7 Common Complaints about Stickley Furniture (for Beginners)
If you have seen Stickley furniture, you will easily understand the craze around them. This furniture brand oozes a deluxe feel, readily counting among the finest antique-style furniture you can get today.
But not everything is glossy about these furniture pieces. What are the common complaints you can expect to hear about Stickley furniture?
The most prevalent complaint about Stickley furniture is its expansiveness.
Also, given the exotic nature of Stickley furniture, they are aggressively forged, with lots of Stickley rip-offs flooding the market.
Stickley furniture pieces are hard to resell, considering how pricey they are. Lastly, Stickley luxury seat cushions tend to make a crinkling noise when sat on.
Yes, that is just an overview. This piece will dig further into these complaints (and more), why they occur, and how to possibly get around them.
Related Article: Is Stickley Furniture Worth it? (Explained for Beginners)
Stickley furniture is terribly expensive
Stickley furniture is a premium furniture brand. Having this furniture has a social spice, with the sight of original Stickley furniture in your living space immediately commanding respect.
Yes, Stickley furniture has a cult-like adoration among the furniture connoisseur commodity.
It would be inaccurate to allude to Stickley’s priceyness to just their social esteem. This furniture brand is made from premium materials of the highest quality.
A typical Stickley furniture produced in the 1900s comes with a class and craftsmanship finesse you will rarely see today.
The bulk of these furniture pieces is hand-made by specialized craftsmen, leveraging historic woodworking techniques passed down from the late 1800s.
The wood quality and integrity of its construction are top-notch. The furniture design is simplistic, with the wood grain and construction elements (like mortars and pins) readily displayed.
Sadly, there is not much you can do about the expensiveness of Stickley furniture. If you want one, you will need to cough out the money.
If there is a hack here, it would be buying used Stickley furniture for a relatively lower price and rehabilitating it. This is not very advisable, either.
Stickley furniture is aggressively forged
Original Stickley Gustav furniture pieces are coveted in the collectibles market. Therefore, many unscrupulous elements are loading the market with rip-offs of Stickley furniture.
If you are not a keen eye, it is easy to be swindled and pay a premium for a piece of fake furniture marketed as original Stickley. Is there anything you can do to be a step ahead of these criminal elements and detect a forged Stickley piece?
Yes, of course!
The first litmus test of the genuineness of Stickley furniture is the checking for the distinct Gustav Stickley markings.
An original Stickley furniture is embroidered with the phrase “Als ik kan” (translating into “To the best of my ability”). Gustav’s signature usually comes under the piece.
If you are getting antique Stickley furniture, you can also check for its originality by evaluating how it has aged. An original Stickley produced around the 1900s must have taken a beating or two from time.
Run your hand through the furniture’s edges. If original, it should be rough by now. The chances are high the piece would have gone a bit wonky and cracked.
You can also tell original Stickley furniture from how it has darkened. Unless refinished, an original Stickley furniture – thanks to the decades of sustained exposure to the atmospheric elements – should darken a bit.
Darkening (or lightening) is most prevalent along the panel edges. If you have got a good nose, you can sniff the piece to determine if it has been recently varnished.
You can also check underneath your Stickley furniture for finger marks. This is most typical under tabletops. If you find some, chances are it is an original Stickley piece.
It is hard to resell Stickley furniture
If you thought the work stops at buying Stickley furniture, you couldn’t be more mistaken. In situations where you need to sell your Stickley furniture, it could be lots of work finding suitable buyers.
Stickley furniture doesn’t come cheap, and chances are buyers will be put off by the (understandably) steep price you set for your piece, however fair.
A used Stickley furniture can go for as high as $12,000 on the used market. The regular homeowner will be put off.
Stickley furniture is exotic and is best appreciated by antique aficionados. Sadly, this community is limited in size.
Related Article: How to Sell Your Stickley Furniture? 5 Important Steps
Stickley seat cushions make crinkling sounds
A significant fraction of Stickley furniture owners we came across complained about their seat cushions making crinkling sounds when sat upon.
This is not necessarily a design fault on the side of Stickley. Here is what is happening.
As is customary among exotic luxury cushions, Stickley seat cushions have inserts produced from down-proof ticking components.
This thickly woven material (and, by the way, costly) is added to the cushion to prop up its support and general comfort. This material also prevents an ugly scenario of feathers poking out from your Stickley cushion’s surface.
Now, when you sit on the cushion, the material will flex. This results in the supposedly crinkling sound you hear.
Custom Stickley takes time to deliver
If you place an order for personalized Stickley furniture, it could take “forever” to get it delivered. Several factors (of which many are almost unavoidable) contribute to this lengthy interval between ordering and delivering.
First, Stickley furniture is a premium brand obsessed with perfectionism. They will never deliver your product until it drips exquisiteness.
Unlike other producers who would speedily rush through the production process, Stickley pays diligent attention to detail, only beginning your project when they can source quality materials.
Disruptions introduced by the COVID-19 pandemic have significantly hampered the logistics of Stickley furniture. Sourcing materials is no longer as fluid as before, with supply chains severely affected.
Let us give you an example.
Polyurethane foam – a critical component to making Stickley cushions – is tough to source at present, both internationally and locally in Texas (where most Stickley furniture is produced).
Put all these negative factors together, and you would understand why a customized Stickley furniture delivery (which usually doesn’t take more than ten weeks) now takes up to six months.
Criminals target homes with Stickley furniture
Burglars have a keen eye for Stickley furniture. With an original Stickley piece running into tens of thousands of dollars, it is almost inevitable that hoodlums will fancy a break-in into a home with Stickley furniture.
Most of these felons are specialized criminalized gangs boasting a comprehensive network of antique collectors and launderers.
If you have Stickley furniture, we highly advise investing in the security of your home. It is worth investing in home surveillance systems. Yes, a pet wouldn’t just suffice.
But if you find the cost of home security cameras a bit inconveniencing, you may want to ramp out the privacy of your space.
It is wise to procure curtains to prevent passers-by from having an absolute view of your living space from the outside. After all, you can’t be sure they all have good intentions.
This way, only those close to you (and trusted) can be in the know of your house being furnished with pricey furniture sets like Stickley’s.
Stickley Tibetan rugs seem to shed
It is not uncommon to find a Stickley Tibetan rug owner complaining of their rug losing wool. This is not a defective issue.
Stickley Tibetan rugs are directly made from Tibetan Highland Sheep. This wool’s durability, lengthiness, and fineness make it more befitting to be hand-knotted into rugs.
Being original wool, it will shed the first time you use it. But this should stop after a while. You are unlikely to experience such shedding if you consistently vacuum your Stickley Tibetan rug.
Related Article: How to Refinish Stickley Furniture? 7 Important Tips
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