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https://archive.is/GLIVY https://archive.is/GLIVY I've been shopping for furniture lately and can confirm, it all feels like cheap junk unless it's VERY expens

https://archive.is/GLIVY https://archive.is/GLIVY I've been shopping for furniture lately and can confirm, it all feels like cheap junk unless it's VERY expensive. I wish I could find a mattress that lasts even more than a couch. I only sit on the couch a few times a week, so it doesn't matter as much as my bed!

emeraldd 3y ago
I've been surprisingly happy with a Big Fig mattress: https://www.bigfigmattress.com https://www.bigfigmattress.com Ours is a little on the firmer side, but that can be remedied with a topper.
spondylosaurus 3y ago
With mattresses it's really worth splurging if (1) you can afford it and (2) you actually like whatever you're splurging on. But it's hard to figure out the latter without physically trying the mattress ahead of time... I had to go be Goldilocks at a local mattress store for forty minutes before I found my match.
- b112 3y ago
  The problem I find is, foam sucks. High density foam just sucks less, except at siphoning money from your wallet. I had a mattress with polyester pillow top. Lasted 20 years. New mattresses all seem to be foam, and turn junky super fast. Sucks.
  - alistairSH 3y ago
    Agreed. We tried a name brand foam mattress and it was awful. Tried an Ikea foam that had good reviews and it was awful. Third times a charm - went back to "springs and stuff" and it's a much better mattress. It was $5000 or more (don't recall), but it's been good for 5 years so far with no signs of sagging or wearing out. Worth noting, prior to my 40s, I really didn't care. Now that I'm deep into my 40s, every second of quality sleep counts and bad sleep means achey neck and back and stuff.
  - fmajid 3y ago
    What you want is latex.
    - cafard 3y ago
      Latex is I guess fine. I have no complaints from sleeping on it. But it is a bear to move. If you don't have a couple of stevedores in your household, good luck.
- autoexecbat 3y ago
  > I had to go be Goldilocks at a local mattress store for forty minutes before I found my match. I do this too, I think it's the only reasonable way to pick something that you're going to spend 1/3 of your days laying on
- andy99 3y ago
  I don't see how 40 min could be enough. I find with the wrong mattress my back starts to get sore after days or weeks, and I've bought "100 night guarantee" mattresses that started to sag at about the 101st night. It's very hard, at least for me, to make any kind of quick assessment. I'd happily pay a lot but I have no idea what to buy and no confidence that what I do buy will actually last.
- rconti 3y ago
  I think we spent a couple of hours at the local mattress store. I certainly don't think being Goldilocks for 40 minutes is being as difficult a consumer as you seem to think the store might have perceived it as. If anything, local stores are probably happy to have customers who clearly appreciate being able to try before you buy, rather than just a one-click "oh, I can return it anyway" mattress buyer. Thankfully our favorite mattress was the cheapest one in the store (~$700 for a cal king)
linuxftw 3y ago
If you have one near you, I highly recommend The Original Mattress Factory. The big-name manufacturers all make 'individually wrapped coils' to make the mattresses 'conform to your body.' These coils are low gauge metal and wear out over time. The fact that they're individually wrapped means each coil is supporting weight on it's own rather than distributing the weight to coils that aren't directly under weight. OMF still offers 'real coil spring' mattresses where the coils are thicker and connected with wire to help distribute the load. The mattresses are also able to be flipped vertically. The best part is, the mattresses are typically hundreds or thousands cheaper than you'll pay for a 'name brand' mattress. What I like to do is buy a firm mattress and top with a separate pillow topper from amazon.
HideousKojima 3y ago
I have an inflatable mattress (basically like sleep number, but some other brand whose name I can't recall right now) and it's been fantastic for the last 4 years without any noticable wear and tear or degradation. We also have a 3 inch foam topper on top that has held up well, though that Will probably need replacement at some point. That said, one of the biggest gamechangers I've noticed for sleep regardless of mattress type is actually the box spring. Box springs suck, the bed frames that use arched wooden slats for support instead of a box spring feel way more comfortable and supportive, even with the same mattress.
mustacheemperor 3y ago
I'd highly recommend finding a local shop for furniture, if you can. You're right that the major brands cost a lot of money for quality, so even if a local place seems pricier than an "economy" couch at Ikea or West Elm, you're getting a much better piece of furniture. Unaffiliated plug, but there is a sofa shop in the Castro in SF (I think they also have a location in the East Bay) where we bought our new couch a couple years ago. The brothers who own the business were very patient about explaining the different kinds of cushion materials and how we could expect them to wear, let us take home several books of fabric swatches to compare within our own home (for days!), and told us if we didn't like the feet once it got to our place they would switch them out for free. Needless to say, that buying experience is completely different from a corporate store. It only wound up costing 10-20% more than the similar couches we were evaluating at retail shops and has been so much more comfortable and so much more durable than the furniture we ever bought from those places. They've got an outstanding warranty, so we know if we ever did experience unexpected wear and tear they would replace it immediately, and that if 5 or 10 years from now we want to refresh the cushion they can help us with that too. Just like that small software startup is beating the big guys at the same game...You may have a local furniture shop within your local area that can offer you a much better quality to price ratio and bring your money right back into the local economy instead of sending it to a distant conglomerate.
- andy99 3y ago
  Most of my furniture (everything not upholstered, dining table, dressers, cabinets, coffee table, etc) is all from a second hand store that buys estate furniture and refurbishes it. It's all solid wood, mostly from the '40s or earlier, and was way cheaper than even crappy IKEA stuff.
alistairSH 3y ago
We bought a Joybird (or some other not-too-expensive online brand) and it's been fine in our living room (where it sees light-moderate usage). It's a 10 year sofa, at most, and that's without heavy use. The family room, which gets a lot more use, was from a local furniture store. It was double the price and probably 3-4x as "good". I expect it will last for 20 years.
RajT88 3y ago
We bought a house at the end of 2020, and then went couch shopping. In stores as well as thrift shops. > Buck at Rochester Institute of Technology says consumers could be better off spending a few thousand dollars to reupholster a thrift-store find or hand-me-down. “Most often the construction of vintage sofas will be superior to what’s made now,” Buck says. This was my conclusion as well, but we still bought a cheap one. We just bought it from some guy who was selling his whole living room for a grand, so I don't mind too much if they fall apart in a few years. Build quality is not there for the wooden parts (I did my handyman thing there), but the leather at least is claimed to be top grain.
cush 3y ago
I've got a 10 year old Tuft and Needle mattress that is as good as the day I got it. If you're down with foam, you should consider it.
- tdhz77 3y ago
  Agreed, bought it in 2016 and still going strong.

