7 ms·

>There was a time when they weren't. I'm not sure if that's true. My impression is that furniture has always been very expensive, and it's only fairly recently

>There was a time when they weren't. I'm not sure if that's true. My impression is that furniture has always been very expensive, and it's only fairly recently (mid-20th century?) that mass manufacturing has enabled it to be cheap, with IKEA being one of the most well-known examples.

red-iron-pine 3y ago
the average person was a lot more crafty, as was the average community. a lot was built locally. but yeah cheap furniture, like in the "couple hundred of dollars" sense is pretty new.
- JAlexoid 3y ago
  You can build a table out of rough sawn planks for cheap today. It's just going to cost as much labor and material as something much better from IKEA. 150+ years ago life was different and spending a week planing a tabletop was not a waste of time.
elcritch 3y ago
There used to be much more abundant old growth forests as well, so sourcing hardwood for furniture was much more practical.
- davidgay 3y ago
  IIUC, Europe ran out of "old growth" forests around the end of the Middle Ages...
mandmandam 3y ago
There was a time, about 1.6 million years, when you could bring your axe into the woods, maybe with a friend or two, cut a clearing, and build a whole house with wood furniture that your great great grandchildren would use. You could eat the abundant animals, drink the clean water, and enjoy an entire life without ever once imbibing microplastics and PFAS. It might have been a lot of work - but it was completely free. Those times are long gone, and it doesn't seem likely they'll ever return -- but that is how we lived for the vast majority of our time as human beings.
- matthewdgreen 3y ago
  But then you died from a minor cut you got while building that house, and before that you buried most of your young children. A life spent assembling IKEA may not be the best life, but it sure beats that.
- JAlexoid 3y ago
  I suggest you go visit an exhibition on how people in the dark ages or in the middle ages lived. YOu probably live with hot and cold water, that you can drink... and pretty much everyone in the developed world can afford a banana... that kind of "luxury" wasn't available to kings just 200 years ago.
  - mandmandam 3y ago
    I am well aware. But that's all off topic. The statement I was responding to claimed that humans could never afford nice furniture. But we've had axes for 1.6 million years, and abundant old-growth forests for 1.6 million years, and so, for the vast, vast, vast majority of human history we have in fact had the ability to make sturdy, beautiful, long lasting furniture completely for free. The middle ages and the "dark" ages weren't even all that bad. They had more free time than we did. They had far more birds and beasts. They paid less taxes. They didn't have a multi-billion dollar ad industry telling them they're not good enough. They lived with nature, a nature we'll never know. Yes, there was the war and the religious craziness and the fear of apocalypse - wait a minute, we still have all of that stuff except the fear of apocalypse is way more legit now. I love modern plumbing, and many aspects of the internet. I love the access to culture and knowledge. Antibiotics are cool. I'd rather live now than then. But the idea that people 500; 5,000; or 500,000 years ago had nasty lives far inferior to our own is not entirely justified. Again though - that's all off topic. Those guys 500,000 years ago had free housing, free wood to burn, and incredible biodiversity which we'll never be able to appreciate in our world of modern anthropocene extinction. And, probably, really nice furniture; if they wanted to make it.
    - JAlexoid 3y ago
      > vast, vast, vast majority of human history we have in fact had the ability to make sturdy, beautiful, long lasting furniture completely for free Again... Go visit and Egyptological museum. Go see how rough, compared to modern furniture, the royal masterpiece chairs were. For the 1599950 out of 1600000 years humans definitely could not afford or had any nice furniture. Absolute majority couldn't afford even rough sturdy, unnice furniture. And your comment about "free housing" is naive... It wasn't free and desirable places had their own issues. Taking a dump on companies like IKEA is very much the most condescending thing we could do. I certainly have experienced the inability to purchase even the most basic necessities, where IKEA would have provided some relief.

red-iron-pine 3y ago

the average person was a lot more crafty, as was the average community. a lot was built locally. but yeah cheap furniture, like in the "couple hundred of dollars" sense is pretty new.

JAlexoid 3y ago
You can build a table out of rough sawn planks for cheap today. It's just going to cost as much labor and material as something much better from IKEA. 150+ years ago life was different and spending a week planing a tabletop was not a waste of time.

elcritch 3y ago

There used to be much more abundant old growth forests as well, so sourcing hardwood for furniture was much more practical.

davidgay 3y ago
IIUC, Europe ran out of "old growth" forests around the end of the Middle Ages...

mandmandam 3y ago

There was a time, about 1.6 million years, when you could bring your axe into the woods, maybe with a friend or two, cut a clearing, and build a whole house with wood furniture that your great great grandchildren would use. You could eat the abundant animals, drink the clean water, and enjoy an entire life without ever once imbibing microplastics and PFAS. It might have been a lot of work - but it was completely free. Those times are long gone, and it doesn't seem likely they'll ever return -- but that is how we lived for the vast majority of our time as human beings.

matthewdgreen 3y ago
But then you died from a minor cut you got while building that house, and before that you buried most of your young children. A life spent assembling IKEA may not be the best life, but it sure beats that.
JAlexoid 3y ago
I suggest you go visit an exhibition on how people in the dark ages or in the middle ages lived. YOu probably live with hot and cold water, that you can drink... and pretty much everyone in the developed world can afford a banana... that kind of "luxury" wasn't available to kings just 200 years ago.
- mandmandam 3y ago
  I am well aware. But that's all off topic. The statement I was responding to claimed that humans could never afford nice furniture. But we've had axes for 1.6 million years, and abundant old-growth forests for 1.6 million years, and so, for the vast, vast, vast majority of human history we have in fact had the ability to make sturdy, beautiful, long lasting furniture completely for free. The middle ages and the "dark" ages weren't even all that bad. They had more free time than we did. They had far more birds and beasts. They paid less taxes. They didn't have a multi-billion dollar ad industry telling them they're not good enough. They lived with nature, a nature we'll never know. Yes, there was the war and the religious craziness and the fear of apocalypse - wait a minute, we still have all of that stuff except the fear of apocalypse is way more legit now. I love modern plumbing, and many aspects of the internet. I love the access to culture and knowledge. Antibiotics are cool. I'd rather live now than then. But the idea that people 500; 5,000; or 500,000 years ago had nasty lives far inferior to our own is not entirely justified. Again though - that's all off topic. Those guys 500,000 years ago had free housing, free wood to burn, and incredible biodiversity which we'll never be able to appreciate in our world of modern anthropocene extinction. And, probably, really nice furniture; if they wanted to make it.
  - JAlexoid 3y ago
    > vast, vast, vast majority of human history we have in fact had the ability to make sturdy, beautiful, long lasting furniture completely for free Again... Go visit and Egyptological museum. Go see how rough, compared to modern furniture, the royal masterpiece chairs were. For the 1599950 out of 1600000 years humans definitely could not afford or had any nice furniture. Absolute majority couldn't afford even rough sturdy, unnice furniture. And your comment about "free housing" is naive... It wasn't free and desirable places had their own issues. Taking a dump on companies like IKEA is very much the most condescending thing we could do. I certainly have experienced the inability to purchase even the most basic necessities, where IKEA would have provided some relief.