Casco Bay Furniture Review- The Expertise of our Furniture Factories – Who Makes our Furniture

We are often asked, “Who makes the furniture for Casco Bay Furniture?” Most retailers in the furniture industry tend to stay with large, well-known manufacturers to build their furniture. We chose to have our furniture built by specialty manufacturers for several reasons. To begin with, we like to have a close personal relationship with our factory owner and our in-house product developer. This relationship is difficult to obtain with a large manufacturer. As a result, our leather furniture is built to our standards and specifications which is one of the highest standards in the industry.

At Casco Bay Furniture, we build a product of exceptional quality. One of the best in the industry, in our opinion and in the opinion of many. Our product line is produced exclusively in North Carolina.

We are often asked, “How can our prices be so competitive?” It’s very simple, our specialty factories does not have the enormous overhead of a large manufacturer with multiple brands, hundreds of employees,  multi million-dollar showrooms and hundreds of retailers to support with their own high cost showrooms and warehouses filled with unsold inventory.

At Casco Bay we purchase all of our own leather eliminating the factory mark up on leather. Full grain full aniline dyed leather can represent 40% or more of the wholesale cost of a leather sofa or sectional.  Additionally our overall mark up is substantially lower than a typical furniture retailer.

These savings are passed along to our customers.

 Our business model makes it possible to sell high end, high quality furniture at very affordable pricing.

Our design, manufacturing, warehousing and transportation are all located in North Carolina.  

Our Manufacturers. We have partnered with specialty factories to produce our furniture. The owner of one of these companies that produces our leather furniture, is Tim Shook. Tim owns Jonathan Wesley Furniture. Tim spends his day on the factory floor. He selects every leather hide used in upholstering our sofas. His background is in high-end furniture, built to the gold standard (to be discussed later). To ensure that every customer’s order is made to our standards, Tim inspects every sofa upon completion.

Jonathan Wesley Furniture is located at 5941 Rink Dam Road in Taylorsville, NC. Tim grew up in the business. His family owned a high-end upholstery company, called Taylor King,  in Taylorsville, NC considered  to be the premier upholstery manufacturer in the country. Taylor King was founded in 1974 by Rachel and Herman Shook. Tim was the plant manager for Taylor King. Prior to becoming plant manger Tim spent 5 years as a spring-up man, 8 years in upholstery and several years in product development. The family sold the business to the owners of Hancock and Moore, one of the leading, but most expensive, manufacturers of high end leather upholstery, located in Hickory, NC, where Tim remained after the sale as the plant manager.

Jonathan Wesley Furniture located at 5941 Rink Dam Road, Taylorsville, North Carolina. Their 25,000 foot building, is a fully air conditioned, state of the art facility with 18′ foot ceilings. Jonathan Wesley has built furniture for Country Superstars, Movie Stars, NFL, MLB, NBA and UFC Players.

Several years later, Tim decided to branch out on his own, opening  Jonathan Wesley Furniture, making a comparable product in quality to the one he produced at Taylor King. Jonathan Wesley Furniture specializes in high-end fabric and leather upholstery.

The pattern maker is the single most important person in any upholstery factory.

All of the upholsterers at Jonathan Wesley Furniture, who tailor our furniture, were his former employees. His director of product development is Roger Jones. Roger has 46 years of experience, previously as Director of Product Development for Vanguard Furniture and 12 years at Hancock and Moore. First as a upholsterer and then as a pattern maker. The pattern maker is the most important individual in any upholstery factory. Roger can produce a sofa from a picture. Jonathan Wesley Furniture has some of the most talented people in the industry and were quickly singled out for making a superior product.

Our product line is built to the gold standard.

What is the Gold Standard?  The centerpiece of the gold standard is 5/4 hardwood framing and a true 8-way, hand-tied, hand-knotted spring.

8 way hand tied frame
Completed 8 way hand tied spring photographed in our North Carolina Factory.

