area modern home — Local services in Durham

We were excited to buy our couch in Durham, support a local business and buy North Carolina made furniture. Unfortunately the couch and experience with Area Modern turned out very disappointing. We bought a Younger couch, spending over $2000 for a small sectional in Fall 2014. The trouble started when the buttons began began popping off the seat and back cushions within the first couple months. The owner had to come by a couple of different times to repair those. Also within two months of buying the couch, both seat cushions had large dents from light usage/wear. It took them several months to send the other owner over to check it out. Once he did see the cushions, he agreed that they seemed to be wearing and indenting much quicker than normal and recommended we get the upgraded cushions and that they would just charge us the difference in cost- $100.

Finally, after many months the other owner called today letting us know our cushions had arrived and our total would be almost $500. I told him that we were told $100 by his partner and there's no way that we were paying that outrageous amount. Even paying the extra $100 for new cushions that were basically defective felt generous on our part. The owner corrected me saying that the cushions were not defective but I'm not sure what else you call it when cushions start indenting after just two months, maybe they are simply poor quality. When I said that this was unacceptable customer service and maybe they should consider just not making any profit off our transaction at all (since they clearly made a profit off our purchase to begin), they came back with an offer for us to pay $250. I said that's still 2 1/2 x what you originally told me and I shouldn't really be paying anything for something that was subpar especially consider we'd had multiple issues with the couch at that point. It is truly disappointing as I like the items in store. But the for the price point, the customer service should be superior. I refused the expensive replacement cushions so now we are just left with a couch with crappy cushions that we're not happy with. It's also not clear why Younger didn't simply replace the couch cushions for us. The whole process took about a year and half from...

We are so impressed with Area Modern Home! We had previously purchased a couch from West Elm on August 7th. It was due to arrive in early November, perfect for family coming into town for an early Thanksgiving celebration. The date of arrival got pushed back twice (they didn't tell us; we had to look it up on their website), until eventually it wasn't due to arrive until December 28th. We called and cancelled our order and went to Area Modern. We thought that it would be too expensive for us, but it was comparable to West Elm prices while being a higher quality product! We got a "quick ship" fabric that was due to arrive in two weeks. It was going to be delivered a few days before the due date (yay!), when the owner went to pick it up and noticed that the upholstery wasn't to his satisfaction. He called us immediately, and he had the furniture makers reupholster part of it the same day. Although the owner was due to take Friday off, he delivered the couch in his own truck by himself just so we would have the couch in time for our family to arrive (still arriving a couple days before the two week quick ship date!). We were SO impressed. The couch is beautiful and so comfortable. We will definitely be shopping here again. The customer service was above and beyond, and we are so happy with...

I've been in three times now and the friendliness of the owner/staff has been sub par. I arrived with the plan on purchasing high end furniture and lighting, but always leave with a bad taste in my mouth. Why would I spend money somewhere when their service is worse than other stores? Not to mention, half the stuff has no pricing listed. And of course, the staff member didn't bother to approach us about any of the pieces. I guess I'll end up buying the same items online instead of in store. Sad to see a local shop handle customers that way... especially when local places have so much...