Perhaps I can help. I'm a degreed Engineer in the furniture industry with 32 years of experience, primarily in the upholstery industry. One of my projects was to come up with a way to produce frames on demand. At that point we had 250,000 parts in bins to support the immediate assembly of any frame purchased by the customer. This is very high quality furniture and competes with Century, Lee, Ethan Allen, etc. That was 1990 and the investment amounted to 1 million plus. As computers and software $ came down, we now could get the equipment but not the raw material. Furniture grade plywood had not yet been made...understand tat it is very different from construction grade with much greater strength and consistancy. Over a period of several years, companies came up with laminated hardwood panels that proved to be much stronger than hardwood frames.....unfortunately called plywood. Purdue, North Carolina State, and Mississippi State have all tested the strenght vs hardwood and agree it can be superior. Notice CAN BE. Many manufacturers use lower grade plywood which will not withstand the test of time. The same is true of manufacturers using hardwood....some don't even kiln dry the lumber but it's still hardwood! As with anything, research. Most companies will gladly answer any questions now that you know what to ask. I have seen the Century frame and "plywood" material that is specially produced to Century's standards. Century has always been associated with high quality and they have not changed. I can assure you, it will last a lifetime.

Whoa. Those questions will require pretty much an entire education in wood and furniture construction. Don't be too hard on those salesmen. Their employers are just buying stuff from a factory and don't educate the employees about the products. There's a lot to learn in the woodworking field. 1. The short answer is that neither solid wood nor veneered furniture are better. Badly made furniture is bad and well crafted furniture is good. I wish I could locate the original source, but I've been informed that studies conducted by the Smithsonian revealed that veneered furniture tended to survive longer than solid wood pieces. I cannot find the source but I suspect this is because a lot of solid wood furniture is built for utilitarian purposes and is more likely to be tossed than many veneered pieces which can be highly decorative and are treasured by collectors. A lot of the period furniture found in museums use veneer and those who aren't woodworkers just assume it's all solid. Veneer got a bad reputation due to companies like Sauder that mass-produced a large quantity of cheap furnishings by covering flaky particle board with thin veneers. This is not the fault of veneer that it was used poorly. Other companies stuck veneer across pieces of solid wood then humidity-related expansion and contraction caused it to fall off. Solid wood is assumed to be superior by many because dents and scratches can be sanded out and refinished. A gouge in solid wood doesn't look as bad as a gouge in veneer that reveals mdf underneath. However, solid wood does have a major limitation in that it shrinks, grows, cups, twists and warps as the humidity of the surrounding environment changes. This movement cannot be prevented, it can only be directed. Sometimes uneducated designers attempt to force the solid wood to stay in place to get a particular aesthetic and this results in furniture that self-destructs. Those designers should have used veneer instead. Veneer is thin enough that the movement can be eliminated by gluing veneers to both sides of a stable substance like plywood, mdf or particle board to create a panel that remains pretty much the same shape and size at all times. The thin veneer cuts also make it possible to take one highly figured board and arrange the slices of it into matching patterns. If you ever see furniture with the grain arranged in patterns, it is likely veneer. So the answer is that solid wood is best used in places likely to be abused while veneer is best used for decorative reasons, or for surfaces that need to remain stable to prevent the furniture from breaking itself apart. When I do veneer work, I make sure that I put pieces of solid wood in the corners and other areas likely to get damaged. This utilizes both materials to their best advantage. Furniture that is destined for heavy abuse is best made from solid wood. No one would want fancy decorative patterns on utilitarian pieces anyway. 2. Just about any kind of material can be used underneath veneer. MDF, particle board, plywood and solid wood are all common. Each one has advantages and disadvantages. Your concern about mdf is somewhat on target, many of them do contain a lot of chemicals but that is true for most engineered woods including plywood. These days it is possible to get formaldehyde-free versions. Also, professional lumber suppliers sell mdf and particle board that are much tougher and more damage-resistant than the stuff used in cheap furnishings. MDF: This has the smoothest surface of the commonly used substrates for veneer. It is a stable material that won't change much in length or width as humidity changes. It has the advantage of being easier to work with than particle board. Downsides are that it is more likely to sag than most other substrates, is heavy and with the exception of water-proof versions, water will damage it quickly. In practice, a properly made veneer panel will prevent water from reaching the MDF core unless it's subjected to standing water for some time. Particle Board: This is much lighter than MDF, is almost as smooth on the surface and is less prone to sagging. It's more of a pain to work with however and the edges are easily damaged. If the edges are protected by solid wood, that becomes a non-issue. Like MDF, it is very stable. Plywood: Strong, durable, stable and usually much lighter than MDF or particle board. The downside is that the surface is not perfectly flat or uniform and this sometimes shows through to the surface of any veneer applied to it. Those large, dead-flat conference tables with mirror finishes likely have mdf or particle board under the veneer and not plywood. Solid wood: This is a viable option but veneered furniture made this way loses out on the stability advantage of engineered products. Veneered solid wood will more or less act just like solid wood. No one will get a modern conference table with this technique. If you see this, it's likely done to save money on materials by using cheap wood then applying a skin of expensive wood over that. Sometimes the veneer is a rare exotic species which is only sold as veneer. That poplar and cherry veneer bed frame? It could very well be poplar with a skin of cherry. I'd have to see it in person to know. 3. I don't know anything about that particular brand of furniture so I can't help with this question. If it doesn't specifically say that cherry wood is used, then it's probably a cheap, lightweight material that's been stained to a "cherry finish". This post was edited by JAAune on Sat, May 31, 14 at 21:36

