I would definitely go again and for sure think that it is worth it! I think we had a total of three days to shop, and yes it was sort of overwhelming because we had a long list of things we were looking for and so felt a little under pressure. I really regret not going to NC sooner as we had been looking for two leather sofas for our family room for years and finally setteled for/ordered some that we saw in a furniture store about 45 min from us. Later, when we were down in NC and I saw the huge selection of leather sofas, so many to choose from, I was so disappointed that we didn't wait because we are disappointed with the sofas we had ordered as far as comfort goes. We really liked Boyles and Adams furniture. We also like the patio furniture selection at Furnitureland South. They also had a great selection of leather sofas(too late for us though). We bought 12 beautiful carved mahogany dining chairs at the Adams furniture outlet. Also, ordered a large square tufted ottoman. While in NC we went to 1502 fabrics and picked out our material and did the ottoman COM. 1502 has an amazing selection of fabrics. We picked out patio furniture at Furnitureland South and a few other small items. When I go back again someday, I will probably do most of my shopping at Boyles and Adams furniture, and spend some time at Furnitureland South, they have a great selction of fabrics in their design room, once you pick out furniture pieces. Don't feel like you have to finalize your order when you are down there. You can work with a designer and make your selections of fabrics and sytles, get all the style #s and information, think about things for a few days, and then come home and do all the final calling around for best pricing and pay from home witha credit card. Rose furniture acutally has the best prices on a lot of things but the problem is you have to pay the downpayment ahead with a check versus Boyles you can put your downpayment with a credit card and then if you have a problem you have you credit card company standing behind you. We actually did order from Rose and were counting on not having any problems, but then found a major structural defect with the item the day after delivery. With Rose you also have to pay for the item upon delivery with a cashier's check, so anyway things were a big hassle for a while and we were really stuck. What a hassle! Make sure when the item is delivered that you take ALOT of time to check EVERYTHING over. I will definitely go back again someday.

10 years ago I ordered a new contemporary br & dr set from Furnitureland South and saved about 7K over local price. Also ordered sunroom furniture from another place and saved over 1K. Everything came in ontime and perfect. 2 years ago we built a new home and ordered almost a whole house of new furniture from NC & SC. Ordered the majority from Elite in SC.. excellent service.. but also used Boyles, and Beachers. The only problem I had was a major backorder on a vanity from Ambella.. not the distributors fault. As a small business owner I would rather buy local, even if I had to pay a little more.. I would.. but on this last major purchase(2 BR sets, 2 leather FR couches, Marge Carson Dining room, Kitchen table, chairs, barstools, desk for office, bath vanity.. ++ misc other) I saved easily 15K over buying local... I have never heard of Grindstaff.. but I haven't been looking for furniture lately.. Boyles has been around forever.. also check Elite in SC prices.. my last round of shopping they had the best prices over Boyles and FLS. Good Luck!

DB is creepy. That's exactly what I implied 9 years ago when this thread started. LOL. Article from Dallas News - Nov. 2016 This is a story about a creepy business gone bad that is now trying to go good. Do you remember DirectBuy? The company used to advertise in TV commercials as a members-only savings club for every kind of household item. You'd go to their showroom for a pitch and that's where the wackiness kicked in. If you didn't bring your spouse, you couldn't come in. If, after listening to the sales job, you decided not to buy a membership package right then and there (as high as $7,000), you were banned from coming back. If you bought and then found out that you couldn't buy what you wanted and the prices were not cheaper as promised, you couldn't get a refund. Lawsuits piled up. Consumer reviews were awful. I remember trying to interview franchise owners in 2010. They wouldn't talk to me. The PR guy for DirectBuy in Indiana didn't bother to answer all my questions. Yes, indeed. DirectBuy was a truly crummy company. Then the company disappeared. The TV ads stopped. The last of the 160 franchise stores, including one in Carrollton and another in Fort Worth, closed forever, leaving high-paying members angry and confused. Where did DirectBuy go? Answer: This month, the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, listing $185 million in debts to the best-known home furnishing and supply companies in the world. Sounds like the final act of an old-line company that couldn't cut it anymore, right? Turns out, it may be the beginning of a new DirectBuy. Chapter 2 I'll admit that I had to alter the course of this story. A crummy company filing bankruptcy? What's left to save? Turns out DirectBuy has quietly remade itself, as executives describe it, into an Amazon wannabe with "concierge customer service." No more 20,000-square-foot showroom stores. Everything is now online and mobile-ready. You want a certain sofa? You take a photo of it, and the new DirectBuy app recognizes the sofa and shows you their cheapest price. If it's not low enough, DB will drop even lower. Need a home decorator to come and help you? Sure. Got that, too. Live chat? Yep. The price for this service is $200 for a one-time initiation fee, and $40 a month in a one-year contract. That's thousands of dollars cheaper than the old cost that came with a three-year contract. DB also promises a refund if not happy within the first 90 days. That's a jolting change for the company's old ways, fighting to hold customers to their wacky restrictive contracts. DB claims 200,000 customers nationally. They now switch to the monthly subscription model when their contracts expire. Six years ago, my records show, DB had 10,000 customers in North Texas. Chief marketing officer Curt Hilliard says his mobile-ready company uses search tools to find the lowest price, including delivery charges. "We don't just meet the price," he promises. "We drop the price a guaranteed percentage." The bankruptcy establishes a "clean slate," says spokesman Mike Georgeff, the PR exec who was hard to pin down in the old days. Now he's pretty talkative about the future. The company expects to be acquired by its lenders who become the new owners, he says. "We can establish a clean slate for our future business and prosperity," Georgeff says. Be skeptical The company must prove itself as a reincarnated version of its old self, says Julie Baker, retired TCU professor of marketing. She checked out the older version years ago and realized the offerings were better suited for someone furnishing a house or doing a major renovation. Otherwise, initial costs to join were too steep to overcome. She told me this week that turning around a company with a bad customer service culture is very difficult. "For me, it just doesn't make sense, especially over the long term," she said. "I don't see how they can be profitable charging $40 a month. They have to make a profit on the furniture even if they say they are not. There are warning flags for me." Can the same company come back in a bigger and better way? I hope so. Remember, this is a story of a creepy business that's trying to reform. Certainly, we need more of that. Staff writer Marina Trahan Martinez contributed to this report. Check out The Watchdog on NBC5 at 11:20 a.m. Mondays, talking about matters important to you.

I just ordered fabric samples from CarolinaChair.com. There a few reviews for them here on Gardenweb. All reviews are great. Styles are limited but they do custom work for an upcharge. I ordered the samples on Thursday and I received an email confirming my request and another email to advise they mailed the samples yesterday. I'll give some feedback when I receive the samples.