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Why are most sofas so bad?

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Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#301

Post by thrdbndndn »

arp242 wrote: post #184
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 sol…

I ended up having to discard a perfectly good desktop computer and a high-end scanner because nobody wanted them, not even for free. It's really frustrating, not because I missed out on making some money, but because of how wasteful it feels.

However, monitors seem to sell immediately every time.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#302

Post by Tiktaalik »

> ...modern consumers "are buying a couch online that looks four times as good, costs two times the price, and is made twenty times more poorly."

My friend had an Article couch and after a handful of months it was so uncomfortable it was as if the stuffing somehow just vanished.

And yet when I look around the net all I can see are glowing reviews of Article couches all over :\

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#303

Post by bombcar »

ghaff wrote: post #251
dylan604 wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In-person seems like it should be a hard requirement should but yet online sales of furniture is not a small market

A lot of people these days are into the mode of order online. Certainly there are a ton of podcasts that offer deals on some of the online furniture companies. I don't think I'd personally do it but then my parents probably wouldn't have ordered a lot of stuff online that I do. (But furniture and big electronics appliances are arguably much more of a hassle to return than other things.)

I’m actually much happier ordering appliances online vs furniture- because appliances I can evaluate in multiple ways that don’t need me to sit on it.

Unfortunately some very comfortable furniture turns out to not be long lasting, as I discovered, even when moderately pricey. Steel frame sofas can bend and break under repeated use because the steel is so thin - if you can bend it by hand, it will fail eventually.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#304

Post by neilv »

scoofy wrote: post #163
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…

I've been wanting to buy nice furniture for a very long time... unfortunately the housing crisis has prevented my from ever having a sense of permanence. If I had known I'd live in my last place for nearly a decade I would have purchased nice things, but as it stands, until I have a mortgage of my own, I refuse to spend good money on something I may need to replace next year.

I'm glad I'm not the only one.

The buying up of precious housing as investments by non-residents should mostly be banned, starting with institutional and overseas investors.

AirBnb should also be banned. And the people who profited off that startup, who must've known they were creating illegal hotels and destroying rental markets, should be hit with devastating fines, maybe also imprisoned.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#305

Post by ghaff »

bombcar wrote: post #303
ghaff wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people these days are into the mode of order online. Certainly there are a ton of podcasts that offer deals on some of the online furniture companies. I don't think I'd personally do it but then my parents probably wouldn't have ordered a lot of stuff online that I do. (But furniture and big electronics appliances are arguably much more of a hassle to return than other things.)

I’m actually much happier ordering appliances online vs furniture- because appliances I can evaluate in multiple ways that don’t need me to sit on it. Unfortunately some very comfortable furniture turns out to not be long lasting, as I discovered, even when moderately pricey. Steel frame sofas can bend and break under repeated use because the steel is so thin - if you can bend it by hand, it will fail eventually.

Well, yeah, appliances. Even if I order one at my local Lowe's, as I just did, it's not like I'm going to run a bunch of controlled dishwashing tests with it.

Durability of furniture is harder to measure even if you try it out.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#306

Post by nsxwolf »

After being burned by this many times, finally got a couple Chesterfield style sofas from Costco about 4 years ago and everything about them has been rock solid. And they were about $700 each.

I later wanted something matching for a different room - but the problem is, the Costco furniture changes seemingly every day and you never see the same thing again.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#307

Post by ascagnel_ »

Gigachad wrote: post #281
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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').

The ikea stuff also seems to be perfectly fine. Almost my entire apartment I ikea stuff and I’m yet to have anything fail. With some of the oldest bits being the Malm draws which are about 15 years old now and still perfectly fine. Sure, if you move them around a lot or leave them in the sun they will degrade, but just using them as normal they seem to last way longer than you’d think.

IKEA is highly variable. I’m writing this while sitting on a leather loveseat that’s more than a decade old and holding up great. I also have a chest of drawers that, despite my best efforts during construction, immediately began to sag.

Their expensive furniture is good mid-range stuff, the cheap stuff is cheap.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#308

Post by ghaff »

standardUser wrote: post #185

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 homet…

What you describe doesn't seem "enormous" at least as bedrooms are normally used in descriptions. I have a den/living room which is what we normally use with company as we don't really watch TV so there isn't one there. That has a sofa from my brother. A couple other good futons elsewhere (guest bedroom and a very small TV room) but just futons. And that's about it.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#309

Post by karim79 »

btbuildem wrote: post #181

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'…

> things would be blanketed and wrapped up just the right way, then tetris-ed onto the truck.

*tetris-ed and Sokoban-ed onto the truck

(Sorry, couldn't help myself)

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