Maine Cottage Furniture: quality? (Yarmouth, China: loan, bankrupt, high school)

[Maineah]

Originally Posted by OutDoorNut

With the price they want for stuff at that Cottage Furniture place, you could outfit a pretty good home workshop and make simple furniture like that yourself.

For less than the price of that furniture, when you're done, you'll have a house full of furniture with a first-class workshop of woodworking tools leftover.

And will have spent many happy hours building the stuff as bonus.

Not everyone is a woodworker!! My wife thought making simple Shaker style furniture might be a fun hobby so we invested in all of the tools necessary to do it nine years ago. I have a barn full of expensive tools. Powermatic 10 inch table saw, Powermatic 6 inch jointer, Makita 12 inch planer, Jet Drill press, Jet 18 inch bandsaw, Bulldog router table, biscuit joiner, 4 R/O sanders, two belt sanders, detail sanders, HVLP sprayer,dovetail cutters, electric planes, hand planes, chisels, mallets, **** of all kinds, 50 quick grip gluing clamps, 50 more Record gluing clamps and the list goes on and on. A good many of these tools have NEVER been used!
I made a nice maple and yellow birch woodworking bench and a screwed and pegged bathroom floor out of cherry and a few picture frames.. THAT WAS IT! The stuff has been sitting in the barn ever since. I keep it cleaned and rust proofed but I sincerely doubt we will ever use any of it. Carpenters we have hired LOVE to work here as they get to use all of the fancy tools!
I'll probably sell it all soon or trade it off for some needed carpentry work. Buying furniture is infinitely easier than making it.

[Maineah]

I stopped by Maine Cottage Furniture's showroom in Yarmouth yesterday. There was a sign on the door saying temporarily closed. The place was still full of furniture as was the entry way but there was no one around. I asked the man at the marine store what was going on and he said they were restructuring and he was waiting to hear from them soon. What that means is anyone's guess.

[OutDoorNut]

Originally Posted by Maineah

Not everyone is a woodworker!! My wife thought making simple Shaker style furniture might be a fun hobby so we invested in all of the tools necessary to do it nine years ago. I have a barn full of expensive tools. Powermatic 10 inch table saw, Powermatic 6 inch jointer, Makita 12 inch planer, Jet Drill press, Jet 18 inch bandsaw, Bulldog router table, biscuit joiner, 4 R/O sanders, two belt sanders, detail sanders, HVLP sprayer,dovetail cutters, electric planes, hand planes, chisels, mallets, **** of all kinds, 50 quick grip gluing clamps, 50 more Record gluing clamps and the list goes on and on. A good many of these tools have NEVER been used!
I made a nice maple and yellow birch woodworking bench and a screwed and pegged bathroom floor out of cherry and a few picture frames.. THAT WAS IT! The stuff has been sitting in the barn ever since. I keep it cleaned and rust proofed but I sincerely doubt we will ever use any of it. Carpenters we have hired LOVE to work here as they get to use all of the fancy tools!
I'll probably sell it all soon or trade it off for some needed carpentry work. Buying furniture is infinitely easier than making it.

I would enjoy it.

Whenever I want to buy something I could build myself, it's an excuse to spend my money on any new tools I might need and build it myself.

Then after I'm done, I had so much fun I start looking around for something else to use the new tools on.

I remember the first time I got an electric screwdriver.

I went over to my neighbor's and started repairing a wood fence in his backyard for the fun of it.

Same thing with one of those pruning shears on a pole--when I was finished pruning branches on my property, I went over to a friend of mine and did branches in his yard for the fun of it.

But then, I'm a little nuts.

I'm gonna have some happy neighbors when I move to Maine and get a snowblower or a plow for that truck I'm thinking of buying.

[SportFury59]

Originally Posted by Maineah

Not everyone is a woodworker!! My wife thought making simple Shaker style furniture might be a fun hobby so we invested in all of the tools necessary to do it nine years ago. I have a barn full of expensive tools. Powermatic 10 inch table saw, Powermatic 6 inch jointer, Makita 12 inch planer, Jet Drill press, Jet 18 inch bandsaw, Bulldog router table, biscuit joiner, 4 R/O sanders, two belt sanders, detail sanders, HVLP sprayer,dovetail cutters, electric planes, hand planes, chisels, mallets, **** of all kinds, 50 quick grip gluing clamps, 50 more Record gluing clamps and the list goes on and on. A good many of these tools have NEVER been used!
I made a nice maple and yellow birch woodworking bench and a screwed and pegged bathroom floor out of cherry and a few picture frames.. THAT WAS IT! The stuff has been sitting in the barn ever since. I keep it cleaned and rust proofed but I sincerely doubt we will ever use any of it. Carpenters we have hired LOVE to work here as they get to use all of the fancy tools!
I'll probably sell it all soon or trade it off for some needed carpentry work. Buying furniture is infinitely easier than making it.