I love this forum, thank you all so much for your responses! wizardnm-Thanks for posting those pics and clarifying your cab construction. You know, I'm not sure how to answer your question if my guy is trying to "get out of" applying the melamine as his shop. He indicated he'd priced having someone else apply it and when he got the price, it put the material way ahead price wise of the other choices. johnnyl53 and cheri127, your posts are really putting my mind at ease RE: particleboard. I know the majority of cabinets are probably constructed with particle board, but it still helps to know that others have chosen them and that they'd held up well. I saw a sample of the vinyl covered plywood and didn't like how the edges could already be separated from the plywood core. By contrast the melamine covered particleboard was adhered perfectly and seemed like it would clean up nicely. I also had a chat with the cabinet guy about my various concerns... RE: formaldehyde outgassing, he emphasized the the exposed edges of the materials are when the materials outgas the most (i.e. at the shop during fabrication) and he felt that those edges are then contained pretty well with edgebanding and/or the solid wood door faceframes. (I guess similar to if you have asbestos or lead paint; it's ok/safe to seal them in with paint, but cutting into them/creating dust is the hazardous part.) RE: particleboard vs plywood, he feels both have sufficient strength/longevity in terms of resisting shelf sagging etc, but that plywood had the upper hand as far as impact resistance. (e.g. you throw a baseball and it would dent the particle board more easily than plywood.) Given that these are combined with the solid wood faceframes, I'm not sure whether that is even an issue I need to worry about. At this point (unless I get some more feedback here otherwise) I'm inclined to go with the formaldehyde free melamine coated particle board. He's estimating it might be $100-150 dollars for the formaldehyde free materials, which is worth my peace of mind about that issue. I know the melamine will clean up well/be more easy care than the vinyl or painted surfaces. And by choosing the melamine particleboard I won't have to worry about whatever aftermarket adhesive chemicals would be used to bond the melamine to a plywood core. Thank you all again!

I decided to go with a solid color on the sofas and a large floral print on the two chairs. The store I'm going to provides complimentary consultations with a decorator. I met with her today and we picked out a few fabrics that work beautifully together. I'm still a little worried about the solid fabric. It's a nice "oat" kind of color and texture, but it seems a little thin. And I'm just a little nervous about having two big blobs of neutral furniture in so central a spot. But this is what everyone seems to do, so I'm trying to have faith! Would you all give me your honest opinions on the style of the sofa I've linked below? It's different from any I've seen before. On its own, I see it as having a cute personality, but again, I have trouble seeing things in context. Does anyone see a potential downside to its style? None of the dealers seem to have it on display, so I'd have to order it based on this photo. I know the dimensions are comfortable, but I wish I could see it in person first. Beausoleil, I love the color of your couch!! Is it rayina raspberry, by any chance? It looks like it has a great texture, too. We're probably going to get Lee furniture, too: two slipcovered sofas (apartment sized) and two chairs. Here's a link to the styles I'm considering: Lee sofa 123-11 and: Lee chair