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Why new furniture doesn’t last long

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Why new furniture doesn’t last long

#171

Post by RoyalHenOil »

sershe wrote: post #142

What are you guys doing with your Ikea furniture? I bought a bunch since 2008 and I still have some pieces that were with me thru about 10 moves, including 2 interstate moves and one international move, all involving a stint in a warehouse or Public Storage. The only things that ever broke were under-the-bed drawers that have a design flaw where slamming them causes the front to be levered against the bottom of the b…

Ikea has a range of quality options. Some of their budget offering are very poor quality and will eventually fail with even mild use. However, they do also sell some nicer quality furniture that will absolutely stand up to abuse.

Re: Why new furniture doesn’t last long

#172

Post by RoyalHenOil »

MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #62
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…

> There's very little in between, even if I'm willing to pay a bit more for something a bit nicer. Same has happened in clothing. To get something other than cheap crap made out of synthetic fibers, you now have to go premium. Are people really less discerning than they used to be? Has the average purchasing power declined? Or is the problem that people don't want to commit to something that lasts for years, because…

Learning how to sew is really handy for this. You will pay more on materials than you would for the absolute cheapest clothes you can find, but the quality will be on par with much more expensive clothes.

Being able to sew means you can also repair a lot of your older clothing and you can tailor newly purchased clothes to fit better.

Re: Why new furniture doesn’t last long

#173

Post by MarkMarine »

uuuuuuuuuid wrote: post #162
MarkMarine wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plywood furniture is garbage. Plywood cabinets, ok there is a good use for the material. It’s just a shortcut for not having to account for wood movement, but the veneer they put on modern plywood can be scraped through by looking at it wrong. It’s undersized (3/4” is not 3/4” thick) to save money, it’s only got a couple layers, and half the time the middle layer looks like pressed sawdust. Baltic Birch is the only d…

This is a great suggestion. I found a woodworker locally and paid $500/end table and $3000 for a dining room table, all solid walnut. Absolutely heirloom quality, my kids will inherit these pieces if their aren’t careful.

There is a section in one of my furniture plan books that says this furniture will be so strong and well made, your kids will never be able to break it down to get it in the trash, so they’ll keep it for your grandkids that will actually appreciate it :)

Re: Why new furniture doesn’t last long

#174

Post by Tagbert »

anonuser123456 wrote: post #117
nunez wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, for most people, the difference in appearance between an IKEA nightstand and, say, an Eames one (or a custom-made one) is minimal. Like, there's a difference, but not a difference worth paying $x,000's for. Moreover, if a pet or a child destroys the table, you're out much less money, which is comforting.

>Moreover, if a pet or a child destroys the table, you're out much less money, which is comforting. This cuts deeper the gouge my 5 year old put in my room and board solid maple credenza.

Maybe you could enhance the gouge to make it part of the design? That is the idea behind the Japanese practice of Kintsugi.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi

Re: Why new furniture doesn’t last long

#175

Post by ThePowerOfFuet »

Gigachad wrote: post #125
onecommentman wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solid wood furniture designed to be dismantled and reassembled easily is not a nightmare to move. In fact it is easier than moving cheaper furniture whose integrity is compromised with each dismantle/reassemble cycle, and thus is moved whole. It’s a design problem, not a materials problem. And the well-designed easily-movable solid wood furniture will be fought over by your great-grandkids.

I've never seen this. It's always been glued and nailed together.

It absolutely exists.

Re: Why new furniture doesn’t last long

#176

Post by peatmoss »

MarkMarine wrote: post #156
peatmoss wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re a handtool woodworker you can add to that the thousands of dollars in specialty tools you’ll inevitably acquire. Woodworking is insidious :-)

I do both. I have gear thing anyway, but thankfully I’m about done with the hand tool acquisition. I bought a subset of the Lie-Nielsen catalog that I use (after trying out some other brands and not being impressed) and now I don’t really have any hand tools to buy. I’d love to have an antique jointer, a nice wide planer, a nice sawstop cabinet saw, and an antique bandsaw… but I’ve got the cheaper or modern analogs.…

Lie-Nielsen and Veritas are the two brands of hand tools that will ruin you for others. Lie-Nielsen being the absolute best in recreation / refinement in traditional design, and Veritas answering the question of “what if we rethought the design and made it really well?”

Sawstop saw is a good call. IMO kickback is scarier than amputation, but most saws have decent mitigations against kickback and nobody but Sawstop is in the business of saving fingers.

Re: Why new furniture doesn’t last long

#177

Post by LazyMans »

I have a room & board next to my office and decided to check it out since they were having a 50% off showroom pieces sale. I was shocked to find a decent looking couch for $8,000. $600 lamps. Cheapest end tables at $1500 and $1200 rugs. That said, a friend has told me their furniture is the sort of stuff you pay to re-cover when it wears out, that it should last for lifetimes. I have no way to actually verify the quality of these products though. So I sit the in the perpetual cycle, never purchasing anything because I don't want crap, but I also don't want to get ripped off. Note: Happy to pay 8k for a couch if I love it/never breaks with normal use/is made to be repaired.

Re: Why new furniture doesn’t last long

#178

Post by hot_gril »

Gigachad wrote: post #112
angry_moose wrote: post #41

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…

That's so much worse than what you'd get from IKEA where everything is held together with nuts and bolts and seems to be very carefully engineered to be as strong as possible given the cost constraints.

Usually. Their bedframes are notorious for having slats that don't go all the way across and aren't held together with much, so they fall in really easily. It's so bad that there are common fixes recommended online like velcro'ing them down or replacing them with something else. Idk what they were thinking.

Re: Why new furniture doesn’t last long

#179

Post by hot_gril »

angry_moose wrote: post #41

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…

That's awful. I've lived around a lot of cheap sofas, often literally from the curb, yet I've never heard of a sofa collapsing except in The Simpsons. Maybe the armrest breaks or the upholstery rips.

Re: Why new furniture doesn’t last long

#180

Post by hot_gril »

VincentEvans wrote: post #14
no_wizard wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use wood glue where, though? Its advice that isn't "obvious". I'm not a big furniture person, and I'm inferring you mean to do things like add some additional bind to assembled spots, e.g. when I screw in the backing for the chair I could use wood glue on the seam to give it more strength, but its not always obvious how I'm suppose to apply these Ikea "hacks" as it were.

Most of Ikea pieces I’ve assembled utilize wooden dowels in addition to their special locking bolts. Definitely use glue in all holes that are meant for wooden dowels. If you wish to go an extra mile - use a thin bead of wood glue anywhere two wood surfaces meet, tighten the screws and then wipe off the excess that gets squeezed out of the seam. Wood glue is water soluble so clean up is easy before it dries.

Yes, the dowels are usually the weak points in Ikea furniture. They'll slip out a little, then the leverage will tear apart the wood around it when you're carrying the furniture.
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