Best Furniture Brands: A Consumer Report On Home Decor and Furnishings

Home decor and furnishings are one of the most important aspects of our life. You relax on it, your kids play on it, you sleep or eat on it, and in so many cases, you have your entire life around a nice piece of chosen furniture. Many people go after furniture retailers which offer truly cheap furniture, and often omit any consideration for quality in pursuit of hitting a low price. Yet, quality furniture can make all the difference in your sweet home, though the best furniture brands are here for many years. Statistically speaking, for every quality piece of furniture on the market, there are 10 pieces of trash that won’t last a year. It is so sad but once you know the best furniture brands to choose from, then you can really focus on finding the styles and prices that meet your needs.

Buying furniture online is a lot more affordable, still, it can overwhelm even the most seasoned shoppers. To help dig through the chaos of online stores, we’ve compiled a list of what we feel to be the best furniture manufacturers on the market today. We’ve done the homework, so you don’t have to. We make it fun and effortless to shop for the best furniture that will last. Below, you’ll find a quick reference to the best furniture brands we discussed here:

Some manufacturers specialize in certain styles, such as antique, rustic, transitional, industrial, modern or traditional furniture. With such a variety of designs, it not easy to comprehend which furniture will work best for your space. Matching your needs with the right furniture brands can ensure you don’t waste your time. The best furniture brands and stores offer a wide selection that is easily sortable for comparing pieces. Knowing what to expect before you walk into a store or start online furniture shopping can make your purchasing decision easier. Also check our collection of essential books to furnishings and how to decorate your home.

Hooker Furniture

Hooker Furniture is a good example of a high-quality furniture brand which manages to stay up-to-date with present-day. Their catalog offers a lot of models, from traditional to modern styles. In 1925, Clyde Hooker Jr. pulled the cord on the steam whistle that signaled the first workday at Hooker Furniture.

In his 40 years leading the company, Clyde’s dedication to the pursuit of making stylish, beautiful, well-made furniture propelled the company to become one of the premier manufacturers of furniture. In 2000, Clyde passed the torch of leadership to Paul B. Toms Jr, grandson of the company’s founder, making Hooker Furniture a third-generation company and one of the few furniture firms still led by a member of the founding family.

Headquartered in Martinsville, Va. they maintain here a corporate office and several distribution facilities, employing around 800 people at their Virginia and North Carolina locations. Hooker Furniture is a parent to several other smaller furniture brands such as Sam Moore and Bradington-Young.

The custom upholstery by Sam Moore Furniture is manufactured in Bedford, VA. Much of the upscale leather upholstery line is manufactured in Hickory, N.C. by Bradington-Young.

At last, Hooker Furniture also imports an extensive line of wood bedroom, living room accents, dining room, home office, and home entertainment furniture and some leather furniture from factories around the world. The design and engineering of these furnishings is carefully overseen by Hooker Furniture or Bradington-Young in compliance with their finest standards. This type of investment and partnership shows that Hooker Furniture understands that being among the best furniture companies today depends on the capacity of its company to innovate and upgrade.

Hooker Furniture do not offer online sales through their website, though you can find great pieces of furniture by style using one of their online dealers.

Lexington Home Brands

Lexington furniture, now owned and operated by Lexington Home Brands, is a global leader in design, sourcing, manufacturing of upscale home furnishings. Since its founding in 1903, Lexington has grown to become one of the most respected companies in the home furnishing industry.

Their product line of wood, upholstery and outdoor living designs include the industry’s most diverse range of styling. They offer products for any room of the home, including bedroom, dining room, living room, home office, media room and outdoor living. The company feature recognized consumer brands like Tommy Bahama Home, Tommy Bahama Outdoor Living, Artistica Home, Barclay Butera, and Sligh.

Lexington Home Brands is headquartered in High Point, NC, with manufacturing and distribution facilities in Lexington and Hickory, NC. The wholesale showroom is in High Point, NC with trade showrooms in Denver and Manhattan. A dedicated Tommy Bahama Home retail store is in Newport Beach, CA. Residential products are distributed in the U.S. and internationally through a network of independent furniture retailers, interior designers and design firms, trade showrooms and select Internet retailers.

As a furniture brand for over a century, the Lexington Home Brands product assortment is presented as lifestyle collections. The company also produces home furnishings for the contract and hospitality markets. With their commitment to quality, Lexington Home Brands continues to manufacture recognized consumer brands with exceptional value and outstanding craftsmanship across a broad range of styling. Sure, the quality comes with an increased price, and Lexington is certainly not a furniture budget brand. You can discover deals for less and collections for more, but in the end, Lexington Home Brands produce upper mid-range to lower high-end furniture.