Our frames are made from 5/4 Appalachian Maple. Our lumber is supplied by Associated Hardwoods of Granite Falls, NC,  the same supplier used by Century, Hancock and Moore, Sherrill and others when they build with solid wood. Today, as a cost saving measure, 98% of the industry have switched to plywood frames, including Century Furniture, Hancock and Moore and Taylor King, many disguising the name as, Cross Directional Laminate, Hardwood, Manufactured or Engineered Laminated Hardwood, Mortise and Tennon Oak Joinery and Unibody. http://associatedhardwoods.com/

True 8-Way, Hand-Tied, Hand-Knotted Springs. This is a four layered spring with steel banding across the base and large 10 inch coil springs compressed to 6 inches. Very few companies employ this spring system due to the expense of building it.

detail of frame being built to hold cushion.
Our 5/4 solid Maple frame with steel banding across the frame base.

Tufting.  At Casco Bay Furniture we employ traditional hand needle tufting. Virtually every catalog company and almost every manufacturer actually pre-tufts, in this case leather covered buttons with nails on the ends are pushed through the leather and held with a washer. Why pre-tuft? It’s fast, easy and saves money. Why not? The buttons fall out, the tufts are weak and there aren’t many skilled tufters left in the industry.

Cushioning. We offer five different quality seat cushion options and three back cushion options. All of our cushions are down-blend wrapped cushions with foam or spring-down cores. We offer four cushions with high resiliency foam cores, considered to be one of the best cushions available. Our High Resiliency Spring Down Cushion is our most popular cushion.

Leather Quality. At Casco Bay Furniture we carry 149 full grain full aniline dyed leathers accounting for 99% of our sales, representing the top 6% of leathers sold on upholstery worldwide.  Moore and Giles of Forest Virginia is our exclusive supplier. 95% of the leather sold at Casco Bay comes from one  tannery located in Bassano Del Grappa, VI, Italy, the most respected in the world. Leathers tanned in the European Union must follow strict formulation guidelines. This is the same supplier used by Century, Hancock and Moore, Ralph Lauren, Sherrill, Taylor King and other high quality, but high priced manufacturers. https://www.mooreandgiles.com/leather/shop/

detail of work being done on sofa arm
One of our upholsterers applying nailhead trim to a Kingsbridge sofa.

Experience. Our factory owners, our craftsmen and our business are generational. The upholsterers, the spring up men, and sewers have decades of experience. Most were sample makers from other high-end companies. My dad, born and raised in Fayetteville, North Carolina, started in the furniture business in 1944, 78 years ago, having just returned from the war. After receiving an MBA I began my career as a brand manger for a Fortune 500 company transitioning to the furniture industry in 1978, 43 years ago.

Our exclusive supplier for our recliner mechanisms, in our recliner and Vari-Tilt program, is Ultra-Mek of Denton, North Carolina. Ultra-Mek produces the premier mechanism in the industry. https://ultramek.com/

Our Vari-Tilt reclining chair features 8 way hand tied, hand knotted inside back springs. A recliner back spring system of this quality, comfort and durability is rare in the industry. As a rule reclining chair inside backs are built with sinuous springs (S shaped wires stretched across the back which are nailed or stapled to the frame). Other industry options: Bradington Young uses a Woven Webbing back  (commonly known as Pirelli Webbing) in their recliners. Hancock and Moore, has two options in their reclining and tilt back chairs, using either a Flexalator unit (comprised of  a series of horizontal wires with 4 vertical cords, held in place by small hooked springs which are then attached to the frame) or Sinuous Springs, often with 2 Woven Webbing straps along the top, depending on the style.

