Pompanoosuc Mills

I absolutely love Pompanoosuc Mills furniture. It is beautiful and well crafted. That is why I decided to invest in a new dining room set from this store. I have a very large dining room and when I say invest, I do mean that I dropped quite a chunk of change here. So I was pleasantly surprised when my furniture arrived prior to the Thanksgiving holiday, though I had been led to believe that I wouldn’t get it until early December. The pleasantness of the surprise was short-​lived however as the fumes of the polyurethane it was finished with caused me headaches and sinus congestion for weeks! When I spoke to the store manager to report a minor imperfection in the finish I also took the opportunity to mention the fumes and the fact that I felt I should have been warned of this ahead of time. And, that the furniture really should have been held at the mill until it had completely off-​gassed. Her stance was that the fumes really couldn’t be that bad and that I most certainly had been aware of the polyurethane finish when I purchased the furniture so shouldn’t be surprised by it. In fairness, I was given a discount due to the imperfection, so that does count in their favor. However, I really feel that if you are selling such an expensive and hand-​crafted product that there should be more discussion up front about the use of potentially toxic finishes. I also had to request printed instructions for care of the furniture — something that almost all furniture from any retail store would come with automatically.

This is definitely not my kind of furniture. The wood is too light, the lines are all ‘forced’ to look cool, but fail — and the showroom is loaded with so many audubon-​esque pictures and statues that only a 50-​something from central Iowa could likely appreciate. Add to that ridiculous price tags, and you are pretty much guaranteed I am walking out of here with wallet untouched.
But I will browse, just to check things out — and I do appreciate local woodwork craftsmanship.
But the best (?) thing about this place is that, while browsing in a mostly empty store, a sales clerk struck up a conversation with me — weather, what am I looking for, etc — 5 minutes or more we chatted then I wandered off.
5 minutes later she introduced herself to me again, as if the previous conversation never took place. Odd, no?