Is It Solid Wood Furniture or Ready-to-Assemble?

The difference is getting harder to tell as advances in RTA furniture manufacturing technology make pieces look more and more like solid wood.

THANKS TO BETTER equipment and materials -- and a growing emphasis on style -- RTA furniture is looking more and more like the assembled solids-and-veneer furniture it is sometimes patterned after. That sophisticated appearance is said to be one of the reasons consumers are laying down their dollars in unprecedented sums for furniture they take out of a box and assemble themselves.

Among RTA leaders, privately owned Sauder had 1999 sales of $550 million, up 4% over 1998; Bush Industries' sales were $441.7 million, up 7%; O'Sullivan Industries' sales were $407 million, up 12.5%; and Dorel Industries' RTA operations saw a 17.2% sales increase, to $345.7 million.

Growth in home computer sales and home-based offices is helping to drive the market, says Ivan Cutler, a furniture industry analyst with the investment company BDO Seidman.

But style also plays a role, he says, because manufacturers are creating RTA products that look and feel more and more like traditionally manufactured furniture.

RTA Wins Design Awards

O'Sullivan walked off with the most awards of any furniture manufacturer last year in the American Society of Furniture Designers' Pinnacle competition. The Lamar, MO-based company won in the Juvenile category, tied with Ello Furniture in the Entertainment Center category and was a finalist in the Home Office and Occasional Furniture categories.

Other companies are also producing RTA furniture that turns heads and earns nods of approval. "Today's RTA products represent giant design strides since RTA's early years, when companies probably didn't even have design staffs," says Mike Short, director of design for Sauder Woodworking of Archbald, OH.

Back then, Short says, "You could put square boards together with more square boards. Now, designers worldng in teams create collections, attend foreign shows and actually create real furniture."

Short credits improved techniques, materials and equipment for making possible RTA's design improvements in the last few years. "We're able to do things because of new manufacturing techniques we couldn't do before. For example, we can now hold tighter tolerances." That, in turn, makes for a "better fit and finish," he says.

Raised-Panel Doors

Sauder makes raised-panel doors using a reverse stile-and-rail construction technique, "much like you would see manufacturers use in kitchen cabinet construction and in fine furniture," Short says.

Improved transfer foils - one decorative medium applied to the fiberboard to create the finish - now can cover irregular surfaces like raised panels, he says. "It maintains its clarity so it looks real."

Foils applied to the ends of stiles can make them look like the end grain of a piece of wood, creating design interest when joined in reverse stile-and-rail fashion, he says.

Other major RTA manufacturers also make raised panels, often with more elaborate moulding and more radius fronts than in the past.

"We could always do that," says Michael Franks, director of marketing services at O'Sullivan. "The difference is now we can make them very affordably."

Three types of machines that integrate multiple functions have speeded up production processes dramatically, Franks says, enabling manufacturers to keep more sophisticated designs within their customers' price ranges.

One machine is a Combi-Former, which integrates three processes. "It not only routs a radius front on the piece, it will also put a profile edge on it and apply banding all in one operation," Franks says.

When O'Sullivan bought its first Combi-Former three years ago, "that's when you saw rounded edges begin to come into our product line," Franks says. O'Sullivan now has four of the machines, made by IMA.

O'Sullivan also has three Homag BAZ machines, bought from Stiles Machinery, that perform four tasks in one operation. "When we want to do an entire desktop -- shape the piece, profile it, put a commercial grade 3mm edgebanding on it, and drill it for assembly" -- the machines can do it, he says.

Frame and Face

After rails are profiled from medium-density fiberboard, using machines by Fletcher, O'Sullivan wraps them with laminate for use in rail-and-stile raised-panel doors. "Our wrapping and rail-making equipment now is very high speed," Franks says. "You can put a lot of frame and face on the cabinets."

Like other furniture companies, RTA manufacturers use panel saws and CNC routers to size and shape the MDF and particleboard that will be covered by paper laminate or vinyl in the finished product.

But where a maker of traditional furniture may use a CNC router to cut 300 pieces in a run, an RTA company like Sauder may cut 1,000 to 10,000 pieces, Short says.