Bernhardt

Bernhardt Furniture was founded in Lenoir, NC. by John Bernhardt. Over the years continues to be one of the most popular brands with good reasons. Bernhardt has been one of the driving force of America’s furniture industry since the 1890’s, creating line products which are synonymous with elegance, beauty, and high-quality.

Marching over innovation, they introduce eye-catching new furniture into their collections and adapt to changing styles, while keeping traditional elements. For this reason, Bernhardt Furniture is a true representation of American style and success.

The company name is synonymous with excellent craftsmanship and high-end design. Skilled craftsmen still create unique pieces with individual hand working, original artful details and luxury materials allowing you to express your distinct personal style within your home.

Bernhardt Furniture has eight facilities across the globe employing about 1,200 people. Its corporate headquarters and several manufacturing facilities are located in the Caldwell County Town of Lenoir and have a 75,000 square foot showroom in High Point, North Carolina – considered by many as the furniture capital of the world.

Now led by the fourth generation, Bernhardt Furniture develop a series of brands, including Bernhardt Residential (1889: whole-home case goods and occasional furniture, fabric and leather upholstered seating), Bernhardt Design (1981: contemporary office furniture and textiles for the contract market), Bernhardt Interiors (2008: a curated whole-home collection of eclectic, customizable, high-design furniture), and Bernhardt Hospitality (2009: commercial furniture for the travel and leisure market).

Kincaid

Kincaid furniture is another iconic American furniture manufacturer based in North Carolina, USA. Their product line is mixed, but quality built and incredibly affordable. Over four generations, Kincaid Furniture has been built on a philosophy to make wood furniture in its most natural form, using solid wood construction.

They became a public company in 1983 to facilitate their growth with new facilities and national expansion. Many of today’s Kincaid employees are the third generation. La-Z-Boy purchased Kincaid Furniture in 1988, and have proven to be an ideal parent company for Kincaid. They remain committed to domestic hard-woods manufacturing and design.

In 2000, Kincaid Furniture became a manufacturer by adding an extensive line of custom upholstery with the purchase of an upholstery plant in Taylorsville, NC. Over the years, Kincaid Furniture has grown to become the industry’s leader in solid wood furniture.

Genuine solid wood is used on all exterior panels and shaped edges to provide quality and beauty that will last for generations – Kincaid does not use veneers.

All Kincaid solid wood products are crafted using a glue and screw technique across a finger-jointed corner, adding strength to the product while minimizing flex across the joint, while Kincaid’s dovetail drawer construction utilizes the best dovetail for each application. Where construction allows, English dovetails on the drawer front and back create a tight fit and add exceptional holding power.

Kincaid Furniture focuses their efforts and resources on those details that provide the greatest value to the consumer – and make furniture that lasts for generations.

Liberty Furniture

Liberty Furniture is a new manufacturer, specialized in furniture within the budget of mid-range pricing. This privately owned business is committed to providing its customers with home furniture of outstanding design, quality, and finish. Their quality craftsmanship is certainly enough to put value into your hard-earned money.

In 1992, Richard Brian took the opportunity to start his own business. He began with a vision of a company that would thrive on the values of hard work, fairness, and integrity. With only seven people and a modest section of a warehouse in west Atlanta, Liberty Furniture opened its doors selling only wood chairs and laminate table tops.

Steadily, the company introduced more casual dining styles and the vision began to take form. Early on, when Liberty could only afford a basement level showroom in High Point, Brian take chairs out to the street in order to entice customers. This initiative and passion for success is visible to this day and is at the very heart of Liberty Furniture. Now they have a warehouse location in Atlanta, Georgia, and Monee, Illinois. The company also has a showroom location in High Point, North Carolina.

Today, Liberty make use of premium hardwood and veneers to build beds, tables, chairs, and storage units of solid wood construction. They follow a detail-oriented sanding and finishing process to produce functional and also decorative pieces of furniture. From glass table sets and transitional home office desks to white finish casual dining sets and pub table sets in toffee finish to rustic oak sleigh beds and white youth bunk beds, you’re sure to be satisfied with the appearance, form, and style of the furniture pieces from Liberty Furniture.

Liberty doesn’t try to make the very best furniture on the market and has geared their entire business towards meeting the demands of the average buyer. However, Liberty Furniture really pulls off some great looks and knows the emerging styles very well. Each piece manufactured by Liberty is constructed with customer satisfaction in mind. They balance aesthetic know how with truly affordable pricing.

Stone & Beam

Stone & Beam collection from Amazon is the latest entry on the furniture big brands. You probably remember the days when Amazon only sold books – at the time, Amazon was not a household name. It’s grown because people desire the convenience it provides – fast shipping, useful services, and great tech that makes life more connected.

