[HN Gopher] Why are most sofas so bad?
___________________________________________________________________
Why are most sofas so bad?
Author : jtsnow
Score : 125 points
Date : 2024-03-14 16:57 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.dwell.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.dwell.com)
| uoaei wrote:
| "Most important piece of furniture" is a heavily loaded
| ideological claim. It points to the rampant American culture
| surrounding media consumption.
|
| I've been pretty stunned during my travels to find that it's
| really only Americans who obsessively talk about or reference TV
| shows and movies in their small talk. No other culture seems
| nearly as interested, and some actively discourage it in favor of
| more real, personal topics. It's one of those things where once
| you start noticing it, it just gets cringier and cringier.
|
| Not everyone lives in sitcoms or spends all their free time
| watching TV...
|
| The only time I'm on my couch is when I have a few people over.
| And even then we're usually doing other things than just lazing
| about.
| gumby wrote:
| I'm not sure this is really sofa-related, but...
|
| > I've been pretty stunned during my travels to find that it's
| really only Americans who obsessively talk about or reference
| TV shows and movies in their small talk.
|
| It's a slight exaggeration, but yeah. I've really started
| noticing it on HN and some news-ish sites too, over the past
| couple of years: where a book would normally be used as a
| reference point, now a film is more commonly used instead.
| tomrod wrote:
| Weird, I saw similar conversations in SE Asia many years ago,
| especially around popular soap operas.
|
| Maybe it's hindsight bias on one of our parts.
| vundercind wrote:
| Adult Americans read so few books per year, on average, that
| it's barely an exaggeration to assert that we don't read
| books at all. And most of what we do read is romance novels
| or juvenile fiction. Been like that for a while.
| gumby wrote:
| I tried to look this up but the numbers on different sites
| were all over the place.
| saurik wrote:
| > The only time I'm on my couch is when I have a few people
| over.
|
| You make it sound like this is not merely a rare thing for you,
| but that it should be rare... I don't just passively sit and
| watch much television and yet I have spent an incredible amount
| of time in my life sitting on either my couch or the couch of a
| friend -- or even one of many couches at an office -- talking
| and laughing and having fun with other human beings. If I had
| to choose only one: a couch or a dining table, I'd go with a
| couch. Now... bed? That's harder for me, but I can totally see
| people deciding couch (as you can sleep on the couch but it is
| awkward as hell to invite people over and only have a bed to
| use).
| uoaei wrote:
| No, it's just that most activities in my home are not
| amenable to sitting.
|
| For instance, people come by all the time to play pool. Does
| that mean I should advocate that pool tables are important
| things to have in the home?
| maximinus_thrax wrote:
| > Does that mean I should advocate that pool tables are
| important things to have in the home?
|
| Yes. Write your own Dwell magazine and advocate for
| whatever you wish.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| And while 2-4 people are playing pool, where's everybody
| else? On various sitting furniture. I think we need to go
| one step further, and revive the conversation pit. (aka,
| the supercouch)
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| Fully agree! The sectional is a cop-out. Commit!
| pdabbadabba wrote:
| > "Most important piece of furniture" is a heavily loaded
| ideological claim. It points to the rampant American culture
| surrounding media consumption.
|
| I think you may be engaging in a bit of axe grinding here! I
| agree that the sofa is one of the post important pieces of
| furniture in my home [1], but for reasons that have nothing to
| do with television. There is no TV in the room! But it is still
| where I spend the most time sitting during downtime, reading
| books, talking to my family, etc. And when I have friends over,
| we're either there or at the dining room table.
|
| [1] For the title of _the_ most important, I might have picked
| my bed. But that 's a quibble.
| barbazoo wrote:
| > "Most important piece of furniture" is a heavily loaded
| ideological claim. It points to the rampant American culture
| surrounding media consumption.
|
| That's quite a leap. Did you consider that dwell.com might not
| have actually done a study on what Americans consider the "most
| important piece of furniture" but just used that phrase to
| justify the very existence of their article?
| uoaei wrote:
| I'm not making any claims about the preferences of Americans
| but about the default assumptions of the authors. It is as
| good a reflection of cultural attitudes as any.
| ed_blackburn wrote:
| I'm not American. But I feel seen(!) :)
| tqi wrote:
| > really only Americans who obsessively talk about or reference
| TV shows and movies in their small talk
|
| For one, it doesnt seem like americans are significant outliers
| in tv consumption[1] or smartphone usage[2]. For another, yeah
| if you're a foreign traveller people probably aren't going to
| make small talk with you about TV or other pop culture...
|
| [1]https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/which-country-watches-
| th...
|
| [2] https://explodingtopics.com/blog/smartphone-usage-
| stats#smar...
| swatcoder wrote:
| Not to interrupt your principled tirade against lazy Americans
| or whatever, but it's not a "claim", let alone an ideological
| one. It's just a bog standard literary device for framing a
| puff piece.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| Telenovelas would seem to be a strong counterpoint to the idea
| that it's only Americans who talk about TV.
|
| If anything, TV has become dramatically less of a shared
| cultural experience for Americans since the post-network era
| began.
| com2kid wrote:
| > "Most important piece of furniture" is a heavily loaded
| ideological claim. It points to the rampant American culture
| surrounding media consumption.
|
| My family doesn't watch TV. I purchased my sofa when I didn't
| even have a TV.
|
| The most important aspect of my living room arrangement is how
| well it facilitates long, deep, conversations with friends who
| come over for visits.
|
| I have 3 pieces of seating in my living room, a chair for
| reading placed next to a book case (large enough that a couple
| small kids can sit in the lap of an adult who is reading with
| them if so desired), a smaller 2 person sofa, and a larger 6ft
| long sofa.
|
| I know plenty of other families who have similar arrangements
| with sofas so placed as to emphasize socialization with
| friends.
|
| Now if we are talking about the 90s and early 2000s, yeah, it
| was all about amazing TV watching experiences.
|
| > The only time I'm on my couch is when I have a few people
| over. And even then we're usually doing other things than just
| lazing about.
|
| The couch is where you retire to after dinner has been finished
| and everything cleaned away. Board games may occur in other
| rooms (depending on one's coffee table situation) the of course
| a room that is laid out for conversation is going to see the
| most use when there are people over to have a conversation
| with.
|
| FWIW now that I have a kid, I am hosting social events more
| often than ever before (watching children has a negative co-
| efficient for small values of n > 1, 3 kids are easier to watch
| than 1!), but even in my DINK life (at which point I didn't
| even own a TV), my couch got plenty of use.
| zachmu wrote:
| https://www.theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-d...
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Are you sure it's "Americans" or is it the Internet? Our
| experience of Americans may not be identical. Even just my co-
| workers and family seem to rarely if ever be aware of the same
| things on television I care about, granting I watch far more
| nature documentaries than anything else and had no access to
| broadcast networks until they launched streaming services in
| the last couple years since I cord cut around 2011 or so. The
| only thing from the past 15 years I can think of that seemed
| widely at least known about to most people I talked to was Game
| of Thrones, but even that was far from universal. My HVAC guy
| commented that I looked different because I had long hair and a
| ponytail the last time he saw me a few years ago and I said it
| was because I grew my hair out for Khal Drogo cosplay and he
| had no clue what I was talking about. He'd never even seen Game
| of Thrones or probably any other television. I actually
| remember that about two of my ex-girlfriend's dads from when I
| was in my early 20s. They were both small business owners and
| had no knowledge whatsoever about pop culture. They were so
| focused on their businesses that they never watched any
| television or saw any films.
|
| In any case, even though there is nothing on television I watch
| with any regularity currently, I would still rate my sofa as a
| fairly important piece of furniture. Not as important as my
| bed, but it is the largest piece of furniture and the
| centerpiece of my largest room. My kitchen/living room is open
| floor plan townhouse and I cook quite a bit, and I can't just
| stand all day, so that's where I rest, even though I'm just
| listening to music when I do so and not watching television.
| When I lay down to read a book, that's also usually where I do
| it. If I take a nap during the day, it's typically on the sofa.
| We usually eat dinner there, too, even though we're not
| watching television, just because it's more comfortable than
| any other place we have to sit. I even work from my sofa pretty
| frequently.