Sauder is known for customizing its equipment. "We 'Sauderize' our machinery, as we call it," Short says. But Sauder also uses Biesse drills and Nottmeyer boring machines and, when it comes to machines that make contours, Sauder uses Marunaka, IMA, BIMA, and Homag BAZ machining centers, in addition to the machines it customizes in-house.

Many of the developments that are broadening the design scope of RTA have come about over time and are being constantly refined, says K. Neal Pugh, design development manager at Ameriwood Industries of Montreal, QUE, a Dorel Industries company. CNC routers and other CNC equipment bring into reach designs once thought to be too labor-intensive and thus too expensive. "We can now hit price points with looks that previously were not possible," he says.

In the early days of RTA, Pugh says, "all products had sharp edges except those where you attached a moulding." Designers basically had only wrapped mouldings and edgebanded paneling to work with.

Designers' Choices Grow

Thanks to refinements of old processes and the addition of new ones, designers can finish an edge by banding, foiling or soft forming (applying a melamine band to a profiled edge), Pugh says. They have additional choices of edge treatments, using paint, membrane pressing or vacuum forming. "We're basically unlimi ited now," he says. In addition, Pugh notes, "the technology used by our paper suppllers has advanced phenomenally. They're now able to produce papers that look like real wood veneers,"

"Laminates can look far better than natural woods," contends Franks. The clarity of the printing on them is "phenomenal," he says, while "to get consistent (looking) wood out there is very difficult and very expensive."

Some solid wood is used in limited amounts as a design feature in RTA. Bush of Jamestown, NY, uses solid wood legs on its table desk in its Revere Collection, which is a Shaker design with a rosewood maple finish. Turned wooden legs also support the entertainment armoire in Bush's Bayside Collection.

Sauder uses wooden legs on an Arts and Crafts computer armoire and desk in its Mission Collection. Ameriwood sometimes uses solid wood drawer pulls and legs and as a substrate for decorative strips of other material.

There is really no distinct line between materials and processes for RTA and traditionally made furniture, Franks says. RTA companies may cover particleboard with paper laminates while their counterparts making traditional furniture cover it with veneer, but there are few instances where solid wood is used exclusively. "Solid wood is restricted to a very specialized part of the market," he says.

Price Ranges Widen

The differences come in assembly and price, and even the price differential is eroding. A consumer can spend more than $1,000 for a five-piece Elliese Office System from O'Sullivan, Franks says. Ameriwood, which focuses more on the entry- to mid-level segments of the market, has bookcases and telephone stands in the $20 to $30 range, but its price range has stretched upward to include $399 to $499 modular computer workstations that include desk, hutch and storage space.

RTA has not forgotten its entry-level customers, but the expansion of styles and choices has extended it to mid-level customers, Franks says. "It's enabled us to capture even more consumers."

Sauder has also seen a widening of its price range along with its style range, but, Short says, "We still try to be all things to all people."

Sauder's prices range from $20 to $599, the former for two-shelf bookcases, utility carts and small TV stands, and the latter for a Monarch home office system. The one-piece home office includes space for writing letters and using a computer, but also has room for a printer, fax machine and scanner.

As RTA styles grow more sophisticated, customers are increasingly noticing, says Amy Shippy, who, with her husband Robert, operates RTA Furniture Superstore in Savannah, GA. "Customers are definitely making comments about the fact that it looks more like case goods styling," she says.

In tradition-oriented Savannah, traditional styles sell better than contemporary styles at the Shippys' 2 1/2-year old store.

Wood Trim is Popular

"People do like the crown moulding," she says. "We've had a lot of comments on the newer Sauder lines with their wood trim, such as the Woodberry Collection. The Mission Collection has been popular as well."

In addition to mass merchandisers and superstores, Short says, "many more furniture retailers are becoming aware they should find a place for our furniture. It's good turn (fast-moving), and a lot of sales."

One furniture chain that has expanded its range to include RTA is Chicago-based Wickes Furniture. The company, which sells its mid-priced furniture in major U.S. markets, added RTA several years ago, says Joe Browne vice president of merchandising. "We felt they had reached a point in their capability that warranted a place on our floor," he says.

"I think they present a line that looks a lot more like real furniture," he says. "Not 100 percent, but its perceived value is very, very good. We do a huge business in RTA."