The Keeping Room, FAQ's

Sorry, but we have only one location located near historic Mt. Vernon, Virginia. We do ship worldwide and can get your pieces to you in any number of ways. See our shipping guidelines information elsewhere on our website.

We keep a rather extensive inventory at all times. In many instances, we can ship at once to get your order to your promptly. As the nation's largest retailer in authentic Windsor chairs, we keep a constant stream of stock coming in as well. Typical wait times on chairs and tables are 4 months if not in stock. More elaborate pieces such as Highboys, Secretaries and Clocks may take 6 months or longer to deliver.

Unfortunately no. These items we carry are truly handcrafted, and the demand for this class of historic reproductions is at an all time high. There is no mass production and no way to increase capacity while still maintaining quality. Increasing shifts and running machines at a faster rate can speed up factory-made furniture. In handcrafted pieces, the cabinetmakers can do only so many operations in a given day.

Here's the good part. It's made using old-world joinery and time-tested construction techniques. The furniture made in the 1700's still exists today and there is no reason our pieces will not weather several generations of use equally as well. They are in every respect the equal of the originals. (see also below for more info)

The furniture industry as a whole has taught us to expect deep discount sale periods virtually all year long. Remembering that in production furniture, it is easy to gear up and make a large quantity of a given piece to offer as a promotion. However In handcrafted furniture, it takes a chairmaker (as an example) just as long (per chair) to make two chairs as it does twenty. There are no gains in efficiency in volume production and no savings in time, hence no reduction in production costs. Additionally, all the good shops have large backlogs to work through. There are no incentives to lower prices to increase sales.

Call us or e-mail us. We have a scanner and digital cameras that enable us to send you detail shots of specific pieces almost immediately. Requests must be for a specific piece and not for an entire category of furniture. Please do not ask for us to send you photos of 'everything in the store', or 'all the beds you offer'. We cannot honor those kinds of requests.

We do have a limited supply of wood samples that can be sent out for your inspection upon request. Please specify the colors you are interested in.

We allow 14 days (less time in transit) to return items in 'as new' condition, provided they are standard stocking items. All our pieces are covered with a Keeping Room one-year limited warranty with some exclusions for nuances encountered with wide board furniture. Ask us for details.

Rarely, and only very mild customs. Varies by cabinetmaker and piece. In our experience, most customers ordering designed customs are less than pleased with the final product. There is more to furniture design than simply sketching a concept on paper or adding a dimension here or there. There's a good reason that you cannot find a six foot round table in the marketplace, for example. We discourage customs and generally do not recommend them for most people.

How can I keep from damaging the finish on my kitchen and dining room tables?

The number one enemy of any table finish is not liquids, but heat. Heat can come from many sources (hot pizza boxes from the delivery service are a prime culprit) and that concentrated heat will 'open' up the finish on most tables, allowing the undercoats to absorb moisture. As the heat source cools, the topcoat closes back up and you are left with a large whitish area underneath, known in the trade as 'blush'. This requires a professional to remove and reflow the top. Be sure to use a trivet or proper heat isolator when taking hot dishes to the table. A napkin or placemat is too thin and will not protect.

Remember too, that wood malleable. It dents and can scratch regardless of the maker or type of wood. Treat the tabletop like you would the hood of a new car and it will maintain its appearance and finish for years.

All horizontal surfaces have a heat and water resistant topcoating and will tolerate various degrees of moisture and heat. In general, alcoholic drinks are the ones to be concerned with and only if they have extended contact with the table surface.

Where is your furniture made? Will you give me the name and location of the cabinetmaker?

Our pieces are made entirely in the United States. Most come from New England and the mid-Atlantic states. We do not use imports. We do not release the exact location and phone numbers of our cabinetmakers. While everyone likes to try to save money by purchasing direct, our cabinentmakers sell only though us and other stores such as us. By calling them, or showing up on their doorstep, you are taking away valuable crafting time and in the end will be referred back to us for your purchase. We can answer any questions you may have about a piece, just contact us.

Skilled Labor in the U.S. never gets any less expensive over time. Health care and OSHA also contribute to high costs of operations. Materials that we use, such as wide board cherry and tiger maple, are always increasing over time. As mature forests get harvested, there is less and less wide stock available. Consider that a maple board that is 14" wide (typical for a side panel on a Highboy) came from a maple tree that was probably two feet in diameter, and you can see the reason why the material is hard to get.