|
| But I've got no complaints, personally. I paid $300 or so at
| the PX when I joined the Army almost 20 years ago and bought my
| first house and still have the same sofa. It certainly didn't
| fall apart on me. It's moved with me four times. My wife and I
| debate getting a nice one but always decide not to because our
| cats are going to tear it up and puke on it all the time
| anyway.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| Does media consumption include "conversing with guests?" The
| sofa is the place everybody goes to chat unless we're having a
| meal.
|
| Frankly, we'd probably use it a little less if our dining
| chairs were more comfortable, and I do think there's a very
| good case to be made that dining room chairs are more important
| than the sofa, but nonetheless, I really don't think a sofa is
| especially tied to TV culture in any way.
|
| If we're going to be _doing_ something rather than lazing
| around or eating, we 're not going to be in the house at all.
| Share6323 wrote:
| Are any sofa manufacturers out there that still produce good
| quality for around $1000, preferably from Europe ?
| asow92 wrote:
| $1k just ain't what it used to be. My wife and I just spent $5k
| on a sectional from West Elm a year ago and the fabric is
| already starting to pill.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| This is why I trust IKEA's price to quality ratio. I know I
| won't be getting the highest quality, but I will likely be
| getting the highest quality to price ratio.
|
| Got this one in 2016 for $1,100, and it's survived 2 kids
| with minimal pilling. It won't impress anyone, but I have no
| problem using it.
|
| https://www.ikeaddict.com/ikeapedia/en/Product/60276883/us-e.
| ..
|
| I have no way of discerning furniture/fabric quality, and no
| one offers long warranties, so I don't see a reason to spend
| more than IKEA prices.
| vundercind wrote:
| Yeah, the correct choices for furniture these days are
| basically: used (cheap if you're not buying something
| trendy like mid century modern), IKEA, or super-expensive
| really-good stuff. Anything new that's cheaper than that
| last category's usually just gonna be as bad or worse than
| IKEA, plus 1.2x-5x the price. And likely uglier.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Oof! For $5k you could get something from Herman Miller, Hay,
| or Design Within Reach[1].
|
| [1] https://www.dwr.com/living-sofas-sectionals/quilton-
| chaise-s...
| dangus wrote:
| I think even showy luxury brands like RH do better than
| West Elm. CB2 as well, which is a slight step up from Crate
| and Barrel.
|
| West Elm and the whole Pottery Barn set of brands are just
| worse versions of Crate and Barrel, with terrible customer
| service to go with it. They had some of the most mean and
| rude customer service agents I've ever talked to. They
| acted like the store was an entirely different company,
| then the store acted like I needed to call the national
| call line. Plus, they outsource deliveries in a very
| annoying blame-shifting way.
|
| At least at RH you get a single human point of contact who
| can handle everything like a concierge experience.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Yeah, their price point is totally baffling given the
| quality, service, and delivery issues.
| elteto wrote:
| Ironic, that same item you mention has 2 reviews (out of 3)
| complaining about worn out fabric within months. And almost
| $5k.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Not really ironic. It's available in 10 different fabric
| options. If you're surprised that a wool/alpaca blend
| fabric isn't heard wearing, or that boucle snags easily
| then you didn't think through the purchase. I have a
| similar sofa with the Beck fabric and it's great for the
| way I use it. The flambier boucle fabric looks great, but
| as a cat owner, I'd never purchase it.
| 6510 wrote:
| You have to buy an old one and have it reanimated
| professionally.
| loloquwowndueo wrote:
| Reanimated? :)
| iamacyborg wrote:
| Buy something used on ebay. I picked up an &Tradition Cloud
| sofa on ebay a few years back for ~30% list price.
| seper8 wrote:
| Ikea. Can't beat price/quality.
| dangus wrote:
| I do agree with this. When you build them yourself and see
| the underneath of them they really aren't that awful compared
| to a store couch that is possibly using even worse
| construction techniques.
|
| The only problem I have with them is that they have almost no
| couch designs that have a more plush style. Almost all of
| them are firmer foams and just plain not appealing designs.
| impossiblefork wrote:
| Probably not for $1000.
|
| $2700 is what I got mine for. I think price might have been
| lowered to $2300 now.
|
| It's built in Poland. Solid wood with steel reinforcement in
| the form of steel tubing in places, springs, and then a pillow
| system on top of that. The firm making it is the Swedish
| company SITS.
|
| But I think one has to actually sit in a bunch of couches to
| see whether they're good.
| artimaeis wrote:
| Jumping in with the pro-IKEA crowd. I've had a KIVIK since 2017
| that has survived me, my wife, and friends incredibly well.
| It's moved with us 3 times and still is in great shape. Easily
| the best value piece of furniture currently in my home.
| angry_moose wrote:
| I've posted about our ~$2000 West Elm sofa that disintegrated
| within 2 years in a similar previous thread:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37393399
|
| The whole thing is just stapled together OSB.
|
| I ripped the dust cover off and added 3 new frame stretchers made
| from 2x8 construction lumber (and tied other loose joints back
| together) and its done pretty well since then:
| https://imgur.com/a/bqlLgW3 (wish I'd gotten a few more pictures,
| but I was tired by this point). Just shocking how terrible the
| construction is.
| nerdponx wrote:
| As if it wasn't bad enough that most consumer goods have
| completely bifurcated into "junk" and "luxury", now it's hard
| to even tell which products fall into which category, because
| there is so much junk now being sold as luxury.
| angry_moose wrote:
| Yeah. Even at the time we knew West Elm wasn't high end, but
| we were at least expecting decent.
|
| We know more now (and could afford better) whenever we have
| to finally replace this, but $2000 is a not-insignificant
| investment that shouldn't be a complete piece of crap.
| elteto wrote:
| My problem is that I don't even know where to buy _good_
| stuff. I don't want to pay $5k for a couch, but maybe I
| will _once_ in N years, for some large N, if I know it's
| very well made and I like the design.
|
| But I have no idea where to go for this. The overlap
| between junk and luxury is too large nowadays.
| JohnFen wrote:
| As with so many goods these days, I find that buying
| stuff made at least a couple of decades ago works best.
| It's much easier to tell the garbage from the treasure if
| you aren't buying stuff made recently.
| earleybird wrote:
| As sibling comment says: survivorship bias as a heuristic
| is useful.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| It's even worse with carpet and carpet install. Thieves.
| amluto wrote:
| I've had multiple fancy chairs, purchased from a famous high
| end brand with a very high end showroom in a very high end
| design center, fail very quickly. The failure was due to
| their vendor (fancy, in France) using nice solid finger
| jointed hardwood, well finished, in a place where that
| construction was completely inappropriate.
|
| High quality Scandinavian-style plywood probably would have
| lasted decades.
|
| Nice materials + pretty design does not necessarily result in
| a good product.
| plugin-baby wrote:
| Where is hardwood inappropriate? Genuinely curious to know
| gspencley wrote:
| I don't think that amluto is saying that the hardwood
| itself is inappropriate, or is necessarily ever
| inappropriate. I think they are saying that the specific
| joinery in their example was form over function, to the
| point where the joint was a critical point of failure.
|
| Having done a bit of woodworking as a hobby, I would say
| that hardwood could be inappropriate if it is used for an
| element that is purely structural, internal (and thus
| will be hidden by external features) and there are
| cheaper alternatives that are just as good, or stronger
| materials available and we are talking about a critical
| structural element.
|
| That's a pretty abstract answer but it's always going to
| depend on the specific project. Sometimes a piece of
| furniture has no hidden internal structure, or the appeal
| of the furniture is that it is all bare wood and you want
| it made entirely out of a beautiful "furniture grade"
| hardwood. For certain upholstered furniture, such as many
| sofas, using expensive materials for inner framing could
| not only be superfluous and add unnecessary cost to the
| piece, but in certain circumstances there may be better
| materials available even if you could make a perfectly
| adequate structural support that will last a lifetime
| using expensive hardwood and the right joinery for
| critical stress points.
|
| I read amulto's point as being "expensive material and
| fancy joinery doesn't matter if you have a weak design."
| amluto wrote:
| The chairs had four legs, each of which radiated out
| horizontally from a central point (they were swivel
| chairs) then turned downward to the floor. The legs were
| about 1/2" wide, maybe a bit more. They were maybe 1"
| tall (vertically in the horizontal section and
| horizontally in the vertical section).
