The Couch Review

Lately I have been blogging about living in New England and working in Boston.  Part of that is doing reviews of local merchants, restaurants, and stores.  Today I would like to review Jordan’s Furniture and Rowe Furniture.

Enter Jordan’s

Let’s start by saying “Everyone needs a place to sit.”  A few years ago we bought several couches from Jordan’s Furniture.

  This was a no brainer for us considering we have numerous pieces of furniture in our house from Jordan’s including mattresses, a bedroom set, chairs, and several couches.  They have stood by our bedroom set and mattresses when they had problems and we are very happy with those pieces of furniture.  Unfortunately we are completely disappointed over our purchase of the sofas which is what this review is about.

The couches were a sofa, love seat, and a queen sleeper sofa all from Rowe Furniture.  We really like the couches.  They fit our needs completely.  Color, size, and décor were just right.  The queen sleeper sofa, the Rowe Dalton, is still being offered by Jordan’s.  You can click on the image below to see the sofa on Jordan’s webpage.

Unfortunately within two years we started having problems with two of the couches: the love seat and the queen sleeper sofa.  The couches basically lost all support in the cushions.  In fact, the cushions are completely unusable.  We also had an issue with the love seat where the frame broke.  No matter, we had a manufacturers warranty and we had dealt with Jordan’s in the past with issues and felt completely assured that we would get the couches repaired.

Really Jordan’s, Really?

Jordan’s came out to see us and took a look at the couches and argued with us over each repair.  They claimed someone was jumping up and down on the love seat which caused the frame to break and that the issues with the cushions were due to someone sitting in one spot on the couch and that we did not rotate the cushions.  To this we say “Really?”  Do you really want to accuse your customers of intentionally damaging their property?

Of course we are upset about this and feel that we should have had everything replaced at the  Jordan’s or Rowe’s expense.  We were within the warranty period when we brought these issues to Jordan’s attention.  After months of talking with Jordan’s they eventually agreed to fix the frame.  Jordan’s still would not repair the cushions even after explaining that all the [seat and back] cushions are unusable and that there is no way that the damage could happen by sitting in one spot or not rotating the cushions.  Jordan’s customer service told us that we could get the couches re-upholstered at our expense for a few hundred dollars and that was our best option.  We tried for months to find someone to do it for that price with no luck.  The last price for re-upholstery was $2600.  For that price we can buy new couches.  When we called back to Jordan’s and complained they said our only option was to ask the manufacturer for new cushions.  After weeks and weeks of calling Jordan’s we finally got the price of over a $1000 for new cushions for the queen sleeper sofa.  Jordan’s explanation for this was that the manufacturer prices the replacement cushions this high so that you will be forced to buy a new sofa.  We called back to Jordan’s to complain again and they now say that we are out of the warranty period for the sofas and that there is nothing we can do about it except buy new sofas.

So after only a couple of years we are forced to replace two of our sofas and thousands of dollars down the drain.  We are very disappointed in Jordan’s furniture over this issue and will no longer deal with them except to use them as a means to lower the price with other furniture companies for the same piece of furniture.  That is a shame because we have been buying furniture from Jordan’s since 1999.

No Thank You Rowe

We have been shopping around to other stores for new sofas and each and every salesperson or designer that hears this story says that Rowe Furniture is like throwing money away.  In fact, one store said they wouldn’t re-upholstery Rowe furniture because the frames were so bad.  They did say that Rowe has a higher end brand name that is good, but we will stay away from Rowe all together over this issue.

To our neighbors and fellow consumers, if you know of a furniture store that offers quality at reasonable prices, please let us know.  We do like La Chance Furniture [in Gardner, MA] a lot and know they have quality furniture, but the prices aren’t always the best.  I guess you get what you pay for.