On my "Your memories from this day" these photos showed up.   This was a coffee table where a leg broke.  Fortunately, Ashley would ship me a replacement for about $12.  Some fine furniture that was.  No wonder people called it "TrAshley."

 

 

The question is which child jumped on that table to cause the damage?

Ashley and others figured out how to press details into MDF, skin it with vinyl woodgrain stickers and sell it as "classic" furniture.  Looked good if you didn't look real close. 

It wouldn't take more than a good bump with a vacuum cleaner to snap a leg off that may have only been attached with staples. 

These are fond memories I have from visiting the booths at IWF since the late 70s to see the assorted "wood" technologies use by furniture manufacturers. 

At one time I bought a bed from my local Ashley store.  Ex liked the "fancy" high class look that looked richer than the platform bed with no headboard or footboard we had.  First time I sat up on the middle of one side that side rail snapped.  It was coarse particle board wrapped with vinyl. Looked like wood until it broke.  Surprisingly the store brought two replacement side boards that were veneered plywood to replace our MDF sides to make us "happy" again. I was happy when the ex took that gaudy bed with her as she moved out. 

4D   

Edited June 9, 20233 yr by 4DThinker

If I recall, there was about a 4" long piece of wood at the top where the hanger bolts were attached to tie it into a corner bracket.

 

I did a lot of work for a local franchised buyer's club before they went bankrupt, bought back by corp., then re-franchised, then broke again.  A lot of the repair was on Ashley stuff.  Some of it was bad right out of the box.  Not the usual transit damage, just manufacturing defects. 

 

 I had to replace the mechanism in a recliner at a customer's house once.  Ashley, instead of sending the assembled unit like every one else, sent a box of parts and the old one had to be taken apart to re-use the bolts and nuts.  The customer said it was the second time the mechanism had been replaced in 18 months.    The franchise in Dayton said that 80% of their pre-delivery repair work was on Ashley furniture.