|
| So the grain needed to run horizontally in the horizontal
| part to support the bending load. It was probably best
| for the grain to be vertical in the vertical part,
| although that was maybe less critical: that section was
| mostly in compression. It probably also looked better
| that way.
|
| In any case, the actual construction put a finger joint
| in the horizontal section just past the turn, so a tiny
| bit of vertical grain wood extended horizontally over the
| turn. And several of the legs cracked just along the side
| of the finger joint, and one failed completely after
| about a month of gentle use.
|
| The design plausibly could have worked if the joint went
| diagonally through the turn or was below it. But plywood
| is strong along both in-plane axes, and the legs could
| likely have been cut in single pieces from sheets of
| plywood with strength to spare.
|
| Attractive plywood, even from hardwood species, is
| readily available. The plies are visible along the cut
| edge, but this is actually a style people like,
| especially in Scandinavian furniture. Even IKEA sells
| some nice chairs with plywood elements, at entirely
| reasonably price points.
| TylerE wrote:
| I think he meant "place" as in literally "the location on
| the furniture" rather than the (very reasonable from
| context) interpretation I suspect we both had that it
| mean "place" in the geographic, or at least climatic
| sense.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Reminds me previous sets of dinner chairs my parents had.
| Glued together. Slowly dried and then they were less than
| ideal... Even if the materials are good it means nothing if
| techniques are wrong.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| >junk now being sold as luxury.
|
| That's always been the case though. There has always been
| junk marketing itself as "luxury" to milk the nouveau riche.
| It's not like real Coach bags utilize some magic leather that
| doesn't degrade just the same as the $200 leather purse you
| buy from a local artisan. It's not like the brick that
| Supreme sold was made of some sort of magical clay. The
| luxury purse companies don't burn their leftover product to
| protect some secret of Dr Who purses that are bigger or
| magically organized on the inside, but because the entire
| value of the brand is "I can afford this and you cannot"
|
| Luxury has ALWAYS been about signalling and displaying status
| and power. It's always about rubbing the prole's faces in
| their supposed supremacy. Remember, they have money because
| they are better than you, definitely not because there are
| systems and structures in place that make it easier to get
| rich for the already wealthy and connected.
|
| Unfortunately it seems so many people really struggle to
| understand that while quality often costs a lot, costing a
| lot does not imply quality in any way. If you can afford to
| spend oodles on marketing for your product, you probably
| aren't spending as much on quality as people assume you
| would.
| JohnFen wrote:
| This is why I differentiate between "quality" and "luxury".
| Luxury goods are very often just expensive junk that people
| buy in order to signal that they have money.
|
| Quality goods are well-designed, well-made, etc. And you
| can't be sure about quality based on price.
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _It 's not like real Coach bags utilize some magic
| leather that doesn't degrade just the same as the $200
| leather purse you buy from a local artisan._
|
| Not sure why Coach was chosen for this example - I don't
| believe they are expensive; last I checked they were in the
| range of $200-500, which doesn't seem egregious as the
| actual luxury brands (ex. Hermes, where the entry level
| bags are $4,000).
|
| That said, I feel there is a real difference in quality at
| various price points, and focusing on the material ("magic
| leather") is wrong. When I'm paying a premium I'm usually
| looking for in the dimensions of construction, and usually
| that means paying an actual professional who may charge
| $100/hr, vs 19 year old in Bangladesh. The two might be
| using the same material but the price difference comes from
| the person assembling the item.
|
| The problem is you have a ton of companies (even "luxury"
| ones), that in an attempt to juice their stock price, have
| also focused on getting costs super low and are now using
| the same factories as junk brands but just slapping their
| logo on it. Even products of the same brand can vary wildly
| in quality depending even on the year it was made.
|
| I have jackets from "luxury" brands that I bought 10 years
| ago that still look brand new for thousands of dollars (and
| probably saved money in the long run), but buying a similar
| item new or even trying to replace it is impossible.
| gerdesj wrote:
| I recently visited Hong Kong. In a mall I spotted a shop
| called Sinequanone (sic). It was flogging "French fashion",
| quite pricy "French fashion". Who knows, it might be French
| inspired. You can tell its authentic French thanks to the e
| acute and the trailing e!
|
| Sine qua non is Latin.
|
| To be fair, the quality did look pretty decent but marketing
| needs to try harder. Mind you that's not the daftest brand
| name or trademark ever! Who could forget the Rolls Royce
| Silver Mist? Mist in German means dung, manure or shit.
| Someone thankfully noticed before it was released (Frankfurt
| motor show) and it became the Silver Shadow. Then there was
| "Consignia" ...
| Terr_ wrote:
| > To be fair, the quality did look pretty decent but
| marketing needs to try harder.
|
| When I lived in Hong Kong, I once saw a boutique grocery
| store that had a wooden hanging-sign/plaque, and IIRC it
| was 1997 and the sign said "Since 1996."
|
| Far more amusing were the businesses non-ironically
| translated as things like "1000 Golden Fortune"-something-
| or-other.
| pyb wrote:
| West Elm has a bit of a reputation in that regard
| some-guy wrote:
| I don't live in the Bay Area anymore, but once great thing
| about living there was the amount of secondhand West Elm /
| Williams Sonoma furniture for reasonable prices that you
| could buy from rich people. Most of their quality is a
| crapshoot but at the right price you can find good deals for
| some of their items.
| fy20 wrote:
| The part about springs is interesting because all the sofas I've
| owned in the past decade have used foam, and I don't miss
| springs... When they are new maybe it's ok, but over time they
| wear out and the sofa becomes really noisy and uncomfortable as
| they aren't even. The same thing with mattresses, I'm never
| buying a sprung mattress again.
| o11c wrote:
| Despite the article mentioning other things, it seems like at
| least half the problem can be avoided by never buying furniture
| online.
| dangus wrote:
| Not really. Regular retailers aren't immune.
|
| Let's be real too: nobody's going underneath the sofas at Crate
| and Barrel to see how they're constructed. It doesn't really
| matter that you can see and touch them.
|
| I don't even think the luxury brands are much better (e.g.,
| RH). They'll give you some solid woods and finer materials
| where you can see them. They are better but not by the amount I
| would like.
|
| The cheapness isn't something these manufacturers need to do,
| it's just in their interest. Higher margins, more repeat
| purchases.
|
| It's not like salaries are high in big furniture production
| countries like Vietnam. They could do things in a more labor
| intense way and still make a profit. It's just that they'll
| make more money by making the construction cheap, and making a
| product that lasts decades is a good way to restrict future
| business.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| Darn I was hoping pottery barn would be reliable..
| dangus wrote:
| I'm not a fan of Pottery Barn, I think Crate and Barrel or
| CB2 are the essentially the same products with better
| service.
| kalkr wrote:
| I ordered a dresser once from a local store, they bought some
| cheap crap from Amazon and passed it off as "shipping from
| storage". It arrived broken and I couldn't get my money back,
| which I probably would have if I got something similar through
| an online retailer.
| vkou wrote:
| The article seems to exaggerate a bit, because neither in 2024,
| nor in 2004, would I have expected a $1,200 couch to be 'well-
| made'. (Although I wouldn't expect either one to actually fall
| apart in two years of use.)
|
| This isn't exactly a novel problem.
| pyb wrote:
| Correct. According to this 1975 catalog
| https://ikeamuseum.com/en/explore/ikea-
| catalogue/1975-ikea-c..., Ikea sofas could be bought for the
| equivalent of $1000 today.
|
| Higher-end sofas would have logically cost much more...
| bluedino wrote:
| In the Midwest, the "better" option is to buy furniture from "The
| Amish".
|
| Parents bought a living room set, it was double what a similar
| set would be at the local furniture superstore, but the
| fabric/cushions were a new level of terrible. Basically fell
| apart in two years.
|
| It's a great place to find wooden tables, beds, dressers, but
| it's all heavy (as you'd expect) and hard to move.
|
| If I was buying a sofa today I would get something from
| Stressless.
| SauciestGNU wrote:
| Although the furniture quality is excellent, I worry about
| supporting child labor when doing business with the Amish. They
| pull their kids out of school after grade 8 to put them to
| work. I've also heard various things regarding the commonality
| of abusive practices within their religion. Trade-offs for
| everything!
