Fantastic Furniture - are they okay?

We're considering buying a bedroom package from Fantastic Furniture, but one of my friends warned me that their quality isn't great compared to other places like Super A-Mart. Does anyone have any personal experience with FF furniture, is there anything wrong with their stuff? Thanks!

When we first moved out of home and bought new furniture, we got a package from Fantastic. It was great at the time - because that was all we could afford. We had to put it all together ourselves (never again). I didn't even keep that bed for the spare bedroom.

Even the support bits for under the bed weren't solid timber, and quite a few broke when we tried to move the bed. The frame itself also didn't stay together after a move.

I had kept the bedside tables though for one of the spare bedrooms, and when we moved in here, I took the tape off (which had been holding the drawers shut through moving and storage) and the whole 'wood-grain' look part of it came right off, so there was just bare chipboard.

Our second tv unit (now about 1.5 years old) is from Super Amart. It's much better quality - I still don't think it's solid timber, but there is no chipping or anything like that. The bottom piece of board did come a bit loose in the move, but I think the removalists did that.

Anything flat-pack/not made of solid timber is a no go for me now, personally. It just doesn't last, and it can look cheap. It might be ok if you are looking at something that isn't the chipboard style stuff, but I'd still go Super Amart at a minimum.

Oh...should also mention we bought our chest of drawers and bedside tables from Super Amart...and when I untaped them after being in storage, no stripping of anything I think they are solid timber though.

Okay, thank you, stelle!

At the moment, it's between this package from Fantastic Furniture:

http://www.fantasticfurniture.com.au/package/BRVBEPQNNOOOOOOBRO

... and these items from Super-Amart:

Metro Bed (in brown)
http://www.superamart.com.au/bedroom/beds/queen/metro-41156/
+
Choco bedside tables
http://www.superamart.com.au/bedroom/tables-drawers/bedside-tables/chocco-42348/

It's kind of similar, I just prefer the look of the FF ones a bit more, particularly the bed, plus it comes with a tallboy in the package. But obviously I don't want to buy it if it's going to fall apart. Moving it won't be an issue though, because we'll order it in flatpacks and not assemble it until we're in the new house. But that might not make much difference. Hmmm.

I brought "Rachel" stuff from Fantastic - queen bed, tallboy, and bedside drawers - over six years ago and they're still going strong. They've been pulled apart/reassembled a few times over the years when we've moved but are still fine. It looks similar to the "Valencia" ones they have now. We're going to get a new suite when our build is complete but only because I want a king bed - the FF stuff will become our new guest room stuff.

We bought some "Alpine" (aka SUPER cheap) bedside drawers and lowboy for DDs room at the same time, and the bedside drawers are fine but one shelf in the lowboy broke from being overloaded.

IMO - try and get the bed alone from either, and do a bit more shopping around for the drawers. Go into the store and see the bedsides at Super Amart, to see if they are like the mdf/chipboard type stuff or solid timber. Those drawers and bedsides from Fantastic are similar to what we had, and the bottom of the drawers were so flimsy, there was barely any point having it there at all. Every chip shows, and the glass went funny where it was sitting on the edges.

I hope I'm not putting a dampener on things - I think the bed would be fine, but anything to do with drawers I think you need to go and look at in person to make sure they aren't crap!

Again, just my opinion, but in your new house, you want quality stuff that will last!

Thanks guys! Will definitely go to both and check them out in person! Unfortunately, getting furniture from other places isn't really an option for us right now, we don't have much money left over from the build. We're getting a $1,000 dining table and chairs from Super A-Mart, and that eats up most of our budget. Even my beautiful bookcase that I was going to get from FarPav has had to take a backseat until we've got a bit more money.

I bought the Bounty timber bed 5 years ago and it has been unassembled about 5 times as we have had to move a lot. It is very solid and all timber and going strong ( from FF)

Thanks Donna! I guess it just depends on a lot of things, what it's made of, how well it's assembled and how old it is. Their quality might have gone up in the recent years. Anyway, we're going to Super A-Mart tomorrow, and then hopefully to FF another day this week to compare the quality.

Bought some of their stuff in our first house, prices were really attractive, we didn't expect high quality for the price we paid, so it wasn't too bad, last us for 3 years and we moved on to some solid "furniture" instead of "toy".

If you shops around in different seasons, you could spot some really good sales with interest free deal. I like the sales most not just because of price, but also mean that they have the floor stock, and I don't need to wait for 6 months to get it shipped.

Just echoing some thoughts here - really depends on you and your budget you are working with. In my student days it was basically ikea and fantastic furniture. We (that shared a house together) literally got what we paid for, which wasnt much! Needless to say we've all moved on from there and dont even bother with ikea/fantastic anymore. Even selling our old stuff on gumtree was a hassle!

Have you considered buying the smaller things online? i find lighting, chairs, etc are a lot cheaper online. just read reviews and double check their warranty/returns policy and it should be ok.

Check out Gumtree for second hand - so many people moving around and they don't want to take Furniture with them. You can pick up some really good quality for what you would pay new at FF

Hi MalinViktoria,
I have not any experience with fantastic furniture, but I highly recommend super a mart and Rimini furniture online store you can find the best deal from their website.
Suoer Amart:
https://www.amartfurniture.com.au/bedroom/
Riminifurniture:
https://riminifurniture.com.au/product-category/bedroom/page/3/

We got a lounge from amart and it was terrible. It went flat in months, the fabric tore at every seam, it was just awful. We just replaced it with one from fantastic and it's great, no complaints at all.