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Why new furniture doesn’t last long

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Re: Why new furniture doesn’t last long

#41

Post by angry_moose »

We actually expected our West Elm sofa to be well built - it wasn't cheap and their reputation wasn't complete garbage yet when we purchased it. After about 18 months the whole thing collapsed, just out of warranty believe it or not.

When I started taking it apart to see if it was fixable I found that the entire damn thing was built out of stapled-together 1/2" OSB (oriented strand board...garbage "plywood") and all of the cuts had awful stress concentration corners which caused the frame to pretty much disintegrate. Wasn't a real screw or nail anywhere in the piece that I could find.

I spent a day rebuilding the frame with about $30 worth of construction lumber (some 2x4s & 2x8s) and hanger brackets. It's been perfect ever since.

Completely inexcusable that a $30 aftermarket fix is all it took to dramatically improve an $1800 sofa.

Edit: I found a few images of the damage and a couple of the replacement supports I added. There was a lot more, but at the end of the day I was tired and didn't take a ton of pictures https://imgur.com/a/bqlLgW3

Re: Why new furniture doesn’t last long

#42

Post by crazygringo »

MerelyMortal wrote: post #10
donatj wrote: post #5

I had an argument with my therapist about this. My wife just gave birth to my daughter, we moved a bookshelf my grandfather built for me when I was born into her nursery and now my office is a mess, my books and such scattered. The mess is stressing me out. I am looking for a bookshelf to replace it, and told him I haven’t found anything I thought would last the rest of my life for a reasonable price. He insists I do…

It sounds like your therapist is letting their personal opinions into your session. I'm not an expert, but that sounds like a professional no-no.

A large part of therapy can be pointing out cognitive distortions.

The idea that you need a bookshelf to last you for the rest of your life is actually a pretty reasonable thing for a therapist to question.

People come into therapy with a lot of strongly held ideas that wind up negatively impacting their relationships and lives. E.g. winding up in fights with your spouse because you insist on a bookshelf to last a lifetime, while they just want to get something reasonably priced and move on from the issue.

So trying to figure out where the desire comes from for an object that lasts a lifetime is actually a pretty reasonable therapeutic path of exploration. It's the old serenity prayer -- "the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference".

There might be a lot of wisdom here in deciding that reasonably-priced bookshelves don't last a lifetime anymore, that that's not something you can change or want to spend time and effort on changing, and deciding you can finally be OK with that. To just make the choice to either buy a cheap one that doesn't last or an "overly expensive one" that does, accept it, and move on.

Re: Why new furniture doesn’t last long

#43

Post by airstrike »

donatj wrote: post #5

I had an argument with my therapist about this. My wife just gave birth to my daughter, we moved a bookshelf my grandfather built for me when I was born into her nursery and now my office is a mess, my books and such scattered. The mess is stressing me out. I am looking for a bookshelf to replace it, and told him I haven’t found anything I thought would last the rest of my life for a reasonable price. He insists I do…

I would tell my therapist I find it odd that they're voicing their opinions rather than letting me arrive at conclusions on my own.

Re: Why new furniture doesn’t last long

#44

Post by AlanYx »

suoduandao3 wrote: post #21
stetrain wrote: post #4

My biggest issue is that, like so many markets, there is a "missing middle" created by this downward price pressure. For the most part if you want a piece of furniture (ie a nightstand), there are two categories. Either you buy the Amazon/Wayfair version made of pressboard for $100-$200, or you can find a solid wood heirloom version for $2,000+. The domestic plywood or cheaper solid wood options are no longer mass pr…

used furniture is a good compromise there, though it's harder to get a consistent style when going that route. Part of Ikea furniture's appeal is also that it looks like other Ikea furniture.

One of the things that undermines the used furniture market for higher-end furniture is storage. Larger pieces often get stored somewhere for a period before they're sold, but unlike veneered MDF, solid wood pieces are vulnerable to get warped by rapid changes in moisture, particularly if they get temporarily stored in non-climate-controlled storage facilities. I wonder if there's a business opportunity for some kind of efficient middleman that takes high end furniture off people's hands and stores it properly while facilitating resale.

