For those in the SF bay area, I went to Room & Board today(Sat., just before closing) and they had a few good floor display deals that will be there in the morning(Sunday):
White spun floor($790) and table lamp($600)are 1/2 off.(Excellent condition, I almost bought the table).
George Nelson HM desk for about $600 off in excellent condition(Almost bought that too!!)
HM Nelson white Swag leg chair(I think about $225)
4 HM Eames white poly side chairs on Eiffel bases $175 ea
Flos Starck Archimoon table lamp with fabric shade $225
I went there with the intention to buy a small wire bowl and almost walked out the a lamp and desk. All are good deals in great condition, I hope this helps one of our addicts!
Room & Board's not what it use to be
Room & Board was originally started up by Gabberts, the leading high-end traditional and contemporary furniture store here in Minneapolis. They set up R&B as their modern furniture store, but it's now independently run by one of the Gabberts' sons.
Like Design Within Reach, R&B is a distributor for lots of good furniture lines (Herman Miller, Knoll, etc.), but like DWR, they only pick and choose to carry what they want and they do not promote that everything available from Herman Miller or Knoll (to name a few) could be special ordered from them.
Comparing them with Hive Modern, Retromodern, Utica Home, Highbrow, and other internet dealers of HM and Knoll and other good lines, both DWR and Room & Board seem a bit out of touch.
Now, just comparing Design Within Reach to Room & Board, and R&B seems especially out of touch. Their website is not very good, either.
So, my guess is that R&B is on their way out.....I'm not sure if you mean they just had stuff on sale, or are they in the process of closing their SF store? (I think they're a popular store here in the Minneapolis area, but they charge the same as everybody else AND charge for delivery...even locally.)
Puzzled
Puzzled by:
"they only pick and choose to carry what they want and they do not promote that everything available from Herman Miller or Knoll (to name a few) could be special ordered from them"
Why wouldn't they, and why would they ?
They're running a business- if it were my business, I wouldn't stock things I didn't want to, and certainly wouldn't tell my customers they can get the stuff elsewhere, it just wouldn't make any commercial sense ..
Sale
Room and Board is not closing their SF store, they are just selling a few store displays(As they always have) to rotate what is in their showroom. I have purchased a Sofa Compact and 2 Nelson benches without a problem. Their shipping is less than $100 for as much furniture as you can buy. The employees are also not on commission, so they don't bug the hell out of customers. One of my favorite things is that they have a lot of their smallers items in stock, I was very happy to get my Tolomeo Mega without having to wait.
Robert, you missed my point.
Yes, they can pick and choose what they choose to carry in their showrooms, but considering how much business HiveModern, Retromodern, Utica Home, Highbrow, and Home office Designs do on their websites, why wouldn't DWR and R&B provide ALL of the items that can be ordered on THEIR websites? Why would R&B only offer the Eames sofa in black leather, as if there's no other option?
The answer is...is because they're a bit stupid.
On top of all that, R&B charges for delivery, as does DWR. The others do not.
Whom would you buy from?
Who knows?
Who knows?
Perhaps they get a discount from the manufacturers on the black- because of the quantity they sell ?
Perhaps they don't want to piss their customers off with the long lead times that seem to be the norm for so many of these companies ?
Why not ask them?
I just think it is short-sighted to dismiss things as 'stupidity' when the 'stock the lot' option is clearly available to them.
They clearly have some idea of what they're doing..they're running a succesful business, after all.......
my guess would be, looking at their website, is that they have a very clear design ethos..
To answer the question about delivery, I'm not really in a position to answer specifics as I'm in the UK and know little of the place or where their stores are situated, but if customers are willing to pay a little more it is ususally for a few reasons..service, location,the look of the store or website (the aforementioned Design ethos) reputation,loyalty, speed and efficiency of ordering, the branding, the advertising..I could go on..
You're probably right, but
since if I bought anything from R&B or DWR, I'd have to pay for shipping plus sales tax.
If I buy something from the other offical Herman Miller or Knoll distributors on the web, delivery is free and no sales tax.
I'm considering the 2-seater Eames Sofa and at $7000.00, delivery and sales tax would be a nice chunk of change.
My primary frustration is going to either of their website and not finding all the items available for order. Also, I may be wrong, but when Herman Miller has their annual sale, I believe I sent to R&B's website and the sale was not being honored.
finally, I don't understand why you feel the need to defend them; I was only pointing out the differences between them and the websites...
There are differences
My wife and I were just in SF and we almost went to R&B, but bailed at the last minute. I'm thinking that was a good thing. 🙂
We bought a custom-made sofa from R&B. There was a spot on it that wasn't sewn right, so I called their customer service. They were prepared to have another sofa made and sent out to me for FREE or knock off 20% of my existing sofa. I would have had to wait another 6 weeks, but I could keep the sofa I had until the new one arrived.
I wonder how Hive would live up to that situation? I know that DWR and R&B's return policies (cash refund or store credit) are better than Hive's (store credit only). I have dealt with all of the above companies and have had good experiences. While I hated paying sales tax on the R&B sofa, I loved the way they handled my problem.
fm
Spun lamp
I couldn't suppress my want for the Spun Table lamp and picked it up today. They added a rosy angelis floor lamp by starck for $200 and a Wegner Wing chair(about $3k, see link). Nelson desk & Eames chairs are gone, anyone here get them?
http://www.roomandboard.com/rnb/product.do?method=get&id=663374&coll=250...
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