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Comment by mark_l_watson | Hacker News Reader

I have thought about this lately because my wife and I moved to Illinois so I could accept a job managing a machine learning team. I retired and now we are just now moving back to Arizona. I spent five hours yesterday watching our stuff being wrapped and put on a truck. Lots of possessions.

The thing is, I have some stuff that I really like. A teak bookcase I bought in the 1970s when I got my first real job after finishing school. A huge teak desk my wife bought me 20 years ago. My wife has some furniture her grandmother had and that she grew up with. We also have art and things we have bought while traveling around the world.

I see the advantages of not being encumbered by ‘stuff’ but some possessions help define our personal history and are simply a pleasure to own.

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This is similar to a realization I had the other day: for many people collecting things is less about the objects and more about the memories and nostalgia and associated with those objects.

I have been having a lot of "identity" problems lately, and it occurred to me that very little of what I own has any substantial story about it nor does it say much about who I am as a person.

The objects we collect exist as affirmations of the identity we've chosen for ourselves.

I hate seeing all this garbage from Ikea when there are plenty sturdy “antiques” made from hard woods, as opposed to sawdust, glue, and cam locks.

I have a some furniture hand made from my great-grandfather, grandfather, and father. I made a nice pair of speakers. This stuff will go to my kids.

Much rather buy from the Amish furniture store and pay more, than the disposable shit from Ikea.

Ikea has lots of products that are made of solid pine. If you use some wood glue during assembly, their stuff will stay together quite well. I have some stuff I bought 10+ years ago hold together after a half-dozen moves with some basic mods.

I recently furnished my first "adult" house after years of having an Ikea apartment. I was pretty amazed at how up-market you have to go in order to exceed Ikea quality in commercial furniture. Lots of stuff sold in furniture stores is held together with hex-bolts and lock-tite anymore. Meaning you have to move up to Amish furniture if you want something higher quality. But that's like a 3-10x jump in price.

I ended up spending big on couches & dining table, then used Ikea stuff in the bedrooms and offices. I feel like that's a mid-point of cost and quality.

I've observed the price of furniture to run, lowest to highest, something like:

Bad Ikea, Flat-Pack Furniture from Anywhere Else, Beat-Up Antiques, Good Ikea, Unfashionable but Good Antiques, Oversized Overstuffed NFM[1] crap, Actually Good New Furniture, Fashionable Antiques

Not linear, there's a big jump for the last two categories.

While the quality/longevity runs more like:

Flat-Pack Furniture from Anywhere Else, Bad Ikea = Oversized Overstuffed NFM Crap, Good Ikea, Beat-Up Antiques, Unfasionable but Good Antiques = Fashionable Antiques = Actually Good New Furniture.

Basically my conclusion's been I need to either buy good stuff (unfashionable antiques, occasionally good new stuff—fashionable antiques are out of my price range) or just get Ikea. The whole rest of the low-end market's at least as bad, and usually more expensive. Some of it pretends it's part of some non-existent middle tier of quality and is priced to match, making it the worst possible furniture to buy (oversized overstuffed NFM crap—it's also usually in a tasteless faux-antique style).

I also think people who complain about Ikea's directions haven't assembled much shitty furniture from anywhere other than Ikea. It's all much worse.

[1] Nebraska Furniture Mart, here used as a category.

Where do you find Actually Good New Furniture nowadays?

You can get pretty decent solid wood furniture. Often it's "Amish" which doesn't mean hand-made or made with old-timey tools, of course, just made in an air-powered factory, probably, assuming it's not just marketing BS. Gotta watch out, a lot of it's not put together all that well. And you're not gonna find anything trendy (mid-century modern, say) looking in the lower (so, semi-reasonable) end of that price range, it's all Shaker and such. Wood itself may be from inferior (but cheaper) species, and of course there just isn't amazing lumber in any quantity anymore like there was 100+ years ago. Any mechanisms may be kinda crap, mostly just avoid fancy stuff. But quality can be had if you watch out to make sure you're not getting screwed.