Re: Why new furniture doesn’t last long

#45

Post by suoduandao3 »

donatj wrote: post #5

I had an argument with my therapist about this. My wife just gave birth to my daughter, we moved a bookshelf my grandfather built for me when I was born into her nursery and now my office is a mess, my books and such scattered. The mess is stressing me out. I am looking for a bookshelf to replace it, and told him I haven’t found anything I thought would last the rest of my life for a reasonable price. He insists I do…

I'd bet you can get a local handyman to make a bookshelf out of boards and screws if you're concerned about quality. But of course, wood isn't going to cost today what it cost when you were born.

Re: Why new furniture doesn’t last long

#46

Post by evan_ »

nemo44x wrote: post #20
VincentEvans wrote: post #3

Regarding Ikea and similar self-assemble furniture - even though the assembly instruction manual does not call for it - use wood glue when assembling. It will make it A LOT stronger and it will even survive moves. One thing that didn’t make sense to me in the article is a claim that particle board or MDF is lighter than solid wood. I don’t think it’s necessarily true - I have wood furniture made of pine and cherry th…

Isn’t the issue the screws tearing through the soft wood and/or engineered wood?

Ikea furniture usually uses these funky cam lock nuts and bolts in particle board pieces, rather than screws:

https://www.furnitureparts.com/products/cam-lock-nuts-ikea-p...

These turn the force into compression over a larger diameter so it's less likely to cause a problem.

I've actually had pretty good experiences with Ikea stuff holding up over time, even across multiple moves.

Re: Why new furniture doesn’t last long

#47

Post by Joker_vD »

foobarian wrote: post #17
blueyes wrote: post #2

TLDR: Plywood (and to some extent plastic) replaced solid wood. Got imported from overseas rather than made domestically. Shifted from an artisanal market to a low-cost mass market.

Honestly, I wish it were plywood, it's actually MDF or other kind of pressboard.

Mmm, chipboard. Could as well be called "cheapboard". Low quality at low cost so you can pay twice.

Re: Why new furniture doesn’t last long

#48

Post by tcgv »

donatj wrote: post #5

I had an argument with my therapist about this. My wife just gave birth to my daughter, we moved a bookshelf my grandfather built for me when I was born into her nursery and now my office is a mess, my books and such scattered. The mess is stressing me out. I am looking for a bookshelf to replace it, and told him I haven’t found anything I thought would last the rest of my life for a reasonable price. He insists I do…

> The mess is stressing me out.

> I just don’t want to waste my money on garbage pressboard I am going to need to replace.

If I may propose an alternative, you could buy the cheapest bookshelf you can find just to have your office organized while you search for a quality one to last decades or centuries :)

Or if you have the time and interest you could even make a makeshift bookshelf instead. There are lots of tutorials on youtube for this.

Re: Why new furniture doesn’t last long

#49

Post by novok »

AlanYx wrote: post #44
suoduandao3 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

used furniture is a good compromise there, though it's harder to get a consistent style when going that route. Part of Ikea furniture's appeal is also that it looks like other Ikea furniture.

One of the things that undermines the used furniture market for higher-end furniture is storage. Larger pieces often get stored somewhere for a period before they're sold, but unlike veneered MDF, solid wood pieces are vulnerable to get warped by rapid changes in moisture, particularly if they get temporarily stored in non-climate-controlled storage facilities. I wonder if there's a business opportunity for some kind…

There are all sorts of people who run small businesses like this, who often sell on craigslist and a shopify store. I bought one in his storage warehouse, nice guy.

Re: Why new furniture doesn’t last long

#50

Post by zihotki »

foobarian wrote: post #17
blueyes wrote: post #2

TLDR: Plywood (and to some extent plastic) replaced solid wood. Got imported from overseas rather than made domestically. Shifted from an artisanal market to a low-cost mass market.

Honestly, I wish it were plywood, it's actually MDF or other kind of pressboard.

I wonder why you consider it a problem. Mdf and variations are much more stable, don't warp due to humidity. For non-premium furniture it's a perfect choice.
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