Search the internet all you like, but you won’t find anyone else offering what Artisan Theater Seating is doing with custom built furniture and semi-custom residential theater seating. We’ll say it again, and probably not for the last time, but we are not trying to compete with the on-line sellers who promote a “one size fits all” poorly fabricated piece of furniture (built who knows where?) and is on sale today for less than $999 per chair, as long as you want it in black (pleather).

Many of our custom built furniture projects come to us when the el cheapo deluxe furniture they bought previously, or was in the house when they bought it, starts to fall apart, which it will. During the discovery process with a recent customer, they actually asked us “will these chairs shake and wobble?”, because apparently their current chairs do.

So, you ask, what makes a $5,000 chair, or even a $3,500 chair, so much different from a $1,000 chair? Can it really be that much better? The answer is a resounding yes, and while the substantial quality superiority of our products is a true sum of the parts, with no single element more important than another, the conversation absolutely must begin with…Build Quality!

If there is a single most heard customer complaint about $1,000 theater seats, it is unquestionably that they literally fall apart! In our opinion, that makes these chairs not only commoditized, but also disposable.

The customers who buy the seating products from our manufacturers see this as an investment in quality and durability, and they expect them to last for many, many years, and cared for properly, they absolutely will.

Every chair of every sort is built from the inside out. So much of what makes our offering superior is a direct function of how it is built, from both a methods and materials point of view.

Whether built from steel, wood, or a combination of the two, the chair frame is the logical starting point in the discussion of the structural integrity of these chairs. The analogy to how most residences are built is perfectly applicable. After the pouring of the foundation, the house does not really begin to take its shape and structure until the framing is completed. Everything else that will follow is related to and dependent upon the quality of the framing. So too with our chairs, and so true.

In collaboration with our custom built furniture manufacturing partners, we are all in the motorized seating business, and it is the motorization element which makes this entire category unique from the rest of the world of “static” furniture. In addition to the uniqueness of the motorization, it is also more likely that the motorization will become the point of greatest failure. So many moving parts.

The seating manufacturers do not build the motorization mechanisms themselves! By basic description, they all look something like this, and this is just a simple single motor motion assembly. We offer many chair models which have double and even triple motorization mechanisms, for maximum comfort and adjustability.

There is a lot going on with these mechanisms, and so many potential points for failure! We highly doubt that consumers are shopping for theater chairs based on the caliber of their motorization mechanism platform. The motorization mechanism is not something one can readily shop for, but suffice it to say there is a wide range of products in the category, with a wide range in performance and durability.

That range could be anywhere from $150 for a complete mechanism, up to $750 or more a mechanism for a high-quality device. Which motorization platform do you think is being used in a chair advertised on-line for $549 a chair, compared with the motorization mechanism in an $11,000 chair?

We assume that the customer shopping for an on-line/on-sale chair knows that there are going to have to be certain compromises that are made, in comparison with better quality merchandise. We realize that the terms buttery smooth motion combined with whisper quiet operation may not be used to describe this inexpensive chair, as it would with our product, but the frame and the motorized motion mechanism are genuinely the heart and soul of the chair, and how much does one really want to compromise on these all-important elements?

There are so many vitally important elements to our seating products that the end user will never see, (not that they need to), but the differences in fit-and-finish are as obvious as anything could be.

In a discussion of the overall differences in quality between our products and “all the rest,” that conversation must also certainly include what we offer in terms of materials options for how the chairs are covered, both in terms of the quality of our materials and the breadth of selection.

We find it somewhat amusing that there are so many materials being used in theater chairs which are decidedly “not leather,” yet choose to call it something that still somehow uses the word leather in describing it. A favorite is certainly “bonded leather,” which the entry level manufacturers seem particularly fond of. Most definitions of bonded leather say that it is 10-20% leather “scraps,” ground to a pulp and held together with a polyurethane bonding agent. (Is that just another description of glue?) Bonded leather is quite thin, and often cracks and peels after only mild use. Who hasn’t seen this look before? We promise, it was not difficult to find these images, and a hundred more just exactly like them, in varying degrees of disintegration. There also seems to be an infinite number of internet solutions for “repairing cracked and peeling bonded leather.” We have a suggestion. Throw it in the dumpster and start over again with a quality product.

Leather is one of the most durable, natural materials used for custom built furniture, product design and other creative sectors. High-quality, high-end leather can last for generations. Proper care and maintenance will help keep the attributes of each leather intact, prolonging the leather even more. Leather is a material that is also appreciated for growing old with grace.

Along with our manufacturing partners and also category specialists alongside us in the Mart, we are proud to be 100% in the high-quality leather business. Certainly, one of quality leather’s most endearing characteristics is its wonderful, distinctive smell. A quick search shows that you can easily find “leather scented anything.” There is leather scented: candles; cologne; air freshener; soap; lotion; oil; deodorant, and so on and so forth.

Bonded leather, by comparison, will often have varying degrees of a plasticky or chemical odor, as a function of perhaps having as little as 10% “mashed” leather in it and 90% polyurethane bonding agents.

It is in the area of fit and finish where the craftsmanship of custom built furniture that is carefully built by hand exponentially differentiates itself from products which are mass produced in giant factories in faraway lands. This is not a difficult concept to comprehend or visually understand when viewing the finished products.

As the final step in this overall discussion of Build Quality, this is of course what a customer sees and appreciates every time they enjoy watching their favorite movie or binge watches the latest hot series on Netflix.

So much of what we show and promote does go into deeper levels of customization, which we will address in much greater detail in the next section, but when it comes to the quality of the fit and finish of our products, there is no variation whatsoever between the hands on effort used in the finishing stages of $3,500 chair than that which goes into a $10,000+ chair. Everything that we offer must be of a consistent and predictable level of quality.

Even some red wines are said to have “notes of leather,” which is generally associated with red wines that are aged in oak, which produces a wine that is high in tannins with a thick, soft taste.