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Walter E Smithe Furniture Inc
Rating Details »
Category: Furniture Stores [Edit]
Neighborhood: DePaul2009 N Clybourn Ave
(between Cortland St & Magnolia Ave)
Chicago, IL 60614
(773) 528-7787
- Nearest Transit:
-
Armitage (Purple Express, Brown)
- Hours:
Mon-Fri. 10:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m.
Sat. 10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Sun. 11:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
- Price Range:
-
$$$
- Accepts Credit Cards:
- Yes
- Parking:
- Private Lot
- Wheelchair Accessible:
- Yes
12 reviews for Walter E Smithe Furniture Inc
When I first moved to Chicago a couple of years ago, I came here looking for a couch. Wow!! They were way out of my price range. They do have some really well made and beautiful furniture, so was seriously thinking of dropping a chunk of change for a well made sleeper sofa. But in the end, I couldn't afford it.
One of the things that I liked is that you can mix and match the style of the furniture (i.e. different arms) and pick your own fabric for the couch and throw pillows (different fabrics if you like...even two toned pillows with matching piping.) The "room" of fabric is a little intimidating, but my sales person just said to start looking and pick out some styles that I liked and then she helped me narrow it down to some things I really liked.
One of the best things that Walter E. Smithe offered (and I'm not sure if they still do this) was the in-home consultation. For $100 you can have a designer come to your home and help you select furniture and arrange it in your house. The $100 then gets refunded toward the purchase of your new furniture. It's a nice service for people like me who are interior design challenged.
Walter E. Smithe is a great place to shop if you want to invest in some quality furniture. The sales people are very nice and the services that they offer can't be beat.
People thought this was:
- Useful (3)
If you want great service, go to the store on Clybourn and ask for Delvin Molden. He is a consummate professional! Great taste, knows every item and is very service oriented. We were buying from him for the 2nd time in a year. The couch we were considering was an unusual size and shape. I called Delvin at 5 PM on Saturday to see if it were possible to get an outline or template that we could place in the room as a test. He made it himself and delivered it to us Sunday. Then he decided to make a floor plan for the room. And, then he followed up to make sure the fabric was right. I can't imagine a better sales person. You can't go wrong with Delvin.
WES strikes me as a sleazy company.
I needed a coffee table so I hit the stores on Clybourn and WES was one of them. Talk about high pressure. If you ask a simple question, they ask for all your information before they give you an answer. And while I came in for just a coffee table, my salesman tried to sell me other tables and a sofa and a chair (which I don't need or want, thank you). And of course, the sale ends today, so you can't even take a day to think about it. Their prices are pretty high too. And talk about tacky, they badmouth the other stores on the street. In the end, I purchased a coffee table from another furniture store on Clybourn. I liked it more than anything I saw at WES and the salesman was much nicer.
Finally, this is just my opinion, but the 5 star reviews look bogus to me - as if someone at WES wrote them.
TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE! - Instead of spending the money on cheesy, low-production commercials, they should spend it on infrastructure to actually fulfill orders correctly and on time.
We had a terrible experience. Three deliveries, all three times they did not call with a time, they just showed up. 2/3 deliveries had the wrong piece and/or fabric. 1/3 they were more than a month late in delivering. Also, they had one of their "designers" come out who measured our room incorrectly and didn't return calls on time. Say what you want about Crate & Barrel, but at least they bother to return a call and deliver the goods on time.
People thought this was:
- Useful (2)
Our living room and dining room furniture are from Walter E Smithe. We are extremely pleased with the designers at both the Vernon Hills and the Chicago locations. They are expensive, but very high quality from my experiences. We have a bedroom set in mind for our next purchase. We have gone to other furniture store in hopes of saving some money, but the selection and service just don't compare.
Way overpriced.....I guess someone has to pay for all those dumb ass commercials of the 3 brothers dancing around chicago and wearing Bears jerseys. If you go here, negotiate on the price. Similar dining room table I bought at a small furniture store was priced about 40% more at "Walter E Smithe....You dream it, we build it........barf!"