Indisputably, that success was why the company chose to launch more private-label brands like the Echo Dot & Alexa, in-house fashion brands like Goodthreads, baby and child care with Mama Bear, and a few more brands that offer household basics. Now, it’s on to a new venture: home furniture.

Stone & Beam furniture style is a bit more upscale, with warmer pieces and lighter finishes. The aesthetic leans toward clean, cozy, and slightly rustic – like a farmhouse that’s as comfortable and livable as it is picturesque. The mid-priced quality pieces ranging from furniture to bedding to an excellent selection of lighting.

The price points are a little higher than the Amazon Rivet collection, but not so much that they render the furniture unreasonable by any means.

Overall, the furniture pieces from Stone & Beam collections are sturdy, well-constructed, and easy to assemble. Stone & Beam certainly does offer some standout styles that can really serve as accent pieces in your home.

There’s so much variety, and the prices are almost always less than the equivalent or similar styles from competitors. You’d be hard-pressed to find such a large selection of quality designs at a similar cost.

I definitely recommend checking out Stone & Beam furniture collection if you’re looking to style your place or start from scratch. Your friends won’t be able to find out that you didn’t spend thousands of dollars on a big furniture brand, but your wallet sure will appreciate. The best news of all, of course, is that with a Stone & Beam buy, Amazon Prime users can enjoy free shipping on everything they order, and returns are free within 30 days – Amazon really knows how to do businesses!

Stanley Furniture

Stanley Furniture is another big name, a renowned in the universe of home decor and furniture, an industry icon. Preferred by homeowners and designers around the world, Stanley has built its reputation on original designs, quality craftsmanship, and attention to details. Their collections reflect a refinement that will elevate the style and substance of your home to new heights.

It is another story of decades of long-lived success, as the company was founded in 1924 by Thomas B. Stanley in the Commonwealth of Virginia. From a simple farmer to a successful industrialist, the read for Thomas Stanley wasn’t easy but interesting.

The roots for Stanley Furniture were humble, as the Industrial Revolution swept through the South at the beginning of the 1900’s, and workers moved from farm to factory. Yet, workers brought with them their skills, work ethics, and craftsmanship that greatly contributed to building such a company.

Thomas B. Stanley wasn’t just a simple capitalist, he also serves as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, and it was elected as a governor of Virginia in 1953. After his gubernatorial term ended, Stanley resumed his oversight of the furniture business, as well as became vice president and director of the First National Bank.

Today, Stanley Furniture is a publicly-traded company and continues to innovate with truly unique and inspiring designs. Stanley, as many of the best furniture brands found here on this list have kept a keen eye on emerging design trends. The majority of their style could be best described as a modern interpretation of traditional styles, though they are no strangers to more contemporary and modern styled lines.

Stanley took an aggressive step to stay domestic when the great majority of its competition gave up and chose to import. The company spent lots of money on technology in an effort to make this strategy work. They offer upscale wood residential home furnishings, including dining, bedroom, living room, home office, home entertainment, and accent items, as well as nursery and youth furniture. Stanley Furniture honors his legacy every day with their pledge to deliver striking designs, exquisite finishes, superior quality and exceeding customer service.

Ashley Furniture

Love them or hate them, Ashley Furniture is in our top. Ashley is best known for affordable furniture and their giant HomeStores. Their products are made for budget consumers looking for a quick delivery. Since their designers have coordinated all collections, you can achieve a cohesive look for your home.

In 1945, Carlyle Weinberger founds Ashley Furniture Corporation as a sales organization with headquarters in Chicago, Illinois. Specialized in wooden occasional furniture, Ashley marketed goods made by local companies. In 1970, Ashley invested in the Wisconsin-based Arcadia Furniture and moved to Arcadia to open his own factory. Late in 1982, Arcadia Furniture and Ashley Furniture Corporation to merge into one company: Ashley Furniture Industries, and corporate headquarters were moved to Arcadia, WI.

The first Ashley HomeStore was opened in Anchorage, Alaska in 1997. Since then, the company has become the #1 home furniture retailer in North America. They have stores located throughout the United States, Canada, Mexico, Central America, Japan, Kazakhstan, and Singapore. The company has US manufacturing facilities in Wisconsin, Mississippi, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, as well as international manufacturing locations abroad.

The company has a few divisions: Ashley Casegoods, Ashley Upholstery, Millennium, Ashley Sleep and all HomeStores carry selections from these three groups. The Casegoods division consists of dining room sets, bedroom sets, table sets, wall units, storage units. There is a wide range of selection in price, style, color, and finishes. The upholstery division (Signature Design line) include all the sofas, loveseats, and sectionals. Their sofa groups and sectionals range from traditional to contemporary, in different fabric and leather.