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "supporting child labor"
|
| From their point of view, the modern society may be
| needlessly infantilizing people who are halfway to adulthood.
|
| We even treat university students like kids, hence all the
| obsession with micromanaging their campus experience.
| nozzlegear wrote:
| Child labor seems a bit more serious a concern.
| illiac786 wrote:
| There's a big range between 8 year old and average first
| year university student...
| inglor_cz wrote:
| " after grade 8 " (the OPs concern) is more like 15 y.o.,
| right?
| illiac786 wrote:
| Oops, misread.
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| I've been very happy with my Lovesac sofa, but its pricing is
| borderline extortionate.
| Moto7451 wrote:
| They seem to have specials at Costco periodically. They're not
| my thing but I suggest taking their discount if you can.
| adsims2001 wrote:
| I am happy with my Lovesac sofa, too. It was expensive, but I
| can't think of another product I could expect to be as happy
| with, so Lovesac seems to be in a class of their own and can
| demand whatever price they want.
|
| In particular, it's comfortable, well built, but not bulky. I
| can take it apart move it in my regular sized SUV if needed. I
| move a lot, and eventually grew tired of bulky things that were
| difficult or impossible to move without professional help.
|
| I also tried a Burrow sofa which has the same modular
| properties, but it was not comfortable at all and I had to
| return it
| wsatb wrote:
| Their cushion quality can be hit or miss, but I'll say they're
| pretty receptive to exchanges.
|
| Also, never pay full price. They offer 25-35% off many times
| per year, usually around holidays.
| 303uru wrote:
| Most are cheap junk bought sight unseen. My stressless couches
| are built from real wood, full grain leather, etc... My eames
| chair likewise. But you're adding a 5-10x multiplyer to furniture
| costs for that quality.
| rsynnott wrote:
| I hear this a lot, but my fairly inexpensive IKEA sofa is about
| eight years old with no problems at all so far.
|
| EDIT: Actually, in general I've found that my IKEA furniture has
| done pretty well (basically everything in the house is IKEA) with
| the sole exception of a "Lack" coffee table, whose surface is
| kinda disintegrating after 8 years (I think it's basically made
| of cardboard with a veneer...). The name should perhaps have been
| a warning.
| i80and wrote:
| I got an IKEA couch about 9 years ago. It was like... $700? The
| construction is definitely very cheap and you can tell if you
| flip it on its back, but it's very comfortable and sturdy
| enough that it still feels solid in normal use.
|
| I don't think "cheap" construction is necessarily a bad thing,
| honestly. There's ways to do cheap construction such that it
| works just fine.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Ikea has to engineer it. They are a global company and they
| can invest in engineering to avoid as many returns/refunds.
| It's worth it to them.
|
| So while the materials are cheap and the style not high end,
| from what I've seen they maximize the engineering to make it
| durable.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| Yup, we've had the same IKEA furniture for 16 years now, it's
| still going strong.
| baby wrote:
| For some reason people hate IKEA in the US. Was trying to sell
| a standing desk I bought there for 750$ and nobody wanted it.
| Ended up selling it for 150$. I also had a Jarvis and it was
| gone in an instant, even though the IKEA one was much much
| better.
|
| I Often hear people saying that IKEA furnitures don't travel
| well or don't last long. It's like we're not going to the same
| IKEA.
| sircastor wrote:
| I think a lot of this is attached to a puritan-based work
| ethic. If something isn't hard to do, or require a lot of
| time and energy then it's not of high quality or worth
| having.
|
| It's probably a signaling thing too...
| etrautmann wrote:
| Possibly, though some products like the PAX just truly
| don't move well even once.
| swatcoder wrote:
| IKEA is _beloved_ by many in the US and generally one of the
| most specifically in-demand brands in the market for used
| contemporary furniture. You might just be in an unusual
| region or had some other reasons why your listings didn 't
| perform the way you expected.
|
| That said, I _am_ one of those people who doesn 't get a lot
| from them so I can speak to some of criticism. Part of it is
| just the aesthetic, and theirs doesn't match how I decorate
| my own space or what I usually feel good around. That's just
| the nature of aesthetics, though, and there's always going to
| be some difference in taste between any two people and any
| two regions.
|
| As for quality, though, I think the critique you hear
| reflects the quality of their budget products. If you're
| eyeing modern or euro designs at a fancy furniture studio and
| then go to IKEA to find a cheap approximation, you discover
| that much of the cheapest stuff has the same flimsy
| glueboard, peeling laminate, and unstable joinery of the
| cheap stuff at Wal-mart.
|
| That shouldn't rally be a surprise (cheap is cheap for a
| reason) and doesn't hold true for their mid-range and higher
| products. And heck, it's not even really fair when Walmart
| and Target furniture isn't any better, but it's enough to
| keep feeding the reputation.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I legitimately had no idea IKEA sold anything of real
| quality. TIL.
| rsynnott wrote:
| I mean, it depends what you mean by 'real quality';
| you're not going to get hand-crafted expertly made stuff
| that will last for centuries or anything. But for the
| price, their mid to high end stuff is excellent.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I don't mean anything like artisan or hand-crafted. I
| mean well-built, out of quality materials. A good quality
| table, for instance, should last decades.
| rsynnott wrote:
| I think a lot of their solid wood stuff (it's not all
| chipboard!) would fit the bill, tbh. You do have to be
| slightly careful with the assembly (it's not difficult,
| but some people like to treat the instructions as
| suggestions, and then get annoyed when it falls apart...)
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah, I have a couple of Ikea chairs in a room that
| replaced (cheap) wicker that was falling apart. They
| haven't been used hard but, to me, they were pretty
| inexpensive, look good, and are very comfortable.
|
| On the other hand, I bought a dresser with a lot of
| particle board and, no, it's by no means well made. But
| it's in a bedroom and it works. I could have spent 4x (or
| more) for a nicely made hardwood dresser from a good New
| England brand. But even getting it into the bedroom
| upstairs might have been a bit of an adventure.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Have you never been in an IKEA store? They sell a lot of
| solid wood.
|
| I have IKEA furniture that's lasted for decades. It's
| value-optimized, but it's usually well designed; if you
| put it together properly, it will last.
| maxglute wrote:
| If one wants durable from IKEA, shop by material. They have
| sheet steel and solid wood that will outlast any particle
| board. The steel is a little thin on the budget line and
| the wood is not very aesthetic for some tastes, but they
| usually have options that last or outperforms more
| expensive particle board furniture that are more complex
| due to aesthetics. Hell even plastic there is fine, so many
| cafes with shitty beater IKEA cafe furniture.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Yeah, they're definitely opinionated about design.
| Personally, I like it, but if the design doesn't work for
| you, Ikea isn't going to work for you.
| alright2565 wrote:
| > you discover that much of the cheapest stuff has the same
| flimsy glueboard, peeling laminate, and unstable joinery of
| the cheap stuff at Wal-mart.
|
| I'm not going to argue too much with this, but I think this
| is underselling Ikea quite a bit.
|
| Their cheap stuff is definitely made out of cheap
| materials. But I've found it to be well-engineered compared
| to walmart with reinforcements in critical places and
| general overall good quality control (doesn't come pre-
| scratched).
|
| Walmart-level furniture on the other hand is often designed
| to look a certain way, with no consideration for how loads
| will be placed on it or long-term durability.
| mortenjorck wrote:
| I think the reason for this is simple: Ikea does make _some_
| pretty poor-quality furniture, but it 's often on the floor
| right next to some very well-built stuff that will last for
| many years.
|
| Price is sometimes an indicator (I bought two Ikea dressers
| ~15 years ago; I kept the cheaper one for only a few years
| while the more expensive one is still going strong) but not
| always (my 18-year-old sofa was the entry-level option at the
| time).
| resource_waste wrote:
| Back in 2012 I furnished a home with Ikea furniture.
|
| Yes I hate them.
|
| You'd spend $60 on a book case and spend the next 4 hours
| trying to understand what the instructions mean and how to
| build it. You also needed a partner to hold corners together.
|
| Now today, the furniture instructions are better and instead
| 16 different weird fastener, there are 8.
|
| Its a frustration thing. Ikea didn't really do anything but
| be low cost. We blame Ikea like we blame Walmart for having
| drug addicts.
| illiac786 wrote:
| I think this every time I built something ikea, then I
| build something from another brand and I discover a new
| abyss, then I go back to ikea. It's a cycle.
