Hi, I am looking to make my first online purchase of Amish furniture
and would like to know if I am making the right decision. I am looking
to order a mission style dining room table along with 6 chairs. I have
shopped local furniture stores in my area and came to love the quality
of Amish furniture. However, the furniture cost is higher at the local
stores. So I turned to online and used ://www.google.com to find
stores online that sell Amish furniture. I've narrowed down to two
sites of which I think would be the best place to buy.
http://www.onlineamishfurniture.com and
http://www.amishfurnituresite.com. Both offer free shipping, which is
a main purchasing factor for me. However,
http://www.onlineamishfurniture.com offers a free table pad whereas
http://www.amishfurnituresite.com offers a free gift. I think the free
gift is nice but I would probably use the table pad more. I have
called both sites and customer service was great with both. Well
that's what I came up and now I'm here. My question is am I making the
right decision in purchasing Amish furniture from an online retailer
as opposed to a retail store where the cost is more? What other
advantages or disadvantages from ordering online?

umzy

Hmmm?  None of the furniture on the first pages looks Amish to me, but
if that is what you want ...   I may have some wrong preconceptions,
but the "aggressive" first page of the first named site also doesn't
fit my image of Amish ...

Try Borkholder furniture out of Nappanee, IN.  Definitely authentic. 
My wife used to work there before we moved to Kentucky. The furniture
is VERY high quality.  I think they have a web site... 
www.borkholder.com ?

I don't know what part of the country you're in, but I would suggest
to check out Clayborne's Amish Furniture
(http://www.claybornesamishfurniture.com) located in Lexington SC. 
They will personally deliver stuff in a pretty wide window along the
east coast between Ohio, PA, NY and those areas, down through the
South - Tennesee, Kentucky, Virginia, and even the Florida panhandle. 
If you live outside that area they will have to ship, but if you live
near any of those areas it might not hurt to check them out.

Umzy, I think you've found the two best sites on the net. These other
comments are useless. The borkholder site doesn't even allow you to
purchase items online, and obviously doesn't offer free shipping, or
in that case free anything. The other site isn't much better. As far
as I could tell they also didn't allow you to checkout online. If you
could, there were no special offers. I would have a hard time
purchasing anything over $100 from a site whose overall appearance is
horrible. I think you should go with the onlineamish site because they
offer you a free tablepad, free shipping (if order is above $3,000),
and a price level discount. I recently purchases a table pad for my
mission table and the total cost $425 or (9¢ an inch). I hope this
comment helps in your decision.


let me know

thanks

Being, X-Old Order Amish, I know that there are always small
home-based businesses located throughout the states. The best place to
find out about local specialities is to browse the state tourism
website.  The counties that are known for larger Amish populations
will usually have furniture for sell.  Of course, you will have to
travel to the area, as most sects only have a community telephone for
emergency calls.  My X-fiance's cousins are moving to Kentucky this
summer, so I may have a link with their address on my
website-www.teresaphillips.com.  Until then, browse the web.  Pack a
lunch and make the trip a enjoyable, "day" trip!