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Furniture removals are something that all people need to consider as our favorite pieces age and sag from constant use. Instead of doing the removal yourself and running into all of the issues that can potentially arise from the activity—call Junk King in North Atlanta to do the removal for you, or to save you that trip to the general waste landfill.
Know When to Throw and When to Refurbish with Junk King North Atlanta
There seem to be two types of old furniture lying around the general person’s home. In the first case, there are those pieces of furniture that have been inherited through parents or the loss of family/friends. In the second case, there are those pieces that have been either bought old or bought and kept for decades. Regardless of which circumstance your furniture was collected in, there are a few tell-tale signs that will tell you if the pieces need to go or need to be refurbished.
Refurbish!
Refurbishing takes a long time and can be difficult depending on the size of the furniture you want to update. Small parts of furniture can always be removed and replaced easily, but larger pieces like the top and sides of a dresser cannot be easily replaced. In situations like that, you’ll need to either get rid of it or refurbish it by doing it yourself or by paying someone to do it for you. Refurbishing is a great way to continue to keep the furniture you have without it looking old or overused.
You can tell if something needs to be refurbished if you examine the material of the furniture closely (or maybe not so closely). Woods and fabrics are the easiest to detect because of the qualities which both materials develop as they age. In the case of wood, consider the state of the outside of it—since the outside is open to damage and the elements unless you have some bugs wiggling around the interior of the wood, the most damage will be visible to your naked eye or touch. This means looking for things like (1) if the wood feels sticky to the touch or seems to pull in more dust and air debris than other similar surfaces in the same room; or (2) if you can see cracks in the veneer, finish, or paint; or (3) if you can see the results of damage or heavy use from the past years like watermarks, dents, scratches, or discoloration. Of course, small things don’t matter outside of visual aesthetics, but once the furniture begins to have more than a few bumps and scrapes, it starts to run into the territory of a potential structural issue.
Meanwhile, we can also review the elements of fabric that show signs of needing to be replaced, thrown out, or refurbished. Fabric, because it’s made of such soft material, in comparison to woods and metals, can often be forgotten about when individuals go to think about refurbishment in their homes. There are three common types of damage that fabrics suffer on a regular basis—most times, an older piece of fabric will accumulate all three damages over its lifetime, especially if the home has kids running around in it. The first and most common type of damage results from (1) everyday use, for example, the consistent ups and downs that people do as they sit, can pull up the fibers from the fabric and rip them out slowly. This is why our grandmothers always told us to sit, not slide, on the couches. The next most common damage comes from (2) sunlight or UV rays. In the same way that your skin is damaged by too much sun, fabrics can be damaged by it too. This is what happens when fabrics become bleached and hard. Finally, the next most common damage is done by (3) spills, drops, or falls. In all three of these cases, kids are the most common culprit, and unfortunately, not all fabrics are created to withstand the abuse that kids can put them through. This can result in tears, stains, rips, and tattering. The good thing about fabric refurbishing though, is that pieces can usually be bought premade, which is great if you don’t remember those sewing lessons you had when you were ten.
Throw it Out!
Let’s say, on the other hand, that you’ve been given great-aunt Debby’s walnut hutch for your tenth wedding anniversary. You really have two choices; either refurbish it and endure your ‘new, favorite’ furniture piece or get rid of it. Now, there are ways to tell if particular pieces of furniture are worth refinishing and keeping—but for the most part, there’s no reason to keep multi-decades-old furniture. This is especially true when furniture stops being a convenience and starts to become potentially dangerous.
Consumer Reports is best known for its never-ending goal of fighting for a fair marketplace. Most times, a person will recognize their company name from their mailed-out mini-books, detailing the best products and prices for a range of items. However, they are also widely known for their research and testing of products, as well as their opinion polls of products in everyday households. In August of 2021, Consumer Reports published a short article that called attention to potentially fatal, unstable dressers:
Right now, dressers sold in the U.S. are not governed by a mandatory stability standard. Furniture manufacturers operate under a voluntary standard, and they are not required to conduct any safety testing before putting a dresser on the market. Some manufacturers meet the standard, and others fall short, contributing to thousands of emergency room visits each year.
What does this have to do with whether or not you should throw out that old dresser? Let’s consider what is being said in this article. It is 2021 and there are no standards that a dresser must adhere to—this means the older your dresser, the less likely it is that they meet the standards for stability. The article also says that “between 2000 and 2019, 351 people of all ages were killed following a furniture tip-over incident; children account for 286 of those fatalities.” Clearly then, it is a better choice to just throw out that hutch from great-aunt Debby—especially if you have kids in the home. The same goes for all pieces of furniture which are unstable, tilted, leaning, or have been overused for the last few years. Then, of course, there are also the fatalities caused by non-furniture tip-overs, like the tip-overs that can occur from TVs, which accounted for 571 deaths from 2000 to 2019 (if you ever looked for a reason to get a new, lighter TV, this is your reason.)
Save Your Back, Call Junk King North Atlanta to Remove Junk for You
When it comes to furniture in your home, there are countless ways you can end up hurt—especially if you are attempting to remove old or delipidated furniture by yourself or with a novice. In 2019, there were a reported 39.4 million preventable injuries in homes and communities in the United States. A significant amount of these injuries are from accidents like poisoning or falls—but there is a portion of these that account for thrown-out backs, twisted spine disks, or sciatica flares from both stress and incorrect weight lifting.
Luckily, living in North America means that help is always just a phone call away with Junk King removal services. If you’ve chosen to have your old furniture removed, leave it where it is and give Junk King a call to pick it up. Our full-service option ensures that you aren’t required to lift a finger while our team of removal experts is there. We’ve become the #1 rated junk removal company in North America by offering friendly and professional service at every call we go to—you just point, and we’ll remove it. What could make our services better than being completely autonomous? Well, unlike other removers, we can take just about anything and everything. This means that whether you just want to get rid of great-aunt Debby’s hutch, or you want to clean out her entire estate, we’ll be there to help. Contacting and scheduling is as simple as 1, 2, 3 with our multi-platform options.
Contact Junk King in North Atlanta Before You Attempt A Removal
There are four ways you can contact us, pick your favorite, and get the process started today!
- Give us a call at 1-888-888-JUNK; from here you can either ask for an estimate over the phone or you can schedule a time for one of our experts to come to you. Having over of our experts see your junk will result in the best and most accurate estimate that we can give.
- Text us at 1-737-888-5865; send us pictures of all your stuff and our experts will text you back with an estimate—and we’ll always text back.
- Stay online and fill out a contact form; you can use this form for a lot of things like scheduling, estimates, or even cancellations.
- Or, use our favorite method—the pricing estimator; discover your estimate by yourself by using this custom-developed tool, only with Junk King.
Haverty Furniture was recently named “furniture retailer of the year” by the leading trade publication furniture today. You could say that this award was 127 years in the making because that’s when Haverty furniture first went into business in the Atlanta area. From those humble beginnings Haverty Furniture is now operating in 17 states across the South and has 119 showrooms filled with a large variety of quality furniture and home accessories. Haverty’s President and CEO, Clarence Smith said at the award ceremonies, “I would like to thank all of our employees who everyday help our customer translate her dreams into beautiful rooms. Their dedication keeps Havertys as vibrant now as it was when it was founded 127 years ago.”