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Why are most sofas so bad?

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Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#181

Post by btbuildem »

Twenty some years ago 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.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#182

Post by dylan604 »

al_borland wrote: post #158

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 wo…

Quality ain't cheap, and cheap ain't quality.

In furniture, you definitely get what you pay for...or not. I've found anything 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

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#183

Post by tptacek »

_xerces_ wrote: post #152
tptacek wrote: post #149

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 som…

Are you not worried about bedbugs buying furniture off Facebook?

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.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#184

Post by arp242 »

tptacek wrote: post #149

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 som…

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 £1,200 mattress for £50 (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.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#185

Post by standardUser »

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.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#186

Post by tptacek »

echelon wrote: post #177
verticalscaler wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or ghosts? I mean if the house it comes from is haunted maybe an evil spirit will migrate with it. You never know.

I got pesky moths from getting something used once. It isn't worth the hassle.

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.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#187

Post by pixl97 »

MikeTheGreat wrote: post #97

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 importan…

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.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#188

Post by Tagbert »

swader999 wrote: post #180
baby wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I just don't like walking through their ENTIRE store.

You should start at the warehouse section and walk though it in reverse to get where you want to be.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#189

Post by resolutebat »

dylan604 wrote: post #182
al_borland wrote: post #158

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 wo…

Quality ain't cheap, and cheap ain't quality. In furniture, you definitely get what you pay for...or not. I've found anything 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

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.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#190

Post by brikym »

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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