Cowboydoc, I agree with you that there is nothing political about a discussion about fine furniture, and being an antique furniture lover, I am more than happy to talk fine furniture. The only problem with the way the thread started was the specific mention of China. Anytime China is mentioned a thread only goes one way, political! The Swedes make the junkiest furniture around (IKEA), but talk about Swedish junk doesn't go the way talk about Chinese junk does.
Now, onto fine American furniture. While I am partial to antiques (not the high-falutin fancy antiques, but rather lovingly hand-crafted long-lived country and mission-style antiques), one contemporary company that I am partial to, and it has already been mentioned, is Stickley (
www.stickley.com). Their stuff is fantastic. My wife and I purchased two nightstands, a dresser, and two cottage chairs from Stickley. All of the pieces are solid quarter-sawn oak. The tops of all of the pieces (except the chairs) are made of a single piece of wood, one inch thick. The joinery is entirely mortise and tenon. All drawers are made of 1/2" (sides) to 3/4" (front) single pieces, are dove-tailed, and run on tongue and grooves. Because each piece is entirely hand-crafted the fit of each drawer is a little different, so each drawer compartment is numbered to match its appropriate drawer (also numbered -- with a wood stamp). Every piece bears the wood-stamped initials of the master craftsman that made the piece. The finish is second to none. Stickley furniture, properly cared for, will easily last for two hundred years. Some of the 100-year-old antique Stickley that I have seen is as tight as if it had been made the day before.
The thing that I like most about Stickley is the reason the founder, Gustav Stickley, started making his fabulous furniture in the first place. He saw a need for high-quality, hand-crafted, affordable furniture to replace the mass-produced junk so prevalent at the time. Sounds familiar, no? Unfortunately, Stickley is no longer affordable.