I haven't found anything amazing that's upholstered but I assume the good products there are just out of my price range. I've got a couple Flexsteel pieces and they're at least a hell of a lot more durable than your average Ashley Furniture near-future-landfill-fodder, while being similarly priced to the "higher end" (LOL) of that sort of thing. The upholstery itself still sucks but at least the frames and springs may pass the decade mark. Good fabric and good stitching are very expensive (see: any non-terrible clothes) so, again, I probably just can't afford the good stuff there so I've not really seen it.

[EDIT] meanwhile I have my grandparents' couches they bought something like 40 years ago, and despite heavy use they've probably got another 3-5 years left in them (springs starting to go, finally) and no burst seams or rips in the fabric, even on the cushions. Hell, the cushions aren't even getting flat. I guarantee they were just normal ol' furniture when they bought them, nothing fancy. Furniture quality has definitely gone downhill. Then again those couches, though likely on the cheaper end back then, would probably be a lot more expensive than our modern low-end in today's dollars. More so if you factor in wage growth. I don't even know where to find a couch that's likely to last 40+ years, now. It'd probably cost $10,000 if I did find it.

>Furniture quality has definitely gone downhill.

I'll bet that like almost everything throughout history, "good" furniture is far better quality than it's ever been, and "bad" furniture is now more stylish and accessible to more people than ever, albeit less durable than the best stuff. Do people really believe we've forgotten how to make couches?

While "good" furniture may be better than it's ever been, it's also more expensive than it's ever been. I don't know how much a good table cost in 1945 but I bet it wasn't the equivalent of $5,000 which is what it would be now.

I suspect there's a "very bad" tier that didn't exist before, is now the most common (because cheapest), and has undermined the "cheap (more expensive than what's cheap now, but formerly cheap) but pretty good" tier, eating its demand and causing it to become more expensive. So yeah, I think OK furniture's more expensive now than it used to be. But now there's even-cheaper crap readily available so... maybe that's better. IDK.

Gomer Bolstrood

I buy IKEA furniture. I bought Ikea kitchen. 20 year warranty and I know they will be around for it. Hardware is the best you will get for the money on those cabinets.

Some IKEA furniture is actually decent. I don't want antiques in my house because I remodeled to have a modern look.

My dad bought kitchen cabinets from a small retailer, they gave him shit when he tried to replace one door because it was warped.

Honestly, I would rather deal with a major chain/retailer. I bought stuff at IKEA that wasn't wood but lasted over 10 years and served its purpose, and when it comes time to remodel I can buy something new and still end up paying less than for some "wood" furniture.

>Much rather buy from the Amish furniture store and pay more, than the disposable shit from Ikea.

First of all, the main reason Ikea is so popular is because the stuff is usually packed in small boxes to be assembled, which is easier to move and ship. That's more efficient in shipping logistics and allows for people to live in higher density housing. Have fun moving your hand-made furniture from 100+ years ago down that condominium stairwell.

Second, Ikea has a strong corporate focus on the environment and sustainability:

https://www.ikea.com/ms/en_JP/customer_service/faq/help/abou...

So maybe pause before disparaging a company that's actually trying.

If you're in the position to afford hand made Amish furniture, you can probably afford movers. OSB is great for inexpensive furniture that doesn't move. The downside is once the wood gets wet or damaged it degrades quickly, unlike solid wood which will warp and split if not properly treated. One of the absolute best furniture products for strength and durability is actually plywood but people see it as a "cheap" product instead of the engineering marvel that it is. I think what it really comes down to is that when you're younger it makes sense to buy cheaper more disposable furniture. It's going to see more wear and tear and you're still finding your own style which is likely to change when you have a partner. When you become an adult and start moving less it makes sense to buy something that is going to be able to last longer with proper care. Solid woods tend to wear better over time because it's not a paper veneer over the OSB. Like most things it's about using the appropriate tool or resource for the task. I recently had to build a behind the sofa table for my wife. There simply didn't exist a product that fit our needs (12 feet long and thin) went with solid oak and while it fit we did indeed have the problem that it wouldn't fit through the stairwell and we had to walk it around the outside of the house. I doubt it would fit in an apartment.

>I see the advantages of not being encumbered by ‘stuff’ but some possessions help define our personal history and are simply a pleasure to own.

