I get so many emails about my kitchen chairs…..you may recall them, they are from Guildmaster and were fairly reasonably priced and sold in pairs.  I purchased 6.  And here was a photo of our kitchen right after the chairs had arrived.  (Sorry for the miserable photo.)

I had new cushions made for the chairs to fit our design direction.

All was good with the chairs….loved them.  Still love the look, etc.  Until……during Christmas my step-son leaned back in the chair during a family dinner and the below happened.  We were all a bit shocked…..speechless.

I, of course, emailed photos and was initially told that the chairs were discontinued (wonder why?) and that they only two left in a red color….which I could purchase at a discount and have re-finished.  Simultaneously, I took the offending chair to my custom furniture person here in Dallas who promptly showed me the inherent flaws in the design of the chair.  He said he’d try to fix the chair but I still don’t have it back.  Time will tell…..

In the meantime, I complained some more…..and Guildmaster sent me, free of charge, the two red chairs they had offered to sell me.  My only costs were the receiver’s fee (non-retail furniture ships freight and has to be delivered to a loading dock) and of course the fee to have them re-finished to match the ones I have. 

So, earlier this week I took another of our chairs to the restoration shop so that they could match the paint…..and look what I noticed on this chair.

At that point I wondered if I should even bother to deal with these chairs.  But I’ll be honest I really have better things to spend my money on at this point.  And I am already spending the money to have the chair repaired (he is having to drill dowels down to support the back and repair the lattice which apparently was just glued together…and is all cracked from from hitting the floor when the chair broke.)  So, I have kindof accepted that eventually new chairs will be in our future.  And I have learned my own, very personal, opinion on this manufacturer and how they chose to handle product issues. 

But, in this story there is at least a glimmer of good news…..when the time comes, I think I have another option.  Look what I saw in the Dallas market (new introduction) earlier this week from a vendor I have purchased from time and time again. 

I’ll post more on this new find tomorrow.