Re:Why furniture got so bad
by sheepybloke on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @12:59PM
(#37394634)
Exactly. I've been looking for bookshelves and wanted something that wasn't just Ikea's Billy. The price jump to something from Pottery Barn is 3-4x the Ikea price, but from the quality you see at the showroom, it should be closer to 1.5-2x the price. I also feel a bit jaded from the mid-tier furniture showrooms, which offer Wayfair quality at 2x the price. I just want something that will survive a move while not having to look at payment plan!
Re:Why furniture got so bad
by LargoLasskhyfv on Tuesday September 05, 2023 @03:45PM
(#37396811)
Why care about furniture surviving a move, when you can buy and build the same shit at your destination for cheap? And 'gift' the old to your follow renters, or just discard it?
Because wasting stuff is bad?
Well, in this case its not like you have a choice.
Re:Why furniture got so bad
by worthless-trash on Wednesday September 06, 2023 @01:06AM
(#37401521)
Still bad.
I don't care that much about surviving moves, I care about it being nice quality. And the nice ones will cost enough that I want to keep them.
Ikea does have a higher end bookcase than Billy: Hemnes[0]. It's like 2x the price, and I think it's worth about that, given it's made from mostly solid wood (back is still fiberboard).
0:https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/hemnes-bookcase-black-brown-lig...
My cheeky answer is always the bad furniture _has_ veneer :) having said that I have build a lot of "temporary" furniture (eg benches and tables) from 2x4 softwood and they're doing just fine 30ish years later.
I've got some things which have a thick veneer over the top of some other solid wood. It's pretty good quality. Many times better than the stuff that's like 1mm of wood over the top of cardboard hexagons.
Generally true, but one of my most successful mid-price purchases is a dresser in real walnut veneers over solid wood that is aging fantastically. It's just hard IMHO to know how thin or thick the veneer is.
Re:Why furniture got so bad
by hypercube33 on Wednesday September 06, 2023 @08:22AM
(#37404021)
I live next to one of the largest furniture manufacturers in America and going to the showroom says everything - the furniture is routinely broken there and it's rotated out as fast as they can make new models. we own one of their sets of couches from the late 1990s and it's finally giving up but the new stuff is built absolutely for profit margin and to not hold up at all.
- is it real wood but cheaply finished so the wood wears quickly and needs refinishing quickly. Seen this problem so often at priced places like crate & barrel.
- how do you tell good quality veneer from bad?
- showcase pieces of higher quality than what's delivered to your house. Room & board with their real wood furniture can be like this - I got a piece that was more knots than wood.