That sounds like my dream shop (or Norm Abrams). In fact I'm going to look at a planer tonite.
The beauty of the Kreg *** is that it eliminates dowels, biscuits, dove tails, tenons, brackets, rabbets, etc. If you can measure a board, cut it, clamp it in ***, drill a hole, drive a screw; you're done. Lot's of woman woodworkers on the Kreg Community site.

[Coaster]

Originally Posted by Maineah

I stopped by Maine Cottage Furniture's showroom in Yarmouth yesterday. There was a sign on the door saying temporarily closed. The place was still full of furniture as was the entry way but there was no one around. I asked the man at the marine store what was going on and he said they were restructuring and he was waiting to hear from them soon. What that means is anyone's guess.

No answer to phone calls to their other stores in SC and Fla either, just answering machine.

[Maineah]

Originally Posted by OutDoorNut

I would enjoy it.

Whenever I want to buy something I could build myself, it's an excuse to spend my money on any new tools I might need and build it myself.

Then after I'm done, I had so much fun I start looking around for something else to use the new tools on.

I remember the first time I got an electric screwdriver.

I went over to my neighbor's and started repairing a wood fence in his backyard for the fun of it.

Same thing with one of those pruning shears on a pole--when I was finished pruning branches on my property, I went over to a friend of mine and did branches in his yard for the fun of it.

But then, I'm a little nuts.

I'm gonna have some happy neighbors when I move to Maine and get a snowblower or a plow for that truck I'm thinking of buying.

Too bad the house for sale across the street sold. I could use some pruning! I pay in beer too!

[Maineah]

Originally Posted by SportFury59

That sounds like my dream shop (or Norm Abrams). In fact I'm going to look at a planer tonite.
The beauty of the Kreg *** is that it eliminates dowels, biscuits, dove tails, tenons, brackets, rabbets, etc. If you can measure a board, cut it, clamp it in ***, drill a hole, drive a screw; you're done. Lot's of woman woodworkers on the Kreg Community site.

Oh yeah I have one of those Kreg **** too. It does the pocket screws right? I have that , a bunch of screws and a bunch of the weird angled plugs for the pocket holes.....never used it. Maybe someday!! I have to build a portable bar for my Daughter's wedding. Might be a good excuse to use up the cherry and dust off some of the tools out there.

[OutDoorNut]

Originally Posted by Maineah

Too bad the house for sale across the street sold. I could use some pruning! I pay in beer too!

Beer?

Say, I'll probably be buying one of those roof rakes, too.

[OutDoorNut]

Originally Posted by SportFury59

That sounds like my dream shop (or Norm Abrams). In fact I'm going to look at a planer tonite.
The beauty of the Kreg *** is that it eliminates dowels, biscuits, dove tails, tenons, brackets, rabbets, etc. If you can measure a board, cut it, clamp it in ***, drill a hole, drive a screw; you're done. Lot's of woman woodworkers on the Kreg Community site.

A couple of my friends have devices similar to the Kreg ***, and tell me it's a worthwhile tool to have.

[starwalker]

You, sir, have made me jealous! All through my teen and young adult years, my dad taught wood shop at the local high school and I got to use their wood shop after school, on weekends and during the summer (as long as dad was theoretically around -- after I graduated from HS, he's let me in and pick me up later.) I made a chest of drawers with dovetail jointed drawers, from birdseye maple, "the world's ugliest bookcase" (my first attempt at furniture design, also birdseye maple -- it got turned into a cradle for the babies much later), and a set of walnut end tables and a coffee table. I have never been able to afford many SERIOUS tools -- mostly now work with small electric or hand tools, and reading your list really made me miss the school shops.

Originally Posted by Maineah

Not everyone is a woodworker!! My wife thought making simple Shaker style furniture might be a fun hobby so we invested in all of the tools necessary to do it nine years ago. I have a barn full of expensive tools. Powermatic 10 inch table saw, Powermatic 6 inch jointer, Makita 12 inch planer, Jet Drill press, Jet 18 inch bandsaw, Bulldog router table, biscuit joiner, 4 R/O sanders, two belt sanders, detail sanders, HVLP sprayer,dovetail cutters, electric planes, hand planes, chisels, mallets, **** of all kinds, 50 quick grip gluing clamps, 50 more Record gluing clamps and the list goes on and on. A good many of these tools have NEVER been used!
I made a nice maple and yellow birch woodworking bench and a screwed and pegged bathroom floor out of cherry and a few picture frames.. THAT WAS IT! The stuff has been sitting in the barn ever since. I keep it cleaned and rust proofed but I sincerely doubt we will ever use any of it. Carpenters we have hired LOVE to work here as they get to use all of the fancy tools!
I'll probably sell it all soon or trade it off for some needed carpentry work. Buying furniture is infinitely easier than making it.