Indeed. I have one of those giant wooden spoons you hang on a wall that I got at goodwill for like 3$. Most people would go "that is hideous, stupid and is just taking up space, throw it away" but I go "we carried that thing around all summer one year like a scepter being incredibly goofy with it in public, I'd never throw this thing away, we had a lot of fun that summer, I haven't even seen some of those friends in a few years now".

Then you get the reddit minimalist types that are like "Then take a digital photo of it and throw it away". No humanbot, I'm not like that.

Keep it if it brings you happiness, after all, that's the point.

It's the rest of the stuff that can go. I helped a friend move last month. After we'd been to the 5 places she kept her stuff, we discovered she had 5 coffee machines, 5 cutting boards, 5 juicers, etc. etc.

The things you describe make you happier and are not stuff. The things I described are just stuff.

> 5 places she kept her stuff

Storage unit rental, now that's a means of preying on people who can't let go and/or move often.

(It strikes me that there might be startup value in "home inventory management", although it would have to be made as frictionless as possible - wave a camera round your kitchen, inside all the cupboards, get a list of everything you own. Snoop your Amazon webpages so it can remind you not to buy things you already have.)

Sortly[0] might do what you're suggesting though not as simply as you described.

[0] sortly.com

Fortunately(?) I have a fair bit of storage space at home. It's definitely a battle to pull out and get rid of stuff in storage after I haven't looked or used it for a few years. It's really tempting to throw things in storage rather than make the decision to get rid of them--especially when there's some effort associated with disposing of an item.

You say preying, but I'm glad I was able to rent out space to store some things when I moved cities and told myself I'd move back. Turns out I didn't move back, and only went back to pick up a few things and give away the rest. I doubt I would have been able to detach from those things if I took them with me.

Were the rental costs a waste? I suppose I would have saved a few hundred dollars if I could have just gotten rid of the stuff earlier, but it would have felt like a personal loss instead of a natural detachment.

Loss aversion is actually significantly powerful and difficult to overcome, but think about why, it's only very recently that humanity can easily procure anything it needs for survival with relative ease in most countries. While getting something new is exciting losing something is far harder when you never know when/if your going to be able to gain it again. It's helped humans survive throughout our history, so I wouldn't be hard on yourself that it wasn't easy to detach, you were just practicing a survival skill.

> Keep it if it brings you happiness, after all, that's the point.

But what if it doesn't make you happy AND selling/discarding it makes you unhappy?

...That sounds like a strange scenario. Can you give me an example?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsive_hoarding

I suspect that hoarders are not necessarily happy with the stuff they collect, but they would become unhappy when they have to let go of it.

I wonder to what extent this influences what is known as the "endowment effect" in economics. The particular chair I am sitting in and have for months, is it really a more valuable one because it helps me remember?

Now before we are quick to agree on a 'yes' -- to what extent do memories hold us back? Your teak bookcase for example reminds you of a positive accomplishment, and its loss would untether you, generally speaking not wanting to intrude. Now imagine someone who objectively should change, perhaps because your industry is dying. Too many mementos, a sign of reluctance, resistance even to change?

Yet change, wanted or not, is the one constant in our life.

I realize the article is about renting to save up (-- how's that going to work, btw? After all, someone needs to charge on top of the cost of owning). But a home of one's own like in the last century, really another cradle of identity, or mistaken materialism?

I have to say, this whole trend screams of cognitive dissonance.

"I can't afford to buy so I don't want to anyways..." sounds like one of the primary motivators. Renting expensive items? How's this different from leasing or renting a supercar you can't afford to show off to friends or clients? It's not.

There's for sure some cases where this is a practical solution, like moving to another city for a year or two and getting some temporary furniture. But in most other cases in screams of sour grapes and businesses seeking to profit from people bad at math.

Rent a coffee table for $50 a month for a few years and then be happy you don't have to move it when you change apartments? Run the math on those numbers and you'll realize you're likely a fool. Sure, if you're buying things like cheap ikea furniture it's not likely to appreciate in value but most real hardwood furniture is generational and something of an investment.

Regarding the dissonance, the this all has the side "if I don't own it, I won't feel the pain of loss" to it. Survival strategy in a precarious situation.

But if you never own them in the first place, they become forgettable. Sounds like future cities will have less of that

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