People thought this was:
- Funny (1)
- Cool (1)
I paid $100 to have a consultant come out. I told them what I wanted to spend and they came back with a design that packed as many pieces into the room as possible.... like I know you want to sell stuff, but why do I need 2 china cabinets? The estimated cost was 3 x the price of what I said... excluding rugs & window treatments. I pretty much could buy a small car and furnish my rooms from C&B/Room and Board rather buying from Smithe. JOKE!
I stopped in and was helped by a fantastic salesperson (Delvin). He was courteous, but not overbearing, and listented to what I was looking for and my tastes. He continuously stressed that he would work with my budget, whatever it was. We came up with some great pieces and at a reasonable cost. I would highly recommend them, and especially Delvin.
You know those ads : "You Dream It, We Built It?". Completely bogus and otherwise untrue. I called them to build a piece of furniture for me. They said that I had a great idea, and I could probably find someone to build it for me for around $5k. Well, dip$hits, that's why I called you! What? You don't actually build furniture? Maybe you should change your advertising campaign, then.
People thought this was:
- Funny (3)
Edit as of Sept 2007 - So the desk I bought last October? Yea. They've come out to replace the doors at least 4-5 times now. They are always perfectly nice about it but each time they bring new doors, the they are still warped. I would have thought by now they would have offered to bring a whole new unit, properly-fitting doors and all. They haven't. On this latest round, it pretty much ended up not as bad as they made it through a series of repairs, but pretty much back to the original problem (which is that the door to my desk/armoire doesn't close properly). The repair guy told me this time that that was pretty much as good as it was ever going to get because of the way they make the doors. Would have been nice if someone told me the first time. I still think they should replace the whole thing with one where the doors close correctly! Based on this whole exerpience, although I think their furniture is beautiful and generally of high quality, and I'd actually love to own more of it, I'm pretty appalled that they would allow this to remain as is, and I would be too nervous buying anything else from them- you neverknow if the next problem would be even worse!
10/1/06 - I was here for the first time today and loved it to much I ended up buying a computer armoire, and I never buy anything major without sleeping on it a few nights and dragging at least one friend or family in for a second opinion. I always shop for furniture in scrubby clothes to keep the salespeople away (does anyone enjoy being pestered?? I'll come to you when I need help!), as in most places they tend to ignore me since I don't look like a spender, being relatively young, and shopping alone (you know, I don't have a guy with me to buy me pretty things!), but one girl came up to me right away and asked what I was looking for and sat with me while I sketched out the layout of my condo for her after I had been standing in front of the desk thinking about whether I wanted it or not (she was a designer and was trying to sell me on having an in home consultation, but wasn't pushing it at all-it seemed like she was making more of an effort to reassure me that its ok to ask for help and that lots of her clients are busy professionals who had originally intended to decorate on their own but just got overwhelmed and never had time!).
It isn't an overwhelmingly huge store but there are lots of nice, original looking pieces- just note that its definitely got a more traditional or rustic feel, not a lot of modern or contemporary items if that's what you're looking for!
People thought this was:
- Useful (3)
We had been searching for quite some time for a sectional that would fit into the corner of a small space, with good seating support for watching our new large-screen flat tv. We had even visited several Walter E Smithe locations, but found nothing. One day there was an article (not an ad) in the Chgo Trib with a photo of a couch in a nice brick red, which would be a perfect match for the space, available at Smithe. In we went again, clutching the article, only to find that the floor model of it was covered in brown velvet, the only color and fabric available, they told us, as it was a "special purchase" at a lower price. "What about 'you dream it, we build it,'" we intoned! After much discussion and an incredibly helpful sales person called Kristin, they not only delivered on the pictured couch, but also made that color available to others. Before we made our final decision, she provided a swatch of the upholstery fabric. Mind you, all of this took a lot of time and effort. The delivery was flawless.
I bought my bedroom set at Walter E. Smithe and it took a couple of weeks for them to deliver. I did get updated on the status of the delivery every other week, which I really liked. The furniture is expensive and may not suit everyone budget.
