Could be any number of things. Catalyzed lacquer has a strong smell. Most of the white furniture I see is MDF inside. If it is real wood, it can be any sort of tropical wood that's often worked while quite wet. Some of it can have an off-odor. And if it comes from China -- which is where most furniture these days comes from -- then it could be anything.

Here is a link that might be useful: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100402/ap_on_bi_ge/us_chinese_drywall

My former kitchen cabinets stank all the time, like paint thinner or similar. We moved after 7 years there, but I feel like they would continue to stink for 20 more!

I would complain to the store and ask for a replacement set or a refund.

Hello rivkadr

I just had a very similar problem with a bed I bought from someone who imports furniture from Thailand. When I got it home, I discovered it absolutely reeked of wood smoke. First I tried to get rid of the smell by using Murphy's Oil Soap but it had no impact. It got better over a few weeks but was still very noticeable. I own a Lotus Ozonator which uses ozonated water to sanitize and the manual said it could be used to deodorize. I made a batch of the cleaner in the squirt bottle and sprayed it all over the bed and dried it off. It really seemed to help. There is still the slightest odour but I suspect that that is coming from the parts of the back of the headboard where I was not able to spray since the bed was already set up and too heavy to move by myself. (FYI I have no connection to the company that makes the Lotus so this is not spam). Maybe you can get your hands on a Lotus and try it on your furniture (they're not cheap though - I found mine on Craigslist). Here is the website: http://www.tersano.com/index.php