Ethan Allen

I bought a lot of furniture here several years ago (to furnish 2 bedrooms, 1 living room, 1 dining room, and 1 office). The furniture is beautiful, but unfortunately the durability really varies from piece to piece.
A lot of the wood pieces (but not all) scratched extremely easily. If I even put a piece of paper down on my desk and wrote on the paper, the desk scratched underneath. I finally bought glass tops for the wood furniture, which came with little round plastic pieces to raise the glass slightly above the wood. After a while I realized that even these plastic pieces had made permanent marks in the wood finish. I should have known this would happen because the samples of these wood pieces in the Ethan Allen showroom were really scratched up, but the sales associate insisted to me, «Oh, that’s just because our showroom furniture gets soooo much use. If you have these pieces in your home, they won’t get scratched up like this.» Wrong! (Note to self: Stop believing people who are trying to sell you expensive stuff! And know that if furniture is really scratched up in the store, it will be the same in your home!).
My Ethan Allen couch also stained very easily. The sales associate talked me into getting a white couch, even though I was worried about stains, by saying, «Our fabrics are protected by scotch guard. You don’t need to worry.» Wrong again! Any little spill on the couch would never come out. Since this experience, I always get a fabric sample before buying fabric furniture, and I take the sample home and pour tomato sauce, Coke, pesto, etc. on it. Then I can see for myself how easily the fabric gets stained before I buy it.
I ended up giving most of my Ethan Allen furniture to a relative. Even though he got it for free, I would occasionally get a phone call complaining, «This furniture isn’t durable! Why does it scratch and stain so easily?» It’s his problem now.