Great care needs to be taken when buying Oak furniture

Traditionally, Oak has been the choice for the finest pieces of furniture using the very best craftmanship.

Today however, whilst the is of course just as good, many cheaper manufacturers are using it to make poor quality furniture.

We’ll take you through the process with reference to our Kingswood range of Solid Oak furniture as the gold standard.

You may well have noticed various shops selling what looks like our Kingswood range online and in competitors stores. At first glance they look identical, however on closer inspection you can see the corners that have been cut to get the price down resulting in an interior product that won’t last as long.

Firstly, our Kingswood range has Oak drawer carcasses throughout the range. When you open a drawer, the whole drawer, front, back and sides is make of Oak, the cheap copies use pine.

Secondly, Kingswood has a slightly tapered leg at the bottom whereas the cheap copies have a straight leg.

Thirdly, Kingswood backs are made of solid wood, whereas the cheap copies are made of MDF or even hardboard.

And of course there will be other shortcuts in the manufacturing process of the copies that make the piece less structurally sound.

Not all Veneer is bad.

Thanks to Oak Furnitureland’s “No Veneer In ‘Ere” advertising, veneers have got a bad name.

There are different sorts of veneer and different places to use veneer, some are bad, some are good.

Let’s start with what veneer is.

Veneer is simply a thin piece of material glued onto a piece of board.

Bad Veneers are either pretend (paper, plastic etc) or very thin (less than 1mm).

Good Veneers are solid Oak to a good thickness (greater than 1mm, the thicker the better)

Bad places to put veneer are in the structure of the piece (legs, crossmembers etc) and anywhere where you can see the edge as it will chip off.

Good places to put veneers are floating panels as this will stop cracking.

Modern yet rustic, our Brunswick range combines real concrete with natural wood to invoke an ambiance of the Canadian Wilderness.

Neutral tones will blend easily into any home.

Absolutely unique to this range is a special combination of real concrete poured around a dense foam core giving strength and realism without the huge weight of solid concrete.

As always you can mix any of our dining chairs with the range, or go for the Brunswick chairs and benches with the possibility of making up a popular corner bench.

Whilst not our cheapest range, Brunswick is absolutely unique, which is course is what Snell & Robins is all about! 

Since 1934, that’s nearly 90 years! And we’re still owned and run by the same family

Of course, and we encourage you to visit.

We firmly believe this website is here to compliment your visit not replace it.

Our shop is inspirational and our staff friendly, if you only buy online you’re missing a great experience.

This is also a really important question as we’re seeing more and more professional looking furniture websites being run out of people’s bedrooms (here today and gone tomorrow).

Absolutely, we’ve got lots of easy free parking in our car park

Most of it, but not all of it.We're looking to expand the showroom massively, but until we do our showroom, although large, is not big enough to show every single item we can get..

We have never and will never sell flat packed furniture – it has its place, but it falls down as fast as it goes up.

All our furniture is fully assembled in one piece using the finest professional joinery. There are some minor exceptions to this where an item would be too be to get into your home in one piece, this generally the case with wardrobes, beds and dining tables. These items are fully assembled at the factory but have been unbolted in places to allow us to get the furniture through doors and upstairs. In these cases our delivery team will re-bolt it once it’s in place for you.

Unless you want to collect items yourself you will never have to construct any furniture.

All our accessories are in stock and available immediately (unless we’re waiting for supplier to restock us).

Most of the Kingwood range is in stock, along with a significant amount of Langkawi, Stockholm Brunswick and dining chairs.

We have one of the biggest stocks in Yorkshire, and our warehouse is on site, so if it’s in stock you can take it away – even at weekends!

In the unlikely event that we don’t have an accessory in stock, we can generally get it within a week.

Furniture lead times depends upon which manufacturer your selected range is made by.

Depending upon the manufacturer’s delivery schedule item can take anywhere from 1 day to 4 weeks.

Please note however that due to covid and shipping problems at ports and the Suez canal, some deliveries are taking up to 6 months. We’re obviously not happy about this however the whole of the furniture industry (or indeed anyone using a shipping container) are having the same issues. We are in a much better situation that most as we carry so much of our own stock and forecast stock requirements well in advance, however if we run out we aren’t immune to the problems that everyone else are having.

If you order online you will need to pay in full.

If you order in store we’re happy to take a deposit. The amount will depend upon the product you are ordering. For example if we can easily resell the item we would only a very small deposit, whereas if we need to order you a bespoke sofa in an unique fabric we would need a large deposit.

All major UK cards with the exception of American Express. The reason that we don’t accept Amex is that they charge a much higher administration charge to us. If you’re happy to pay the extra administration charge we can take Amex in store.

Absolutely, and more importantly this is free locally if you can’t fit the item in your car.

We don’t hide this is our price, we don’t charge extra (except for weekends when there’s a £50 charge), and we can usually deliver in stock items within a few days and sometimes even the same day.

Just compare this with other retailers :

(prices correct as at 1st April 2021)

As soon as you have made up your mind what you want and are sure it’s going ahead.

We strongly recommend ordering as soon as possible. If the item is in stock we will allocate it to you with your name on the box so it’s guaranteed yours. If the item’s out of stock we can get it ordered in for you and then store it until you’re ready.

We have years of experience in helping customers into the process of moving house and we know things can slip a bit. Don’t worry this is fine, we don’t have a limit on how long we can store things for (within reason).

Firstly talk to us, we’re here to help if we can.

If we’re unable to help you, please see our returns policy.

Due to our high ceilings and the distance you view furniture from in our showroom, in general pieces will seem bigger once they’re in your house.

We urge you to check both the dimensions of the place you’re going to put your furniture in and the route through your house and garden to get it there. Pay particular attention to doors (they’re not all the same size and don’t forget the height), garden gates that are too small to pass through. banisters and staircases (don’t forget the height) and hallways/landings (we often can’t maneuver it into a doorway due to lack of room in the hallway).

Ultimately, whilst we will do everything we can to get the furniture into your house, it is your responsibility to check that it fits. If you fail to do so we can’t be held responsible.

If things are very tight and you are local to the store please ask, we may be able to visit you to check.

Yes, of course, in fact for smaller items we encourage you to do so to avoid breakages.

Please refer to our Delivery Page for more information.

Because we use our own team of delivery drivers, this is not likely to happen as they take more care than courier companies, however sometimes an item has become damaged in the box during it’s trip from the factory or an item has been missed in the manufacturer’s quality control.

Because our delivery team unpack everything and put it up for you, you should never find yourself in the position of being blamed yourself so long as you’ve checked it prior to our staff leaving. If the delivery team find anything wrong on the delivery they will immediately contact the store to find a solution, often if we have another item in stock we can even solve it on the same day.

Yes and no …

We can put money on an account for you, we find this works better than gift vouchers because :

1.       There’s no expiry date

2.       You can’t lose them

3.       You can use as much or as little as you want each time you shop.

You will get a till receipt for the money which you can put in a gift card.

If you don’t know the recipients address or phone number we can create and account in your name, however it’s always best to do it in the recipient’s name if possible.

No we don’t – why? Because it’s a con, there is no such thing as interest free credit, you’re always paying for the interest somewhere, here’s how it works :

As you can see, the cost of the interest is just hidden in the retail price (or delivery charge etc.), it isn’t really interest free, you’re just paying for the cost somewhere else!

No, we can’t possibly put everything we sell on the website, we have over 4,500 items online and probably over 20,000 items that we can order in for you. It’s always best to come into the store so we can help you, we can quite often point you in the direction of something that would meet your needs better.