Consider this however. As you almost never see advertising on handcrafted pieces, and there is no sales staff or office staff to support the typical cabinetmaker shop, most all the production dollars are cost of materials and labor. All the money goes into the piece itself, not on slick brochures or to support beautiful office buildings. While a handcrafted reproduction will cost 20 to 30 percent more than it's factory made counterpart, it will still be in service long after the other has been donated to the Salvation Army or put out in the garage sale. They are better made, with better finishes and will actually appreciate in time given reasonable care. It is not unusual for us to see ten to fifteen year old reproductions selling on the secondary market for more than the original price paid in our shop back in the 80's.

How does the typical construction differ between handcrafted and factory made?

Factory Made
.
Handcrafted

Belt Sanded (perfectly flat) Hand Planed (slight ridges)

Glued & Doweled Joints Mortise and Tenoned

Plywood or pressed wood drawers Solid pine or popular bottoms

Staples Hand cut nails

Rabbit-jointed drawers Dovetailed

Screwed-On Chest tops Dovetailed Cases

Lacquered finishes Water-based Dyes and Shellac finishes

Veneers or narrow board construction Wide board, solids

Glue-socketted chair legs Bore and wedge for strength

Stamped brasses Hand-filed cast brasses

Laser Carvings Hand Carved

Glued-Up Head & Footboards on beds 8-Way bolt-up beds

Latex or Lacquer Paint Real 18th Century Milk Paint

Magnetic Catches and latches Wooden turns

Plywood Backboards Tongue and grooved pine or popular

Why do you have a charge for a catalog(s)?

We are too small to do mass mailings or large productions runs of sales materials. Catalogs are sold 'at cost' and mailed same day, U.S. Mail First Class. Everything in the catalog is available on our web site.

Do you collect sales tax outside Virginia?

Only customers taking delivery of goods inside the state of Virginia pay the 4.5% VA sales tax. We do not collect taxes on pieces shipper or delivered outside Virginia.

Do you have a layaway plan on in-stock items?

Yes. 60 days with a 20% deposit.

What are my payment options? Do you finance?

We accept Visa, Mastercard, American Express and Discover cards. We do not offer in-house financing of purchases.

I saw an item in your store and when I came back to order it was gone. Can you get another?

Many of our furniture pieces, artwork, and oriental rugs are 'one-of-a-kind'. In some instances we cannot re-order.

I'm an Interior Designer / Architect / Builder / Commercial Establishment. Do I get a discount or can I buy Wholesale?

Sorry, but no. We have a one-price policy.

How authentic is your furniture?

Very. We supply many of the historic properties around the nation that can no longer (or afford) the original antiques for their property. Our furniture is divided into authentic replicas (exact copies) and adaptations. People are much larger today than they were 250 years ago. Were you to sit in an exact replica of a Windsor chair, for example, you would probably feel very cramped. Several pieces have been increased in size by ten percent or so to better accommodate the size of people today. Would you really want to sleep in a æ size feather bed rather than a queen size?

I mail-ordered my pieces and (upon arrival) have concerns that it does not look like my other furniture in the house.

If this is your first purchase of this category of furniture, you may be startled to see the shrinkage and expansion that wide board furniture goes though as a normal seasonal process. When using wide solid boards, they must be constructed to move with changes in temperature and humidity, otherwise the board will stress and split the length of its grain. You'll see evidence of this shrinkage on table breadboard ends as well as raised panels together with moldings on chests and the like.

Also, there is less finish material on our pieces than in the typical factory-made scenario. We start with a much higher grade of lumber and are finishes are lighter in texture (less layers) to show the beauty of the natural grain. This will also reveal more of nature's flaws as well. You'll also see tool marks and finish variances typical of hand-made pieces,

I'm concerned that your pieces will not 'match' my other pieces in the room. How can we get an exact match?

We don't even attempt to do match-ins. Matching furniture is a holdover from the 60's when the furniture industry told you that is what you should buy. In fact, if you look at a room where all the pieces match or are perfectly color-coordinated, you typically see a room that is boring to gaze upon. Using color and variety livens up your dècor and creates far more visual interest. Our pieces mimic the fine antiques of Colonial America. Were you shopping those antiques today, the very last criteria on your list would be if it matched your existing pieces. You buy an antique based on style, design, condition, merit and proportion. Sometimes even on color, but rarely to match something you already have. Let each piece stand out individually on its own merits and you'll find you can create a look that truly has its roots in fine antique collecting.

If you have any more questions that are not answered here, please feel free to email me at dcollie@keepingroom.com and I'll do my best to answer them.

Thanks for visiting our website!