| nytesky wrote:
| Agreed, self assembly is terrible but IKEA is generally
| the least terrible.
| vundercind wrote:
| Yeah I don't get the complaints about IKEA instructions.
| They have the best furniture-assembly directions I've
| seen.
|
| They have a lot in common with old LEGO set instructions.
| Maybe people who hate them didn't do a bunch of that as a
| child?
| KerrAvon wrote:
| I'm with you -- I've assembled a lot of random stuff
| recently and I wish everyone had instructions half as
| good as IKEA's.
| adaml_623 wrote:
| I love IKEA instructions and construction. I honestly get a
| buzz from the puzzle. If I have to construct more than one
| of an item then I'll compete with myself on speed and
| efficiency.
| askvictor wrote:
| It's basically Lego for adults (which was more exciting
| until Lego pushed its market into the adult demographic).
|
| Which is actually part of Ikea's brand identity. When you
| put it together yourself, you feel closer to the
| furniture than if someone just plonked it at your house.
| OTOH, if you hate that kind of thing, you'll never go
| back, but I guess they have an assembly service these
| days.
| nytesky wrote:
| $750 for an IKEA desk is crazy money. Does it have hydraulics
| to raise and lower the desk?
|
| But depreciation on IKEA is huge because while it can last a
| long time within a household, it moves very poorly so if it
| has been moved or reassembled once or twice, it's likely near
| end of life. But hard to evaluate that, it's not like it has
| an odometer -- hence value for used it very low.
| koyote wrote:
| Those desks do have hydraulics:
| https://www.ikea.com/au/en/p/bekant-desk-sit-stand-
| white-s09...
|
| Ikea's goods usually come in different price ranges with
| the most expensive often not being 'cheap' but 'cheap given
| the quality'. That being said, often their cheapest stuff
| is the best value for money because it's so cheap that it
| lasting more than a year would be a miracle (but they
| usually do!).
| askvictor wrote:
| > Those desks do have hydraulics:
|
| Well, an electric motor
| JohnFen wrote:
| I don't hate IKEA at all, but I've found that a lot of their
| furniture doesn't last more than a couple of years. I
| consider it "temporary furniture".
| jghn wrote:
| It really depends. IKEA runs the entire range of very
| temporary to actually pretty good. The trick is knowing
| which is which, although price points are usually a good
| indicator.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Yeah, I dunno, maybe it's different stuff in the US? I know
| at least some of the items are different.
|
| With the exception of the aforementioned table (which I think
| cost about 8 euro at the time, so, really, what did I expect)
| I've found all their stuff to be of very decent quality,
| certainly better than what you could get from 'traditional'
| furniture stores at the same price.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| The problem with used IKEA furniture is that it's all DIY-
| assembled. You don't really know if it was built properly.
| quartesixte wrote:
| Same here -- I have an Ikea bedframe that's nearly a 2
| decades old at this point and has moved four times. An office
| chair lasted me 7 years. Bookcases over a decade old.
|
| I grew up in a nearly all Ikea household, and it's only later
| in life I have discovered their reputation.
|
| Am I missing something?
| swader999 wrote:
| I just don't like walking through their ENTIRE store.
| Tagbert wrote:
| You should start at the warehouse section and walk though
| it in reverse to get where you want to be.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| IKEA is better then almost everything by Ashley home
| furnishings.
| atomicfiredoll wrote:
| After a lot of digging a few years ago, I settled on the IKEA
| Finnala. So far it's held up pretty well.
|
| It's not as well made as quality pieces, but I worked from the
| assumption that any couch I bought would be trash. Some of the
| nice things about a buying into a system like the Finnala are
| that when an arm, cushion, cover, or whatever fails, I can just
| replace that piece; there are aftermarket covers and legs; if I
| move it can be disassembled; and if a new place is smaller, the
| whole thing doesn't have to be trashed.
|
| I love quality furniture, but it doesn't always fit the bill
| for a society where people can't afford a single family house
| or put down roots. (Note: that still doesn't necessarily
| justify all the items being sold today that are destined for a
| landfill in a few years.)
| mortenjorck wrote:
| I have an Ikea Lillberg sofa from _2005_ that I never dreamed I
| would hold onto as long as I have.
|
| Every time I've moved, I think this will be the time I replace
| it, but the joinery has stayed rock-solid, the wood has aged
| beautifully (though I admit this is likely owing to a lack of
| pets or children) and even the upholstery has never pilled or
| visibly worn (though I keep thinking about ordering a
| replacement slipcover set from Comfort Works, which makes
| aftermarket upgrades for long-since-discontinued Ikea
| products). And the minimalist, Danish-influenced style somehow
| never looks out of place no matter what else I put around it.
|
| This article has me thinking I may yet keep the Lillberg for
| years to come.
| vizzier wrote:
| You're quite correct about the Lack. They're cheap as hell (15
| bucks at time of writing?), but as a result quite
| manipulatable, such as creating 3d printer enclosures [0]. You
| can see some of their insides as they go through the process.
|
| [0] https://blog.prusa3d.com/mmu2s-printer-enclosure_30215/
| Ekaros wrote:
| Now that I look Finnish prices it is surprising. The coffee
| table is 40/50EUR, tv stand is 15EUR. Side table 8EUR or
| 10EUR for next size.
|
| Okay those cheap ones make sense, but for coffee table it is
| robbery...
| Scoundreller wrote:
| The "enterprise edition" is more than three times as
| expensive, while providing less stability than two of the
| regular products combined.
|
| https://wiki.eth0.nl/index.php/LackRack
| shagie wrote:
| The LACK RACK https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=eth0.nl
|
| Though I'm also going to point out that a LACK side table
| ($13 now) for 8 years is a rather good deal.
|
| The internals are revealed on the Ikea page too:
| https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/lack-side-table-black-
| brown-801...
| HdS84 wrote:
| At least in Germany quality has gone downhill.
|
| I still own some Billies made in 1995 or so by Ikea. Literally
| massive wood and damn good book shelves. The ones bought by me
| in 2008 or so very noticeably less well build but still ok. The
| ones we bought in 2018 or so are shit, especially the shelves
| are so thin that they begin to sag.
|
| In 2008 or so a friend of mine bought a "kallax" (another name
| then) and it was awesome, it's still in his basement and looks
| good. We bought one in 2023 and it's basically only paint, some
| "wood" and air. It's ok to store stuff in, but it's impossible
| to drill a screw into the wood. It's like trying to screw
| paper.
| atombender wrote:
| KALLAX used to be EXPEDIT. Both were made from honeycombed
| cardboard (mostly air, as you say) covered with very thin
| sheets of painted MDF. Maybe there was a time EXPEDIT was
| more solid, but I had one in the 1990s, and it was just like
| this.
|
| You _can_ drill the thin wood in IKEA furniture like this,
| but you have to reinforce it.
|
| IKEA has always had a mix of wobbly instacrap and solid
| stuff. I remember they made a short-lived modular shelf
| called BRODER [1], which was solid steel and came in wall-
| mounted or freestanding configurations, the kind of solid
| thing you want in a garage or storage space. I was shocked at
| how high-end it was. It was discontinued to cost and low
| sales.
|
| [1]
| https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3209/3641557199_eb0860e9eb.jpg
| HdS84 wrote:
| Thanks, that's fascinating. Ar least in my recollection,
| the expedit I knew was comparable to a Billy in wood
| density, but I might be mistaken - it's nearly twenty
| years.
|
| Funnily, the most sturdy piece of furniture we own is from
| Ikea. Two massive desks build from solid steel frames and a
| plate made with wood furnishing. Totally indestructible,
| weighs a ton and was made by Ikea in the 99s or so. Funnily
| enough, we didn't even know that they where from Ikea. We
| inherited them from my father in law and were cursing their
| weight like "man I wish Ikea made this, than it would be
| easier to carry". After dismantling them for transport we
| discovered various Ikea stickers. Sadly we don't know the
| model, just that they where manufactured by Ikea.
|
| The most endurable piece of furniture I know of is the
| kitchen of my mother in law. Made in the 70s or so it uses
| resopal finishing and the counters itself looks like new,
| despite years of heavy use and non stop smoking.