emeraldd 3y ago

I've been surprisingly happy with a Big Fig mattress: https://www.bigfigmattress.com https://www.bigfigmattress.com Ours is a little on the firmer side, but that can be remedied with a topper.

spondylosaurus 3y ago

With mattresses it's really worth splurging if (1) you can afford it and (2) you actually like whatever you're splurging on. But it's hard to figure out the latter without physically trying the mattress ahead of time... I had to go be Goldilocks at a local mattress store for forty minutes before I found my match.

b112 3y ago
The problem I find is, foam sucks. High density foam just sucks less, except at siphoning money from your wallet. I had a mattress with polyester pillow top. Lasted 20 years. New mattresses all seem to be foam, and turn junky super fast. Sucks.
- alistairSH 3y ago
  Agreed. We tried a name brand foam mattress and it was awful. Tried an Ikea foam that had good reviews and it was awful. Third times a charm - went back to "springs and stuff" and it's a much better mattress. It was $5000 or more (don't recall), but it's been good for 5 years so far with no signs of sagging or wearing out. Worth noting, prior to my 40s, I really didn't care. Now that I'm deep into my 40s, every second of quality sleep counts and bad sleep means achey neck and back and stuff.
- fmajid 3y ago
  What you want is latex.
  - cafard 3y ago
    Latex is I guess fine. I have no complaints from sleeping on it. But it is a bear to move. If you don't have a couple of stevedores in your household, good luck.
autoexecbat 3y ago
> I had to go be Goldilocks at a local mattress store for forty minutes before I found my match. I do this too, I think it's the only reasonable way to pick something that you're going to spend 1/3 of your days laying on
andy99 3y ago
I don't see how 40 min could be enough. I find with the wrong mattress my back starts to get sore after days or weeks, and I've bought "100 night guarantee" mattresses that started to sag at about the 101st night. It's very hard, at least for me, to make any kind of quick assessment. I'd happily pay a lot but I have no idea what to buy and no confidence that what I do buy will actually last.
rconti 3y ago
I think we spent a couple of hours at the local mattress store. I certainly don't think being Goldilocks for 40 minutes is being as difficult a consumer as you seem to think the store might have perceived it as. If anything, local stores are probably happy to have customers who clearly appreciate being able to try before you buy, rather than just a one-click "oh, I can return it anyway" mattress buyer. Thankfully our favorite mattress was the cheapest one in the store (~$700 for a cal king)

