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Why are most sofas so bad?

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Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#261

Post by photonthug »

readingnews wrote: post #140
justinlloyd wrote: post #82

Last time I bought a couch, a new one, it set me back $6,000. It took me the better part of eight months to find it. Solid wood. Proper joinery. Thick padding. Pig skin leather. We kept it for 20 years before giving it to some friends who had it reupholstered where I expect it will last another 20 years. I used to have some expensive, but ultimately crap, book cases. Book cases are not designed by people who own a lo…

>> it set me back $6,000. The issue is that most modern households in the U.S. can not hack that kind of pricetag for a sofa / couch. Hell, I could never spend that kind of jack on a couch, even if I literally saved up for it (which would take years)... it is just far too much of a percentage of my income for one furniture item. So, how do we solve that issue (e.g. its good, but if it is 10% of your gross annual inco…

> percentage of my income for one furniture item

No matter how much money I make, I like to think there's price-tags I'd still balk at just because I don't want to be a sucker. Or get involved in status-signaling.. not sure which is worse.

So I started thinking about comparisons also. I like to go back to cups of coffee, and you could spend 6 bucks on coffee easily.. is a piece of furniture worth a thousand cups? Maybe. On the other hand, you could own like 3 cargo containers for this cash (think of the material involved), or a used car (think of the utility!).

So nah, this feels like way too much money, unless it's a mint condition antique that some king and queen used to sit on. A huge Belffin modular super sofa with 9 seats and 2 ottomans is less than $2k.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#262

Post by turkishmonky »

andirk wrote: post #133
jonah wrote: post #128

I just spent about $700 having new cushions made for a 50+ year old Danish Teak sofa that I inherited from my grandparents. The original cushions were long gone, but the wooden frame was still in great condition. I sourced high-quality foam and wool upholstery fabric from Maharam and took those to one of the best upholsterers/furniture restorers in Los Angeles. They did a wonderful job and now I have a super-comforta…

Is it super heavy? I've noticed weight often equals how long something will last in good condition, and old furniture is often way heavier and bulkier.

I'd be careful equating heavy with quality - MDF is extremely heavy but not great for longevity.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#263

Post by kiliantics »

Glyptodon wrote: post #167

I hate buying furniture because it's easy to tell that most of what's out there is utter junk, but not very easy to figure out what's at least decent but isn't super expensive. Or what's expensive but not just marked up.

This is how I've begun to feel about almost every consumer product out there these days. This "enshittification" of the bulk of the output of our economy puts so much burden on any discerning consumer to do all the research needed just to get some basic dignified standard of quality from whatever they are forking over hard-earned money for. It will soon make more sense to put all that time and money into producing these things yourself via some micro cottage industry. (Personally I already do this for a growing number of things.)

It's really depressing that we have gotten to this point, seemingly the logical conclusion of the so-called efficient capitalist market.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#264

Post by radicality »

bloomingeek wrote: post #41

Next time you stay at a mid-range or better hotel, notice the furniture. They don't but junk because in the long run it never lasts, and whose going to pay for a nice hotel room with tacky furniture? A couple of months ago, we stayed in a newer Holiday Inn Express. The bed and cabinets were very nice and well built.

Or common areas in offices / apartment buildings. For example, the building I live in has nice couches that look like they can take a lot of traffic. I once looked at the brand tag - Ligne Roset. It’s not cheap, but at least does seem high quality.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#265

Post by amluto »

jahewson wrote: post #197
amluto wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve had multiple fancy chairs, purchased from a famous high end brand with a very high end showroom in a very high end design center, fail very quickly. The failure was due to their vendor (fancy, in France) using nice solid finger jointed hardwood, well finished, in a place where that construction was completely inappropriate. High quality Scandinavian-style plywood probably would have lasted decades. Nice material…

Finger jointed hardwood is not a nice material. It’s short bits of knotty new-growth wood chopped up and glued back together.