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Kallax is cardboard? Those brilliant bastards.
|
| Honestly those cubes at least the 4x4 are perfectly fine.
| And cardboard is a hell of a lot more sustainable than
| solid wood and probably particle board
| atombender wrote:
| Structurally they're fine, and can hold a fair amount of
| weight. Just treat them well; don't cut/drill into them
| or let them near water (the cardboard gets soft), don't
| overload them, and don't move/lift them while they're
| filled with heavy objects. While they're cheaply made,
| they're not among IKEA's worst products, I think.
| maxglute wrote:
| Kallax redesign thinned out outer walls of previous
| Expedite by 1cm so it looks closer to the thickness of
| the shelves and dividers. Also saves on a lot of material
| I imagine with the volumes involved. Also soften edges to
| be kid friendly and more scratch resistent finish.
| Cheaper, looks more aesthetically balanced IMO, and
| basically as statically strong holding stuff and doing
| furniture work. But thinner walls makes difficult/wobbly
| moving in larger 4x4, 5x5 variations.
|
| I had to cinched a band of webbing around the outside of
| the shelf during move to prevent it from falling apart.
| Gluing all the dowels/joints/connection also helps with
| strength a lot, but who has time for that.
| al_borland wrote:
| I avoided the LACK after seeing someone spill drink and
| watching it bubble up like paper.
|
| My coffee table is still from IKEA, but it's metal. I've had it
| for 11 years now. It's on wheels and some of them look like
| they've seen some stress over the years... and it's been moved
| to 8 homes in those 11 years, which could have been the cause.
| But it still works great and I don't know the the average
| person visiting my home would notice that.
|
| I have been thinking of getting something a little larger and
| more grown up, but I love the functionality of the wheels, how
| it can get out of the way, and that I don't have to baby it. It
| doesn't look like they sell it anymore, but it was $40 well
| spent.
| bombcar wrote:
| I've liked reading this blog -
| https://insidersguidetofurniture.com/buyers-guide-to-furnitu...
| and basically what it comes down to is most modern cushioning
| will fail in five years or so.
|
| You need 2.5 density foam or higher, or you need a "uncushioned"
| style couch.
| rapnie wrote:
| I have two pre-WWII Gispen chairs with thick foam seats, and
| only recently (last couple years) they started to dry out
| (become 'crispy' at the top surface). I suspect it is because I
| am not actively using them anymore, rather than because of
| their age.
| jonah wrote:
| I second your comment on high-quality foam. If you're looking
| at re-doing some old furniture or having your own made, study
| up on foam - not just the density - which is important - but
| also the type and grade. Decent stuff should last 25+ years -
| and be more comfortable along the way.
|
| (A little tip - the density you want for proper comfort varies
| by the thickness of the cushion, the weight of the intended
| users, and the whether it's the seat bottom or the back. The
| back needing a softer foam.)
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Made the mistake of buying a couch off Wayfair for a little nook
| in my office. It lasted a year before I got rid of it. Never
| again. Couches really are one of those areas where you get what
| you pay for. With the possible exception of Ikea. Got an Ikea
| couch for my 10 year old's room and its holding up remarkably
| well.
| romafirst3 wrote:
| Wayfair is absolute trash.
|
| Pictures look good but it always disappoints. It's the one
| online furniture store I will never buy from again.
| bloomingeek wrote:
| Next time you stay at a mid-range or better hotel, notice the
| furniture. They don't but junk because in the long run it never
| lasts, and whose going to pay for a nice hotel room with tacky
| furniture?
|
| A couple of months ago, we stayed in a newer Holiday Inn Express.
| The bed and cabinets were very nice and well built.
| theGnuMe wrote:
| I imagine holiday inn is all custom built to spec.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| All the hotel brands have design schemes, and contract with
| certain designers who the hotel owners have to buy from.
|
| For example:
|
| https://www.charterfurniture.com/products/hospitality/desk-t.
| ..
|
| https://www.taisenfurniture.com/ihg-hotel-bedroom-set/
| patwolf wrote:
| About 10 years ago I went shopping at Furnitureland South,
| mentioned in the article. The selection was a bit overwhelming,
| but we picked out a solid wood bedroom set from a manufacturer in
| Canada. It's held up great, as has my kids' IKEA bedroom
| furniture.
|
| I've purchased couches from West Elm, Restoration Hardware, and a
| few other well-known places, and they've all been disappointing.
| From now on I'll stick to Furnitureland and IKEA, but I don't
| know if I have the energy to go couch shopping at Furnitureland.
| nytesky wrote:
| Our kids destroy all the nice furniture (dumb ways, like
| sitting on couch soaking wet from the pool, spilling food,
| drawing on the cushion while doing homework or a project, doing
| gymnastics off the cushions, fort building). They aren't
| actively destructive like attacking with scissors but I can't
| see investing in nice furniture until they are adults (even
| teens can be rough as you can imagine). By then, I don't know
| if I'll care?
| swatcoder wrote:
| This is a good dig into changes in design and manufacturing
| trends, which makes sense for Dwell, but I suspect we'd see more
| people complaining about their furniture quality these days even
| without manufacturing changes because many people are like 50%
| heavier than the people in sitting in couches 50 years ago -- and
| often more likely to collapse into a sofa than to set themselves
| down upon it.
|
| So it's actually kind of a two sided loss in quality: the designs
| are flimsier even while the engineering requirements have become
| more demanding.
| pornel wrote:
| OT:
|
| I can't read the site due to a massive "We value your privacy"
| pop up informing me about the _1532_ data-harvesting "partners"
| they sell information to, and there's only "Allow All" button
| accessible (which is illegal by GDPR).
|
| They really value my privacy, for its resale value.
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Because people don't want to pay for good plywood, proper
| webbing, and quality fabrics. Real furniture weighs a lot, and
| doesn't make sense to ship around the planet.
|
| Thus, people get foam, OSB, and cardboard in a fake canvas bag.
|
| Good upholsterers are hard to find, often eccentrics, and usually
| will not tolerate cheapskates. If you own something pricey like a
| boat or restaurant, than most are happy to get something that
| will last. Even a few yards of period correct fabrics or leather
| is more expensive than the typical Ikea living room set.
|
| One needs to learn these things if you want to stay married. lol
| =)
| UberFly wrote:
| I look through the antiques subreddit often and lots of really
| nice quality furniture is hardly valued now because it's out of
| style. A good quality sofa should be able to be re-foamed and
| fabriced forever but I think we're all just too mindset on cheap
| and disposable since that's the easiest route.
| gnicholas wrote:
| We bought some sofas secondhand when moving into our first home.
| They were great, and they held up well for many years. But
| ultimately we sold them and bought new ones because we didn't
| know if they had the fire-retardant chemicals that used to be
| mandated in CA (until they were discovered to be carcinogenic).
| The new sofa (from Costco) seems good but the sofa chairs (from
| Wayfair) are not so good.
|
| It seems like the frame in the back has some sort of support that
| is made out of a material that is closer to cardboard than wood.
| When our kids run into it, the back of the chair deforms a bit
| and has to be bent back. I have no idea why the frame of a chair
| would be made out of something so weak. I expect we'll have to
| replace them in 5 years or so, and we'll aim for something more
| old-school.
| 39 wrote:
| Wayfair is largely dropship trash.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Yeah we used filters to search for just solid wood (no MDF),
| but apparently even the "solid wood" stuff is still pretty
| flimsy.
| zachmu wrote:
| My leather sectional cost as much as a decent used car and it
| hurt to write that check, but it's definitely well built.
| maxglute wrote:
| Sofa bases seems to be getting shitter and shitter as
| manufactures value engineer with increasingly more low quality
| engineered wood. At this point my next sofa frame is going to be
| sturdy metal outdoor furniture. I've also seen a few tiktok
| sponcon videos of sofas with industrial plastic molded frame,
| like industrial pallets. Probably not enviromentally friendly,
| but seems durable.
|
| Seems like Sofas are last to make the economical steel channel
| furniture jump, you can get tons of sturdy/durable bedframes for
| like $100 shipped on Amazon. Most cheap metal futon frames also
| last forever if it wasn't for the moving mechanical components.
| I'd like to see more steel + bolt sofas.
| justinlloyd wrote:
| Last time I bought a couch, a new one, it set me back $6,000. It
| took me the better part of eight months to find it. Solid wood.
