What to bring to a furniture showroom comes down to four things: the measurements of your room, photos of it in daylight, anything whose color you need to match, and an honest sense of how the room gets used. Carry those and a Saturday at Charleston Amish Furniture stops being a browse and turns into a decision you can make. The showroom sits at 1750 Sam Rittenberg Blvd in West Ashley, and the first ten minutes with a furniture specialist go much further when you walk in with the room already in your pocket.
What to Bring to a Furniture Showroom: The Short List
None of this has to be tidy. A note on your phone and half a dozen snapshots will do more for you than a folder of pictures you cannot match to a wall.
- Room measurements: length, width, and ceiling height if a hutch, bed or tall cabinet is on your list.
- The delivery path: the narrowest doorway, hallway turns, stair width, and elevator depth if you are in a building.
- Daylight photos of the room, including the floor, the wall color and the window wall.
- Samples you need to match: a paint chip, a fabric scrap, a drawer pull, or a photo of a wood piece you already own.
- How the room is actually used: how many sit down on a Tuesday, how many at Thanksgiving.
- Your timeline, said plainly, so nobody has to guess at it.
Measurements come first, and doorways count
Most pieces that disappoint people are not badly built. They are the wrong size for the room. Measure the floor space the piece will stand in, then measure what has to happen around it. A dining chair needs roughly three feet behind it to push back and stand up, and a walkway behind that chair wants a couple of feet more. A table that looks modest on 35,000 square feet of showroom floor can crowd a Charleston dining room with a chair rail and two doorways.
Then measure the path the piece has to travel. The narrowest doorway, the turn at the top of the stairs and the height of a porch step decide more than people expect, especially in older houses downtown and out on the islands. Our white-glove team carries each piece into the room and sets it up there, and you can read what happens on white-glove delivery day before you place an order.
Photos do more work than a mental picture
Take them in daylight and take more than you think you need: one from the doorway, one from the far corner, one straight down at the floor, and one of the window wall with the light coming through it. Floors and wall colors are the two things nobody remembers accurately by the time they are standing in front of a walnut tabletop. Once a specialist can see the room, matching becomes concrete, and with 180+ stains, glazes and painted finishes on offer, or a color matched to something you already own, a photo saves a lot of guessing.
Bring the color you have to match
Memory is a poor sample. Bring the paint chip, the cushion cover, a scrap of the drapery, or the drawer pull off the dresser in the next room. If a sofa is going to sit beside the new piece, photograph it from the front and from a three-quarter angle so both the line and the fabric are visible. Upholstery is its own conversation: the sofas, sectionals and chairs on our floor come from makers such as Smith Brothers, Rowe and Natuzzi rather than from the Amish workshops, with 2,300+ fabrics and leathers behind them. Our piece on how the upholstery side of the showroom works is a good primer.
What the first ten minutes look like
You are met at the door, and then left alone for a few minutes if that is what you want. When you are ready, a furniture specialist sits down with you and asks about the room before showing you anything: what happens in it, who uses it, what you already have, what you have already ruled out. Design help is complimentary, in the showroom or in your own home. Nobody is going to steer you toward a signature. A solid American hardwood piece built to order is a considered purchase, and a family business that expects to see you again has no reason to hurry you.
Questions worth asking while you are standing in front of the piece
The showroom floor is the easiest place to get real answers. A handful worth your time:
- Which workshop built it? The hardwood pieces are built to order in Amish family workshops, Arista Wood and the Ohio Furniture Guild in Ohio, FN Chairs in Indiana, and the store visits those shops, so the answer is a named workshop rather than a warehouse.
- How is the drawer built? Pull one out. Dovetailed corners and a solid wood drawer box are easy to see once somebody points them out.
- How will this wood behave here? Nine hardwoods are available, from oak and cherry to live edge slabs and reclaimed barnwood, and they do not all answer coastal air the same way. Our comparison of which wood holds up best in Charleston’s humidity goes species by species.
- What protects it afterward? Guardsman protection plans are available; the most popular five-year plan covers up to $30,000 of furniture.
- How do people pay for it? Special financing is available with approved credit through a store credit card issued by Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. Offers change, so a specialist explains what is current in store, and you can read how financing works at the showroom before you come in.
- How long is the build? Ask, and expect a real figure rather than a guess. Build times are quoted per order, because they depend on the workshop and the piece.
Who to bring, and what you leave with
Bring whoever is going to live with the piece. The person who cooks, the person who pays, the teenager whose elbows will be on it. Decisions made in the showroom together tend to hold. If a dining table is what started this, read our guide to choosing an Amish dining table in Charleston first; it walks through wood, finish, size and the day it arrives, so you arrive with fewer open questions.
What you leave with matters more than what you buy on the day. A good first visit ends with a written specification, species, finish, hardware, fabric and dimensions, and a build time, whether or not you place the order that afternoon. That page is yours to take home and think about.
Charleston Amish Furniture is open Monday through Saturday, 10am to 6pm, and closed Sunday, at 1750 Sam Rittenberg Blvd in West Ashley. Call (843) 225-2513 or send the showroom a note before you come in, and bring the measurements. Built once. Kept for good.
Frequently asked questions
What is the 2/3 rule in furniture?
It is a proportion guideline, not a law. The idea is that a piece should be about two-thirds the length of the thing it relates to: a sofa about two-thirds the length of the wall behind it, a coffee table about two-thirds the length of the sofa. It gets you into the right range quickly, which helps when you are standing on a big showroom floor and everything looks smaller than it will at home. Your own measurements still decide.
What is the 4 inch rule for furniture?
The most common version is about coffee tables: the tabletop should land within about four inches of the seat height of the sofa beside it, so reaching for a glass stays comfortable. Some people use the same number for clearance, leaving at least four inches between a piece and a wall or another piece so nothing looks wedged in. Both are starting points rather than rules, and both are easier to judge once you have sat down on the floor sample.
Is there a charge for design help at the showroom?
No. Design help at Charleston Amish Furniture is complimentary, either in the showroom or in your own home. A furniture specialist goes through the room with you, works out sizes and sightlines, and puts the specification in writing. Arriving with measurements and photos makes that first conversation far more useful.
How long should I plan for a first showroom visit?
Give yourself an hour if you can. There is 35,000 square feet of floor to walk, and sitting down to talk through species, finish, hardware and size takes time if you want it done carefully. If you are only narrowing things down, a shorter visit still works, as long as you leave having checked your measurements against real pieces.
When is the showroom open, and where is it?
Charleston Amish Furniture is at 1750 Sam Rittenberg Blvd in West Ashley, Charleston, SC 29407, open Monday through Saturday from 10am to 6pm and closed Sunday. If you want to talk through a whole room rather than a single piece, calling (843) 225-2513 before you come in is worth the minute.