linuxftw 3y ago

If you have one near you, I highly recommend The Original Mattress Factory. The big-name manufacturers all make 'individually wrapped coils' to make the mattresses 'conform to your body.' These coils are low gauge metal and wear out over time. The fact that they're individually wrapped means each coil is supporting weight on it's own rather than distributing the weight to coils that aren't directly under weight. OMF still offers 'real coil spring' mattresses where the coils are thicker and connected with wire to help distribute the load. The mattresses are also able to be flipped vertically. The best part is, the mattresses are typically hundreds or thousands cheaper than you'll pay for a 'name brand' mattress. What I like to do is buy a firm mattress and top with a separate pillow topper from amazon.

HideousKojima 3y ago

I have an inflatable mattress (basically like sleep number, but some other brand whose name I can't recall right now) and it's been fantastic for the last 4 years without any noticable wear and tear or degradation. We also have a 3 inch foam topper on top that has held up well, though that Will probably need replacement at some point. That said, one of the biggest gamechangers I've noticed for sleep regardless of mattress type is actually the box spring. Box springs suck, the bed frames that use arched wooden slats for support instead of a box spring feel way more comfortable and supportive, even with the same mattress.

mustacheemperor 3y ago

I'd highly recommend finding a local shop for furniture, if you can. You're right that the major brands cost a lot of money for quality, so even if a local place seems pricier than an "economy" couch at Ikea or West Elm, you're getting a much better piece of furniture. Unaffiliated plug, but there is a sofa shop in the Castro in SF (I think they also have a location in the East Bay) where we bought our new couch a couple years ago. The brothers who own the business were very patient about explaining the different kinds of cushion materials and how we could expect them to wear, let us take home several books of fabric swatches to compare within our own home (for days!), and told us if we didn't like the feet once it got to our place they would switch them out for free. Needless to say, that buying experience is completely different from a corporate store. It only wound up costing 10-20% more than the similar couches we were evaluating at retail shops and has been so much more comfortable and so much more durable than the furniture we ever bought from those places. They've got an outstanding warranty, so we know if we ever did experience unexpected wear and tear they would replace it immediately, and that if 5 or 10 years from now we want to refresh the cushion they can help us with that too. Just like that small software startup is beating the big guys at the same game...You may have a local furniture shop within your local area that can offer you a much better quality to price ratio and bring your money right back into the local economy instead of sending it to a distant conglomerate.

andy99 3y ago
Most of my furniture (everything not upholstered, dining table, dressers, cabinets, coffee table, etc) is all from a second hand store that buys estate furniture and refurbishes it. It's all solid wood, mostly from the '40s or earlier, and was way cheaper than even crappy IKEA stuff.

alistairSH 3y ago

We bought a Joybird (or some other not-too-expensive online brand) and it's been fine in our living room (where it sees light-moderate usage). It's a 10 year sofa, at most, and that's without heavy use. The family room, which gets a lot more use, was from a local furniture store. It was double the price and probably 3-4x as "good". I expect it will last for 20 years.

RajT88 3y ago

We bought a house at the end of 2020, and then went couch shopping. In stores as well as thrift shops. > Buck at Rochester Institute of Technology says consumers could be better off spending a few thousand dollars to reupholster a thrift-store find or hand-me-down. “Most often the construction of vintage sofas will be superior to what’s made now,” Buck says. This was my conclusion as well, but we still bought a cheap one. We just bought it from some guy who was selling his whole living room for a grand, so I don't mind too much if they fall apart in a few years. Build quality is not there for the wooden parts (I did my handyman thing there), but the leather at least is claimed to be top grain.

cush 3y ago

I've got a 10 year old Tuft and Needle mattress that is as good as the day I got it. If you're down with foam, you should consider it.

tdhz77 3y ago
Agreed, bought it in 2016 and still going strong.