This wasn’t (as far as I can tell) cheap finger jointed knotty wood. It was some furniture maker who thought “well, this part needs the grain one way and this other part needs the grain the other way, and I have a finger jointing machine, so I’ll finger joint it!” Even if they somehow found a shop that stocked sheets of finger jointed wood with a 90 degree grain rotation across the joint, it would have been an incredibly inefficient way to produce the part in question.

But they didn’t think very hard — see my other comment. I don’t think a single solid piece of hardwood would have performed a whole lot better. Either metal reinforcement or plywood or much more carefully considered joinery was needed.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#266

Post by gerdesj »

Terr_ wrote: post #169
gerdesj wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently visited Hong Kong. In a mall I spotted a shop called Sinéquanone (sic). It was flogging "French fashion", quite pricy "French fashion". Who knows, it might be French inspired. You can tell its authentic French thanks to the e acute and the trailing e! Sine qua non is Latin. To be fair, the quality did look pretty decent but marketing needs to try harder. Mind you that's not the daftest brand name or tradem…

> To be fair, the quality did look pretty decent but marketing needs to try harder. When I lived in Hong Kong, I once saw a boutique grocery store that had a wooden hanging-sign/plaque, and IIRC it was 1997 and the sign said "Since 1996." Far more amusing were the businesses non-ironically translated as things like "1000 Golden Fortune"-something-or-other.

"1000 Golden Fortune" or Jolly good luck ... something. I think that's fair enough - translation of idioms is very hard when the languages are so far apart.

There's quite a lot of history involved too so that I suspect there are routine translations between the various Chinese languages eg Cantonese and Mandarin to English which might be a bit behind the times but they still work despite sounding a bit twee nowadays to the relevant ears.

I say: "viva la difference".

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#267

Post by amluto »

BizarroLand wrote: post #235
jahewson wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finger jointed hardwood is not a nice material. It’s short bits of knotty new-growth wood chopped up and glued back together.

The glue will probably be the strongest part of it, but finger-jointed hardwood isn't that terrible. Any decent wood glue is crazy strong. The problem with knots is that they resist drilling and screwing. The problem with new growth is that the pith is the weakest part of the wood, and new growth has the most pith. Still, it's not a weak and terrible pos wood-like material like 1990's MDF, it will probably be ok for…

The piece in question involved one of the starting wood sections being finger jointed with the grain running along the joint line. It failed where the bases of the fingers were tangent to the grain, which seemed pretty predictable to me just looking at the wood.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#268

Post by decafninja »

brianwawok wrote: post #250
decafninja wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some brands like Hermes, Rolex, etc. also require you to establish a “relationship” with them to acquire their most popular items (Birkin or Kelly bags, stainless steel watches). This entails a lengthy purchase history, and some schmoozing of your assigned sales associate doesn’t hurt either. Unless you’re some well known figure, just waltzing into a boutique with a suitcase full of cash won’t get you what you want t…

And what’s funny is a budget model 3 you order online totally smokes the Porsche. It’s really just trying to sell a badge not a product.

With all respect, 0-60 times is not the only reason why you buy a Porsche.

A Toyota Corolla probably ticks more boxes for the average person than any Porsche if cars are not your thing.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#269

Post by ajsnigrutin »

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

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

The problem here is, that expensive doesn't mean quality.

Buying a cheap ikea piece and replacing it in a few years might still be a better choice than overpaying for an expensive piece, that's the same quality as ikea, but with a different tag on it (both 'brand tag' and 'price tag').

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#270

Post by the_af »

This article seems to make it an American (US) thing, but I can assure you the sofas here in Argentina are mostly shit. If you look under the hood, they are every bit as crap or worse than described in TFA.

It's not "cheap imports" either, I don't think sofas here are imported. They are made to order in my country. They are just garbage.

I'm talking about midrange and even higher priced sofas. If you see the armature, it's mostly crap wood with "lots of staples" as mentioned. And a fancy cover, of course.

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