North Carolina · family-owned since 1969

Vanguard

The one house on our floor that does the whole room — case goods, upholstery and outdoor — bench-made, under a single finish catalogue.

1969
Family-owned since
750+
Craftspeople
Lifetime
Frames, springs and cushion cores
See what's on the floor Book a showroom visit

North Carolina · family-owned since 1969

Vanguard

The house

One house for the whole room.

Vanguard has built furniture in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains since 1969, and it is the only house we carry that will furnish a room end to end. Case goods are the depth of the line — chests, consoles, dining tables, beds and occasional pieces — and they carry the same finish catalogue as everything else: around seventy standard stains before you reach raffia, shagreen, parchment, tinted metal and hand-applied striping.

Nothing here is built on a line. Every sofa, chair and table is worked at a bench and hand-finished in America, and the upholstery is eight-way hand-tied — a real distinction, and not every American house still does it.

The outdoor collections take the same proportions outside, on aluminium, woven fibre, teak and stone, with two hundred and thirty-one fabrics rated for the weather. One catalogue, one finish language, one lead time to track: a dining room, the bedroom above it and the terrace off it can come from the same order.

How it's made

The frame

Bench-made, not line-built

A Vanguard piece is built at a bench by the people working it, rather than moving down a line. Every sofa, chair and table is upholstered and hand-finished in America — their phrase for it is “not by machines, but by Artisans” — across six workshops in North Carolina and Virginia, family held since 1969.

The suspension

Eight-way, hand-tied

Tied by hand, eight ways, in the bench-made tradition — which is a real distinction rather than a phrase. Not every American upholstery house does it, including some that cost more.

The finish

The finish catalogue, on a case piece

Around seventy standard stains, and then raffia, shagreen, parchment, tinted metal, metallic paint and hand-applied striping — applied surfaces rather than colours, which is why the count runs past a hundred. A chest in shagreen and a chest in flat walnut are not the same piece of furniture, and both are catalogue.

The range

What else they make

Whole rooms, and everything in them is Vanguard — upholstery, leather and case goods photographed together. Which is rather the point: the line furnishes the room, not a corner of it.

The maker's own photography. Anything here can be ordered; what's in the building is on the floor list below.

Make it yours

Custom ordered, one piece at a time.

Every piece is specified before it's built — finish, cover, cushion and configuration. We spec it with you in the showroom, then it gets made.

Request swatches
Fabrics, leathers and trims
1,300+

Five hundred and fifty-eight performance fabrics, two hundred and thirty-one rated for outdoors, eighty-seven leathers and seventy-one trims. The book moves; the order of magnitude does not.

Wood finishes
72

Standard stains, before anything is done to them. Vanguard's own note on their chips: colours shown may vary from the actual finish, so reference the real thing before ordering. We hold them.

Applied surfaces
44

Thirteen raffias, twenty tinted metals, seven shagreens and four parchments. Surfaces rather than colours — which is why a Vanguard case piece can look like nothing else in the room.

Metal finishes10 finishes

Aged bronze through porcelain white, and short enough to show you all of them.

  • Aged Bronze
  • Carbon
  • Flat Black
  • French Metal
  • Luxe Metal
  • Modern Steel
  • Porcelain White
  • Promiseland Metal
  • Rivera Steel
  • Sparrow Metal
Nailheads
33

Nine head styles in three sizes each, and six more besides. Size changes a piece as much as finish does — a micro nail and a standard nail on the same chair are two different chairs.

Welts and seams
10

Standard, micro and cordless welt. English, French, tailored English, tailored French and tailored running seams, with leather variants of each. This is the level at which upholstery stops being a category and becomes a decision.

Sheen and distressing
5 + 3

Flat at two sheen through high gloss at ninety, and three levels of distressing from none to worm-holing and heavy chaining. The same stain in flat and in high gloss are not the same finish.

Highlight striping
5 + any paint

Hand-applied by artisans in the North Carolina and Virginia factories — gold, light gold, platinum, silver, bronze, or any shade from the Make It Yours paint catalogue. An upcharge applies.

Designer collections
2

Michael Weiss and Thom Filicia, alongside the house programmes — Ease Custom and American Bungalow among them.

On the floor

Available now

Nothing from this line is on the floor this week.

Tell me when one lands

Come and see it in person.

Tell us what you're working on and we'll have the relevant pieces and fabrics pulled before you arrive.

Dallas
2100 Stemmons Freeway
IHDC-2F125
Dallas, TX 75207
Mon-Fri 9:30-4:30 Other times available by appointment
817 241 5414
Fort Worth
16170 US Highway 377
Fort Worth, TX 76126
Mon-Fri 9-5 Saturday by appointment
817 241 5414
  1. 01 — Sit with usFrame first, cover second. Bring a plan, a photograph, or nothing at all.
  2. 02 — Spec itFinish, cover, cushion and configuration, settled in one visit.
  3. 03 — It gets builtTo your specification, not pulled from a warehouse. We'll quote the current timing.
  4. 04 — We hold itThirty days of free storage while your space comes together.

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