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Why are most sofas so bad?

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Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#21

Post by swatcoder »

uoaei wrote: post #2

"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…

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.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#22

Post by bluedino »

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.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#23

Post by lotsofpulp »

asow92 wrote: post #6
Share6323 wrote: post #3

Are any sofa manufacturers out there that still produce good quality for around $1000, preferably from Europe ?

$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.

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.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#25

Post by maximinus_thrax »

uoaei wrote: post #18
saurik wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

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?

> 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.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#27

Post by vundercind »

gumby wrote: post #4
uoaei wrote: post #2

"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…

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…

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.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#28

Post by dangus »

o11c wrote: post #15

Despite the article mentioning other things, it seems like at least half the problem can be avoided by never buying furniture online.

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.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#30

Post by AlotOfReading »

uoaei wrote: post #2

"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…

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.

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