and can hold heavier loads than many metal side-guides. In fact, when one looks at high-end wood furniture for adult bedrooms and dining rooms the wood-on-wood guides system is the design preferred.

I hope this information will be useful to you.

Dave Roxby
Western U.S. Regional Manager
Creations