| Proper joinery. Thick padding. Pig skin leather. We kept it for
| 20 years before giving it to some friends who had it
| reupholstered where I expect it will last another 20 years.
|
| I used to have some expensive, but ultimately crap, book cases.
| Book cases are not designed by people who own a lot of books. 36"
| to 48" spans of fast growth pine will stretch and bow within a
| year or two. I designed my own book case. I went to a furniture
| making store. We went back and forth a few times. The biggest
| sticking point that took four attempts for the furniture maker to
| understand was where to put the fixed shelf. It does not go in
| the middle because that wastes space. We made it out of pine. 7'
| 8" tall, so that when standing it up, it will clear an 8ft
| ceiling in modern American homes. 22" wide shelves so they cannot
| flex. Fixed shelf to counteract gravity. Made specifically to
| carry paperback novels and similarly sized books. "Sand it three
| times, prime it, sand it, prime it, sand it, paint it, sand it,
| paint it, no I don't care that a single book case will cost
| $200." I bought 24 of them. Many hundreds of lineal feet of book
| cases. We still have them 24 years later and they are as good as
| new. And the paint job, because it is two layers of prime and two
| layers of paint, on a mirror surface, looks like you just took
| the item from the showroom floor.
|
| I have a plywood bookcase I made to store cooking books. The
| cheapest plywood you can imagine from the big box store. But
| because of the structural design, 15 years later it still holds
| up without any bowing or flexing.
|
| Modern furniture is absolute junk. Even the "good stuff."
| readingnews wrote:
| >> it set me back $6,000.
|
| The issue is that most modern households in the U.S. can not
| hack that kind of pricetag for a sofa / couch. Hell, I could
| never spend that kind of jack on a couch, even if I literally
| saved up for it (which would take years)... it is just far too
| much of a percentage of my income for one furniture item.
|
| So, how do we solve that issue (e.g. its good, but if it is 10%
| of your gross annual income, how could you afford it)? Either
| people need to get paid more, or ???
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| Ye old cinder block bookcase is probably the best, and the
| internet has a lot of good ideas.
|
| The old clay pipes used to be the best for those, look much
| better than cinder blocks, but whatever.
| waylandsmithers wrote:
| ...not to mention furniture stores seem to keep no inventory, so
| you get it 6-8 weeks after you buy because that's how it takes
| them to build and ship your new couch
| frankus wrote:
| One of the draws of the DTC model (and IKEA) is the apparently
| heavily commission-based pay structure of the sales staff of most
| brick-and-mortar furniture stores.
| MikeTheGreat wrote:
| This article about about sofas opens with "The most important
| piece of furniture in your home..."
|
| Did anyone else find this weird / funny?
|
| Like, just off the top of my head I'd put my bed at the top of my
| list, waaaay ahead of a sofa. Next might be the desk & chair I
| WFH at, and then it goes on from there.
|
| I get that the article wants to build engagement by "raising the
| stakes", but c'mon. Sofas are not that important :)
| pixl97 wrote:
| I get there would be some caveats here, but when it comes to
| furniture others see, for most beds and office chairs are down
| on the list. Of furniture guests are apt to see and use the
| sofa is pretty high up.
| illiac786 wrote:
| The cookie popup of this site is some dark design to behold, I
| have to say. You need to disable every single "goal" one by one -
| once you have figured out this is the least worst option. You can
| otherwise disable the 1400 partners one by one.
|
| This is completely illegal in Europe and I think it's illegal to
| serve this UI to an EU IP, even for non-EU websites.
|
| Anyway, who cares, it's almost funny what lengths they go to to
| get you to accept cookies.
| nytesky wrote:
| I surf things like this in incognito mode or Firefox focus,
| can't I safely accept all cookies and move on as they will be
| nuked in next session?
| askvictor wrote:
| Didn't notice a thing (using ublock origin with
| easylist->cookie notices)
| dojitza1 wrote:
| Second hand sofa market is surprisingly good in all cities ai
| lived in (Europe) You can get great stuff for less than 100eur.
| Good luck figuring out there transport and cleaning though.
| jonah wrote:
| I just spent about $700 having new cushions made for a 50+ year
| old Danish Teak sofa that I inherited from my grandparents. The
| original cushions were long gone, but the wooden frame was still
| in great condition.
|
| I sourced high-quality foam and wool upholstery fabric from
| Maharam and took those to one of the best upholsterers/furniture
| restorers in Los Angeles. They did a wonderful job and now I have
| a super-comfortable couch with many good childhood memories, that
| should last me another 25 years before I need to replace the
| cushions again.
|
| Point being, get a classic old piece and restore it. It will last
| a lifetime.
| andirk wrote:
| Is it super heavy? I've noticed weight often equals how long
| something will last in good condition, and old furniture is
| often way heavier and bulkier.
| analog31 wrote:
| Not the OP, but my family has a bunch of Danish teak
| furniture, as does my mom. The sofas are not super heavy.
| Cushions on a frame. You can see under it. Now, there's no
| bed inside. My mom's was re-upholstered once. Ours isn't old
| enough for that yet. We've re-upholstered the dining chairs a
| couple of times.
|
| As for other pieces of furniture, e.g., cabinets and stuff,
| we bought them used from a place that combed estate sales in
| Denmark for furniture and sold it in the US. One attraction
| is that the old furniture is smaller, so it works in a
| smaller house.
| nntwozz wrote:
| That's because old furniture is usually made of heartwood and
| not the cheaper sapwood part of the tree; I like to call it
| cardboard furniture.
|
| Same goes for old wooden windows etc. that can last a hundred
| years or more if properly taken care of.
|
| "Heavy is good, heavy is reliable. If it doesn't work you can
| always hit them with it." -- Boris 'The Blade' Yurinov
| ghaff wrote:
| >Same goes for old wooden windows etc. that can last a
| hundred years or more if properly taken care of.
|
| The key may be the "properly taken care of" part (or they
| didn't buy crap at the time part).
|
| I live in a greater than 200 year old house and all the
| older windows dating to whenever are complete crap compared
| to newer Andersons I've had installed.
| verticalscaler wrote:
| Two points actually: Teak is great. How it gets around to being
| a sofa is not. This is a doubly good thing you're doing keeping
| it going instead of disposing of it like most people would.
| whateveracct wrote:
| I have a leather Benchmade Modern couch that has lasted half a
| decade no problem now. I think they switched facilities/materials
| at one point though ..but I got grandfathered into the real wood,
| better facility when I got my second couch (I called and asked)
| andirk wrote:
| Glad to hear everyone agrees that most couches are pretty subpar.
| I bought $10,000 worth of stuff from a high end furniture place
| because the French girl started working there. Then that boat got
| stuck in the Suez Canal, the shipping container finally arrived
| months late, and it was empty. So I got a full refund and she
| still got her huge commission, and after reading this the couch
| probably sucked.
| deeel wrote:
| This is a major issue we have found while building
| https://www.unwraplife.co/.
|
| We only list brands that are A) plastic-free and B) use non-toxic
| materials.
|
| The list of large-ish brands that fit those specifications can be
| counted on one hand.
|
| The industry is rife with corner cutting, greenwashing, and lack
| of disclosure.
| tptacek wrote:
| This article echoes something I've learned since we moved into a
| larger house this past summer: don't buy new furniture.+
|
| We bought very nice leather couches a few years back (we have
| dogs, leather is the only option) and paid dearly for them. And
| they're great. (We looked carefully at the construction details
| before buying.)
|
| This summer, we had some rooms we cared a lot about and others we
| just needed to fill in some blanks in, and we camped Facebook
| Marketplace looking for stuff. Pretty soon, even the living room
| was getting stuff we found on Facebook, at comparable levels of
| quality to our old "new" furniture, and at pennies on the dollar.
| People are simply always getting rid of good stuff, and there
| isn't a meaningful secondary market for it; they're just thrilled
| you're getting it out of their house and getting a couple bucks
| in the process.
|
| I submit that you would end up with a better-furnished room
| faster, more easily, and at a fraction of the cost of high-end
| furniture retailers simply with Facebook Marketplace and
| TaskRabbit (for near-instant delivery).
|
| + _Leastways, not if you live in a major North American metro._
| _xerces_ wrote:
| Are you not worried about bedbugs buying furniture off
| Facebook?
