Paul,

It was over a year ago when my sister-in-law started on a kitchen remodeling
that I got involved with. One of the tasks was to help come up with a
design for a small cabinet / desk / storage combination. So off we went to
a couple of the high-end furniture retailers to see what kind of ideas were
out there. We found exactly what she wanted. It looked like a drop-front
desk but was built higher so that a stool was needed instead of a chair to
sit in front of this desk.

After carefully looking it over, it had 4 solid wooden legs and one other
piece of real hardwood that was used for the edging for the drop-down
writing area. The rest was painted MDF with a couple of ceramic drawer
pulls. Admittedly, it did look good for a painted piece. I figured I could
make the whole thing in hardwood for about $100 in materials and that was a
high estimate.

Sister-in-law just had to know the price of this piece (they don't put price
tags on items at this store) and called over a salesperson. After a song 'n
dance about how and where this "piece" was made, the craftsmanship and the
"top-quality" materials used in its construction, she said it was available
on special order for only $1,995.....

I nearly fell over but told the nice lady that this was made from MDF - how
can it cost so much? I doubt she knew what MDF was but the reply was,
"Well, it's not so much what its made out of - as the craftsmanship that
went into making it..." Now if you think a couple of dado cuts in the MDF
sides to slide some MDF shelves into is craftsmanship....

MDF and a veneer or some other applied surface materials have taken over
tabletops and other flat areas of furniture pieces from what I've seen -
while still demanding high prices. Even Stickley furniture is using MDF in
their line of products I'm sorry to say. Like others, they say quality but
mean - cheap. Well, at least we purchased ours back when the word quality
was not watered down.

Its unfortunate that most people don't know what to look for or what to ask
when making costly purchases. If they did, I think a lot of the pro's that
hang out here would be doing much better at making "real" furniture pieces
and not trying to beat MDF prices. That boils down to educating the
consumer - and who has the resources to do that?

Besides, it's made from real wood, cheap, smooth, flat, heavy and it doesn't
expand or contract - what possibly could be a better material than termite
barf for making expensive furniture....?

Bob S.


"Paul Hays" wrote in message
thlink.net...
I was killing time before my movie started this evening by doing a little
window shopping and saw something new: fake "thinply" edgebanding on
retail
shelving!

In otherwords, plastic edgebanding with thinply-like banding and color
was
added to retail shelving to get that industrial, avant guard look. Funny
that plywood is considered a luxury material now!