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Comment by madengr | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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.

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