The Millennium Collection is the highest quality that Ashley offers. These pieces are better made using more quality material. Millennium features modern, yet timeless pieces, for the bedroom, dining room, living room, and everywhere in between. Ashley Sleep introduced its mattresses in 2008, and become one of the fastest growing brands. By leveraging their global resources, Ashley Sleep is able to construct mattresses, foundations, and pillows with higher quality comfort materials that are typically found in products at a much higher price point.

Ashley Furniture sells directly to consumers through Ashley HomeStores all over the country. There are also franchised, independently owned stores that carry Ashley products exclusively. You can also find their collections at most neighborhood retail and online stores. The furniture is of reasonable quality, but not the best in the branch. After all, you get what you pay for, and most Ashley furniture is very budget friendly. It is best suited to those who are making their first home or have a very small budget.

Sauder Furniture

Sauder Furniture has been around for over 80 years, having gotten its start as a family woodworking business. They are a leading producer of ready-to-assemble (RTA) furniture and one of the top five residential furniture manufacturers in the United States.

In 1934, Erie Sauder started a woodworking business in a barn behind his home in Archbold, Ohio. At the start it was a builder of custom cabinetry and church pews, after a while he began crafting small tables from the fine, leftover wood. Everything changed in 1940 when an inspired traveling salesman places an astounding order of 25,000 tables – a seemingly impossible purchase order for a small company.

With a little ingenuity and a lot of determination, Sauder Woodworking Co. grew and flourished. Later in 1953, Erie find the answer to its calling – a patented table that could be assembled at home. This snap-together table marked the beginning of the RTA furniture industry. To these days, Sauder is still a privately held, third-generation, family business with a solid prestige.

Their furniture products are unbelievably affordable for the quality and looked executed. As a simple fact, 90 percent of Sauder furniture is manufactured in Archbold, Ohio – right where the company was founded. Although the town is small, the facility is expansive. With some of the most technologically advanced equipment in the world, the facility features nearly 4 million square feet of space, employs about 2,400 workers and houses a wide variety of local and imported materials. The Sauder family of companies generates sales of over $500 million annually.

Sauder markets more than 40 distinct furniture collections in a full line of RTA furnishings for the home, including entertainment, home office, bedroom, kitchen, and storage. They also source furniture from a network of quality global partners, including a line of office chairs that complement its residential and light commercial office furniture.

Subsidiaries include Progressive Furniture Inc, a designer, and importer of a wood bedroom, dining and accent furniture; and Sauder Manufacturing Company, a leader in the church, educational and healthcare seating. Other market segments include Sauder Funeral Products, a line of wood caskets and other funeral industry products; and WoodTrac, a line of wood ceilings and closet systems for residential and commercial markets.

Atlantic Furniture

Atlantic Furniture has over 30 years of experience in the furniture industry. They designs, manufactures, and imports solid hardwood furniture and mattresses. The company have a strong commitment to quality, safety and the environment protection. Atlantic integrated collections embrace a variety of today’s lifestyles to meet customer needs.

They invest in quality craftsmanship providing a lifetime of satisfaction to customers. All furniture products are designed by company founder Mark Valone, and benefit from his decades of experience. His ideas and designs are than transformed into functional furniture by partners around the world, each specializing in a different area of furniture manufacturing. All pieces are then shipped back to Atlantic Furniture‘s warehouse in South Deerfield, Massachusetts where they are carefully inspected for quality before being shipped directly to your home.

Safety is a core tenet of Atlantic designs. All furniture products include exclusive safety features that increase strength and durability while reducing risk of injury. For each piece they use solid hardwood construction and steel reinforcements to extend product life.

Atlantic Furniture is very proud to manufacture its products using eco-friendly, plantation-grown hardwood. Most products use timber from the Para rubber tree, also known as rubberwood or Hevea. They make use of plantation-grown mahogany, white birch, and Italian poplar. Using these types of hardwood is both economically practical and environmentally responsible.

The finishing process begins with a thorough sanding of each and every component, followed by the application of a wiping filler to microscopically seal the wood pores. This filler is thoroughly hand rubbed into the surface of the furniture, and, once dried, a wood stain is applied to even the grain and alter the color of the wood. The process of building the protective coating continues with a lightly tinted primary sealer that is absorbed into the outer surface of the wood. After curing, a fine abrasive polishing is performed. A secondary sealer, which produces smooth surfaces and uniform wood tone, is applied and finished with a final topcoat.

With a multitude of products to choose from that accommodate every need, Atlantic Furniture is proudly able to provide top values in home furnishings. You will discover your own unique home furnishing that will accentuate the comfort and attraction of any room in your home.