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Why are most sofas so bad?

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Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#721

Post by andrewl »

nostromo wrote: post #242
hammock wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can still get made in the USA sofas with real hardwood, not rubber wood, which is fine, or worse, soft pine or particleboard or OSB) North Carolina was and is the center of solid wood furniture), and they still cost several to many thousands of dollars, and they will still last 100+ years with a couple reupholsterings or so, but most furniture comes from Asia now and is sold for 10x less, and is not worth reuphol…

Room and Board sells great sofas that are made in the US. We've been very happy with ours. It's made from solid wood and stuffed with real feather down. It's several years old now and has shown no signs of aging.

I had a very good user experience ordering from Dreamsofa.com. They answered questions quickly, sent swatches, then sent more swatches when I needed more information, and their shipping tracking and notifications were helpful and accurate. The two guys from the shipping company they worked with were very nice. And I’m very happy with the sofa.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#722

Post by munificent »

Solvency wrote: post #497
munificent wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IKEA is a fascinating outlier in this discussion. At some point in my twenties, I decided it was time to upgrade from my broke college student IKEA lifestyle which to me meant West Elm. Every thing I got from West Elm was absolute garbage and none of it lasted more than a handful of years. Now I'm in the prime of my career and could move up to something actually nice if I really wanted to, like Design Within Reach (t…

So your snoring spouse: what happened after a year? Divorce? Did the snoring stop? How?

That's a fairly personal question, but we are still together and fine.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#723

Post by runeb »

katbyte wrote: post #531
zac23or wrote: post #530

Everything is bad these days, not just the sofas. 1. The new switches I bought broke before the old ones, which are over 20 years old. 2. LED bulbs last less than incandescent bulbs, even with a 20-year warranty. 3. The new cell phone's screen breaks very easily, it's not like the old Nokia's. And nowadays something expensive is no longer guaranteed to last. This is why I value old things so much: I have an old chair…

I think there are still quality products out there, but they are rare and expensive and you have to spend forever researching to figure out which products are :/ still are as so many see to be purchased and then running the ground for short term profits

There should be a market for a Wirecutter type site for buy-it-for-life products

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#724

Post by runeb »

itsoktocry wrote: post #575
zac23or wrote: post #530

Everything is bad these days, not just the sofas. 1. The new switches I bought broke before the old ones, which are over 20 years old. 2. LED bulbs last less than incandescent bulbs, even with a 20-year warranty. 3. The new cell phone's screen breaks very easily, it's not like the old Nokia's. And nowadays something expensive is no longer guaranteed to last. This is why I value old things so much: I have an old chair…

> Everything is bad these days, not just the sofas. When these conversations happens, I always wonder why people want some of these items to last forever. Are you going to stick with that 10 year old plasma TV? Great. I want new tech, and this stuff moves fast. Furniture is a bit different, but my parents had all kinds of good, long-lasting stuff that no one wants because it's out of style.

The irony here especially with furniture is that if you’re rich enough to buy real quality design pieces you’ll sell them for more than you bought them for when you’re ready to move on

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#725

Post by namaria »

mynameisvlad wrote: post #702
namaria wrote: post #585

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're playing off a false dichotomy. Furniture doesn't have to look bad to be of quality. GP said > I think the problem I've noticed is - the furniture that is built to last very frequently fails the partner test - "that looks like old fart stuff". This is a problem of taste alignment, not of preference. A person having a taste for the generally poor quality well marketed bit of goods available. So, like I said. If…

I very clearly articulated the general correlation already and never claimed it is a dichotomy. That is entirely on you. Just because you don’t agree with someone’s preferences does not mean they’re wrong. I hope one day you’re able to understand that, because you clearly don’t. Until then, we have nothing more to discuss.

You're right. This is pointless because we're talking past each other.

I say it's wrong to buy expensive crap because it's flashy and well marketed, and equally wrong to dismiss things that don't fit the aesthetics peddled under this model. It's wasteful consumerism, one of the most wrong things with society right now. It's killing the planet. In a word, indefensible. There absolutely are fashionable, beautiful, durable options.

You say I am a bad person for having this opinion. "Hoisting" my opinion on others. You used underhanded tactics like false dichotomies. "I don't want my house to look like it came from 1920". Than, caught on a fallacy, you resorted to ad hominem, pretended to have a high moral ground and rode into the sunset in your high horse.

It's all written down for anyone to see.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#726

Post by instagib »

maximus-decimus wrote: post #479
paholg wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think bedbugs are a regional problem.

Just put the sofa in the dryer. But seriously, I wonder if there's some heat treatment possible. surely it should be possible and put the sofa in a giant plastic bag and heat the air inside or something.

My father went through a double bed bugs ordeal. The first try didn’t work and he ended up throwing out nearly everything he had to get rid of them. Kids toys for the grandkids, furniture, mattresses, clothing, and basically started over like his house on the inside burned down.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#727

Post by tacocataco »

bondarchuk wrote: post #462
theendisney wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was some how relevant. I had a similar job making sofas in similar price range. We also had a crazy person stuffing everything. I asked why his job was not in the normal task roulation. They said for that job you have to be insanely strong, have insane endurance and you have to be insane. The guy tried it one time. How hard could it be? After 3 hours he literally couldnt lift his arms.

> They said for that job you have to be insanely strong, have insane endurance and you have to be insane. Lmao. There's some jobs like that. Always heard (less surprisingly maybe) the morse code operators on ships tend to be kooky as hell too.

There is probably a certain kind of person that is interested in communicating with beeps and boops.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#728

Post by creer »

hammock wrote: post #221
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'…

You can still get made in the USA sofas with real hardwood, not rubber wood, which is fine, or worse, soft pine or particleboard or OSB) North Carolina was and is the center of solid wood furniture), and they still cost several to many thousands of dollars, and they will still last 100+ years with a couple reupholsterings or so, but most furniture comes from Asia now and is sold for 10x less, and is not worth reuphol…

I was mentioning in another thread, seeing good furniture made with engineered finger-jointed wood - which looked perfectly nice after finishing and felt super solid. A middle ground probably: not hardwood but very consistent, inexpensive and available by the mile. Probably with a hard finish on it.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#729

Post by elwell »

ineedaj0b wrote: post #696
elwell wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pay for quality. It saves you money in the long run. Unlikely. Our sofa is like $300. Let's say it only lasts 3 years before it shows wear or we get bored of it and get another $300 one... your $5k sofa would have to last for 50 years to 'save money'. Not to mention the opportunity cost of those funds. Pay for quality if you want quality, not in an attempt to save money.

Do you have pets and kids? A $300 couch could last many moons in a house with no terrors.

I was being exceedingly conservative to strengthen my point.

Re: Why are most sofas so bad?

#730

Post by eYrKEC2 »

Is there "open hardware" in this space? Someone was selling laser-cut frames and sofas that you assemble, which made me wonder if anyone has gone whole-hog and created reasonable open designs for laser-cut, diy sofas.
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