| verticalscaler wrote:
| Or ghosts? I mean if the house it comes from is haunted maybe
| an evil spirit will migrate with it. You never know.
| echelon wrote:
| I got pesky moths from getting something used once.
|
| It isn't worth the hassle.
| tptacek wrote:
| For me it's the other way around: anything I might want
| that's of reasonable quality will take 1+ months to
| arrive (usually, it'll have to be constructed to order),
| where I'm only a couple clicks away from having the new
| thing _the next day_ buying used.
|
| I want to be clear that I'm not saying everything on
| Facebook Marketplace is great. Most of it is crap! You
| still have to be discriminating. But everybody is always
| unloading high-quality furniture, and, at least for now,
| Facebook is full of excellent deals.
| paholg wrote:
| I think bedbugs are a regional problem.
| tptacek wrote:
| I would worry about stuff like that if I was buying cloth
| furniture. I am not worried about it buying high-end leather
| furniture. It seems about as likely as getting bedbugs from a
| used car (which also happens! but nobody blinks about buying
| a used car). You're generally buying from people's houses.
| Maybe I'd be concerned about grabbing something from an
| apartment.
| arp242 wrote:
| Few years ago I moved to another country and had to get rid of
| everything I had minus ~25kg.
|
| It's bloody hard to get rid of a _lot_ of stuff. I had a great
| leather sofa, about 15-20 years old (inherited from my
| grandparents) still in great condition, but I couldn 't get rid
| of it at any price and none of the charity shops took it
| because it was missing some fire hazard label (sigh...). Same
| with almost everything: I sold my 2-year old PS1,200 mattress
| for PS50 (and I had to practically beg to guy to take it,
| because it would have been a complete shame to chuck it).
| Washing machine, fridge, all the "little stuff" (cutlery,
| books, DVDs, what-have-you). I ended up putting a lot outside
| "free stuff" and that got rid of a lot.
|
| Actually the _only_ things I managed to sell was an IKEA
| sleeping sofa and an IKEA dinner table set.
|
| That said, since then I found that actually finding good stuff
| isn't always easy.
| al_borland wrote:
| When I moved to an area for work I wasn't planning to live long-
| term I ended up buying the cheapest sofa in the store. I think it
| was around $270. After a prolonged illness I grew more and more
| displeased with it, to the point that I went and bought a better
| one after I was better. I bought from a place that advertised the
| inside of the sofa more than the outside. It was all about the
| build quality and how long it would last. Ended up coming out to
| around $3k if I remember correctly, but it has a lifetime
| warranty on everything but the cushions, and even the cushions
| after 6-7 years of daily use are just now only starting to get to
| the point of feeling like they are beginning to break in.
|
| Quality can still be found, it just can't be assumed. I think
| that's the case for far too many things these days.
| scoofy wrote:
| I've been wanting to buy nice furniture for a very long time...
| unfortunately the housing crisis has prevented my from ever
| having a sense of permanence. If I had known I'd live in my
| last place for nearly a decade I would have purchased nice
| things, but as it stands, until I have a mortgage of my own, I
| refuse to spend good money on something I may need to replace
| next year.
| ghaff wrote:
| Sofas, perhaps especially, are pretty hard to fit for non
| built-in furniture. I bought a used sofa off my brother.
| (Ironically, their replacements ended up being terrible
| because they lasted about a year with their dogs.)
|
| I was also very lucky though. I thought I could configure the
| sectional in a couple different ways. Turned out I rolled the
| dice the right way because I couldn't. And only discovered
| this after many months because I was on crutches at the time
| and couldn't do anything about the sofa sitting in my garage.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Quality and cheap, and cheap and quality.
|
| In furniture, you definitely get what you pay for...or not.
| I've found anything <$300 is going to be nothing but fake
| materials like manufactured woods (if not even just veneer
| covered cardboard) and horrible cushion/fabric.
|
| Anything decent doesn't really start until ~$1k, and anything
| in the $3k range you mentioned starts to become heirloom
| quality. As with anything, these are YMMV, but serves as a fast
| basis for my experience
| resolutebat wrote:
| Unfortunately the premise of the article is that you can now
| easily drop $1k+ on a sofa that looks good on Instagram, but
| is constructed of particleboard and falls apart when you look
| at it sideways.
| gh0zt wrote:
| in my experience when it comes to sofas the old "buy cheap buy
| twice" holds true. there are reputable brands such as ligne roset
| for example. they are pricey bit if you can commit to buying and
| owning for > 15 years. owning a clam and a togo for more than ten
| years and the are basically like new. foam & fabric. i understand
| this might unaffordable to a lot of people but buying second hand
| can be a great deal on high end sofas.
| mikeInAlaska wrote:
| Any opinions on Ekornes sofa from Norway?
| Glyptodon wrote:
| I hate buying furniture because it's easy to tell that most of
| what's out there is utter junk, but not very easy to figure out
| what's at least decent but isn't super expensive. Or what's
| expensive but not just marked up.
| levocardia wrote:
| >There are absolutely sturdy, beautifully made sofas constructed
| in the United States. There are custom designer pieces made here
| or in France or Italy or Scandinavia, which tend to be
| prohibitively expensive for the masses. But low- and mid-priced
| sofas are a relatively new phenomenon, and, frankly, they often
| suck.
|
| But do they suck less than not having a sofa at all? I am a
| several-time-over beneficiary of cheap made-in-southeast-asia
| sofas. Shipped in a fridge-sized box right to my doorstep,
| assembled (by me) in ~15min, and perfectly serviceable. Is it up
| to the same quality level as a $5000 made-in-USA solid wood hand-
| woven twine-joinery (etc etc) masterpiece? No, but I couldn't
| have afforded that kind of sofa. And it didn't have to be hand-
| packed by a furniture transportation expert, and it didn't weigh
| 800 lbs.
|
| I don't really see the "loser" here exactly - broke grad
| students, college kids, people in rural areas, and starving
| artists win; workers in developing countries win (the furniture
| factory sure beats the rice paddies); Instagram-sofa tech bros
| win. And gilded solid wood sofa makers can always market to the
| rich, who can afford to spend several months' worth of my rent
| cost on a piece of furniture.
| btbuildem wrote:
| Twenty some years I used to work at a business that made and
| delivered sofas. They've got showrooms in key large cities in
| North America, fancy schmancy top end stuff.
|
| The factory was a real place; the frames were made of solid wood
| and plywood, there was a sewing floor and even one (incredibly
| kooky) person whose sole job was to stuff the pillows. This guy
| was in a little room full of feathers all day, and they'd follow
| him around to the cantina and bathroom like a cartoon character..
| but I digress.
|
| My job there for a while was to make the sofa legs -- that was a
| sixteen step process, and they didn't even trust me to glue the
| boards together, just to do the cuts and shape the pieces. Sand
| and stain and wax and polish, yes sir!
|
| They had a dedicated delivery crew, and what the article mentions
| about packaging is true -- things would be blanketed and wrapped
| up just the right way, then tetris-ed onto the truck. Sitting
| shotgun on that truck and hauling sofas up stairs and through
| various spaces was what I did after making the legs got too
| boring.
|
| These sofas sold for $3000 ~ $4000 and up, and that was at the
| break of the millennium. I think the cheapest chair they had was
| around $2000. I should really swing by the showroom and see how
| much these are now -- and whether they're still made like they
| used to be.
| standardUser wrote:
| I have 3 sofas and all of them were free. One is from a neighbor
| and the other two from the Buy Nothing group on Facebook. I have
| never been able to convince myself that any piece of furniture is
| worth the thousands of dollars that an average couch costs. The
| one exception being the bed (which is the actual most important
| piece of furniture anyone owns).
|
| What truly baffles me is how, in my middle-class suburban
| hometown, all of these families were able to furnish their
| massive 3-5 bedroom homes. Many families, including my own, would
| have a living room that was mostly for show (because hanging out
| happened in the den/TV room) yet contained thousands or tens of
| thousands of dollars of furniture.
| brikym wrote:
| The key aspect that allows the businesses to get away with this
| is the buying frequency. You might buy a couch once every 10
| years so it's very difficult to judge quality. Whereas with
| something like coffee beans I'm buying it every week so I have 52
| opportunities every year to analyze the quality and change brand.
| The couch seller knows you probably won't make a repeat purchase
| so it's all about marketing tricks.
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