Toxic Chemicals. Our leather sofas do not contain many of the toxic chemicals commonly found in leather furniture. When sitting or lounging these chemicals are in in close contact with the human body. Plywood generally, but not always, contains formaldehyde. We only purchase leather that is formaldehyde free, not all leather is. Very few retailers are even aware of this. [link] – Formaldehyde in Furniture – California Prop. 65 . We use Ultracel soy based foam. Never imported, our furniture does not contain a commonly used fungicide in overseas containers, called Dimethyl Fumarate often stapled in sachets inside your sofa or placed in the container in large sachets which often tear in transport. This chemical is banned in the EU in consumer products but not in the US. [link] – DMF in Leather Furniture

Casco Bay does not carry any leathers or leather cut and sew programs from China or South America, popular with many manufacturers used to hit lower price points.

Read our reviews on Houzz.com many of which have customer photography of our furniture in their homes from some of our more than 14,000 customers.

“Why does Casco Bay Furniture have so many great reviews?” Because when our furniture arrives at our customers’ homes, the outstanding quality of the product surpasses their expectations. When expectations are surpassed people want to talk about it.

Our mission is to provide our customers with an exceptional customer experience. Some of our high priced competitors are not happy with our business model, but our customers have seen the price-value relationship in what we are offering.

We also include a free, 5-year extended warranty, we do not collect sales tax in most states, we offer subsidized white glove delivery. Visit our factory. Study our detailed construction photography. If your shopping for high quality leather furniture consider our product, decide for yourself, you might save yourselves a substantial amount of money. We believe our product is the best leather furniture value in America because we build our beautifully tailored furniture to last for decades.

We require a 25% deposit to place your special order followed by an EZ payment schedule.

Awarded: Casco Bay Furniture, has an A+, award winning, rating with the Better Business Bureau our 7th year in a row. We have been awarded, “Best of Houzz 2023 for Customer Satisfaction”, our 9th year in a row. This exclusive award recognizes just 3 percent of the 2.5 million active home professionals on Houzz. We have 130/130, 5 star reviews on Houzz.com which are verified by Houzz. All Houzz reviews are verified by Houzz by IP address and street address. 76 of our Houzz reviews have customer photography.  Houzz is the #1 home décor site in the world with 40,000,000 members. Now celebrating our 14th year anniversary.

If you have any further questions please give me a call at Casco Bay Furniture at 207-272-0557.

Sincerely,
Richard Parker

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10 Comments

  1. Radie Armstrong

    Saw your site had a sale last week for leather sofas. Still on? looking for distressed, durable leather that is family friendly and canine resistant.

    Thanks for your response!

    • Radie the sale is still one and includes a free in home delivery, a free extended service plan and free leather upgrades. Richard

  2. Ed Walters

    Just got my couch(tufted) did a great job will be ordering the chair to match in the near future

    • Ed glad you liked these sofas. This is a beautiful sofa built with a 5/4 solid maple frame and a true 8way hand tied hand knotted spring. The Mont Blanc Midnight (black pull up leather) you choose from Italy is a full aniline dyed leather and would be considered to be pretty much one of the best leathers you could put on a piece of upholstered furniture. We will call you about the chair. Richard

  3. We wanna say thnx you 4 making this cool blog and keep going the good work!

  4. Please send mailing address to order furniture.
    Thank you .
    Elizabeth B. Sickler
    93 Delannoy Ave.#602 Coco Fl.3292
    Ph. 321-806-3879

  5. LaNell Barrett

    Wow. I think I’ve found the right sofas and at the right place. Please tell me you don’t import your employees like so many of these companies bragging ‘Made in America’.

    • Lanell all of our products are made in North Carolina and as far as I know the bulk of the employees are local residents. For the most part their mothers, fathers and Grandparents also built furniture. We do not import anything except for our leather. 98% of our leather comes from one tannery, one of the oldest in the world and still owned by the same family which they have owned for 150 years. The tannery is located in Bassaano Del Grappa Italy. The bulk of our hardwood is locally sourced in the Appalachian mountain’s and is 5/4 solid hardwood often Maple, nor hardwood plywood. The bulk of our materials such as the springs and cushions are sourced from local suppliers near Hickory, NC.


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