Hacker News Reader

Comment by JamesAdir | Hacker News Reader

As someone who is non-American, it seems much simpler in the US just to buy other stuff (new/used) than just cross country hauling of your entire furniture. I'm sure the essentials can be packed easily.

View on HN

I think many people are very attached to their furniture. I know I am. It took me years of scouring Craigslist to get the deals I did on my Room & Board furniture. It’s such an expensive brand that I am much better off moving with it than selling it and trying to find the pieces again. (It’d take years, again...)

I don’t presume everyone is this way but I do presume many people might have an attachment to their collection of furniture. If it’s all worn down IKEA handmedowns then it might make sense to not move with it. I certainly see that with college students but after that, many people like what they got and it’s a large cost to give it up and buy new. And many people don’t like to buy used furniture too - I am someone who is fine with it.

I mean international moving in Europe already costs a small fortune. With 'starter' furniture being as cheap as it is nowadays - thanks ikea - you can buy a whole set of furniture for the same amount as it would cost to move your existing stuff over.

I mean long-term I hope to be able to replace pieces of furniture with non-Ikea stuff. I was really trying with my TV cabinet, tried to get a unit with plenty of storage, but it was all... flimsy-looking, small and inconvenient. Finally bit the bullet, sat at a PC at Ikea and designed a very nice cabinet around a 60 inch TV.

I mean I only got the TV two years later, but it's the thought that counts.

I hope this isn't received the wrong way, but did you notice you started each paragraph with "I mean"? It is your choice of course, but in my opinion your text could live without those two words.

I read his comment without issue and then read yours and was like "what is this guy talking about". Then I reread his comment and it stuck out like a sore thumb. Even more interesting, I didn't decide to respond to your comment until after I had moved on and noticed a few more comments by the same author in other places that my mind refused to filter out the "I mean" start of. I think its like when someone points out a sound you didn't hear and then you can't filter out that sound anymore. Crazy minds we have.

Had a lecturer that made a specific clicking sound at the beginning of every sentence, never had any problem with it. Until a classmate pointed it out, made it almost impossible to follow this man's lectures afterwards

There's an astonishing amount of I mean in his comment history. I mean like a lot.

If you rent an apartment in Shanghai, it's already furnished. It baffles me how this isn't the case in the US.

It's frustrating for sure. It seems to be part of our hyper consumerist culture. We always must have "our" treasures and moving always seems to involve a lot of buying stuff for that particular space that then doesn't seem to fit in the next one. The while thing makes moving a huge ordeal. To opt-out of the whole thing, I have had good luck finding medium term furnished rentals meant for vacation or Airbnb.

I was in Europe moving from one house to another and I asked if we would take some small thing we bought with us and was told by my friend, "It belongs to the house." That really helped change my thinking on this, that things belong to the spaces they were purchased for, not to us specifically.

It’s not a Europe vs US thing. For example in Germany it’s still somewhat common for an apartment rental to come with no kitchen and barely any fixtures and you have to supply your own. That would be considered a step too far in the US.

Most of the Asian apartments are furnished, at least it held true in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, etc. There are unfurnished ones of course, but for most properties open for foreigners, they come furnished.

2/3 of Americans own rather than rent, so there will always be a market for hauling.

The one doesn't follow from the other. The market norm in Hawai'i (part of America last I checked) is that houses are bought and sold with their contents included.

The furnished apartments I looked at in Asia were pretty sparsely furnished. You still had to have your own bedding, towels, more kitchen stuff if you cook, not to mention your own clothes, papers, etc.

So yes, you can avoid moving furniture, but you still have “stuff”.

Sure, but everything except furniture packs down small enough to basically fit in a car and can be lifted by one person. So moving is way easier.

What sjf said. Your non-furniture possessions are easy to move. The difficult part of moving is moving or buying furniture, and it's also totally unnecessary.

Easy to move is relative. Not hard to have enough non-furniture stuff.

If you live like a bachelor sure.

it's not easy to find good quality & condition used furniture that fits the style and space, this is why people buy new (it's just easier/faster)

How is buying and shipping easier than just shipping?

Nothing that you didn't have in the first place can get lost.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com