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Why are most sofas so bad?

• krosaen 3y ago
  Seems like the market rate for a well made sofa is more like 3-4k these days. If you think you're getting that for 1k you will be disappointed.
• 1290cc 3y ago
  This only makes sense when upholsterers dont cost more than buying an entirely new sofa. My family used to reupholster furniture every 5 years and it was cheap because my mother had an interior design firm and got very good rates. I tried the same here in the US with some high end Scandinavian furniture ($5k), the quote was up to 1x what I originally paid. In the end it made sense to just buy new again. The cost of labor of where you reside has a significant effect on whether you purchase another 'junk' piece of furniture.
• uoaei 3y ago
  "Most important piece of furniture" is a heavily loaded ideological claim. It points to the rampant American culture surrounding media consumption. I've been pretty stunned during my travels to find that it's really only Americans who obsessively talk about or reference TV shows and movies in their small talk. No other culture seems nearly as interested, and some actively discourage it in favor of more real, personal topics. It's one of those things where once you start noticing it, it just gets cringier and cringier. Not everyone lives in sitcoms or spends all their free time watching TV... The only time I'm on my couch is when I have a few people over. And even then we're usually doing other things than just lazing about.
  • gumby 3y ago
    I'm not sure this is really sofa-related, but... > I've been pretty stunned during my travels to find that it's really only Americans who obsessively talk about or reference TV shows and movies in their small talk. It's a slight exaggeration, but yeah. I've really started noticing it on HN and some news-ish sites too, over the past couple of years: where a book would normally be used as a reference point, now a film is more commonly used instead.
    • vundercind 3y ago
      Adult Americans read so few books per year, on average, that it’s barely an exaggeration to assert that we don’t read books at all. And most of what we do read is romance novels or juvenile fiction. Been like that for a while.
      • gumby 3y ago
        I tried to look this up but the numbers on different sites were all over the place.
    • tomrod 3y ago
      Weird, I saw similar conversations in SE Asia many years ago, especially around popular soap operas. Maybe it's hindsight bias on one of our parts.
  • saurik 3y ago
    > The only time I'm on my couch is when I have a few people over. You make it sound like this is not merely a rare thing for you, but that it should be rare... I don't just passively sit and watch much television and yet I have spent an incredible amount of time in my life sitting on either my couch or the couch of a friend -- or even one of many couches at an office -- talking and laughing and having fun with other human beings. If I had to choose only one: a couch or a dining table, I'd go with a couch. Now... bed? That's harder for me, but I can totally see people deciding couch (as you can sleep on the couch but it is awkward as hell to invite people over and only have a bed to use).
    • uoaei 3y ago
      No, it's just that most activities in my home are not amenable to sitting. For instance, people come by all the time to play pool. Does that mean I should advocate that pool tables are important things to have in the home?
      • maximinus_thrax 3y ago
        > Does that mean I should advocate that pool tables are important things to have in the home? Yes. Write your own Dwell magazine and advocate for whatever you wish.
      • OkayPhysicist 3y ago
        And while 2-4 people are playing pool, where's everybody else? On various sitting furniture. I think we need to go one step further, and revive the conversation pit. (aka, the supercouch)
        • IggleSniggle 3y ago
          Fully agree! The sectional is a cop-out. Commit!
  • AlotOfReading 3y ago
    Telenovelas would seem to be a strong counterpoint to the idea that it's only Americans who talk about TV. If anything, TV has become dramatically less of a shared cultural experience for Americans since the post-network era began.
  • pdabbadabba 3y ago
    > "Most important piece of furniture" is a heavily loaded ideological claim. It points to the rampant American culture surrounding media consumption. I think you may be engaging in a bit of axe grinding here! I agree that the sofa is one of the post important pieces of furniture in my home [1], but for reasons that have nothing to do with television. There is no TV in the room! But it is still where I spend the most time sitting during downtime, reading books, talking to my family, etc. And when I have friends over, we're either there or at the dining room table. [1] For the title of the most important, I might have picked my bed. But that's a quibble.
  • barbazoo 3y ago
    > "Most important piece of furniture" is a heavily loaded ideological claim. It points to the rampant American culture surrounding media consumption. That's quite a leap. Did you consider that dwell.com might not have actually done a study on what Americans consider the "most important piece of furniture" but just used that phrase to justify the very existence of their article?
    • uoaei 3y ago
      I'm not making any claims about the preferences of Americans but about the default assumptions of the authors. It is as good a reflection of cultural attitudes as any.
  • ed_blackburn 3y ago
    I'm not American. But I feel seen(!) :)
  • tqi 3y ago
    > really only Americans who obsessively talk about or reference TV shows and movies in their small talk For one, it doesnt seem like americans are significant outliers in tv consumption[1] or smartphone usage[2]. For another, yeah if you're a foreign traveller people probably aren't going to make small talk with you about TV or other pop culture... [1]https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/which-country-watches-the-most-tv.html https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/which-country-watches-th... [2] https://explodingtopics.com/blog/smartphone-usage-stats#smartphone-usage-by-region https://explodingtopics.com/blog/smartphone-usage-stats#smar...
    • uoaei 3y ago
      I'm not speaking to consumption, I'm speaking to small talk. There's no good reason to believe there's a tight correlation there. Americans constantly shove TV into the conversation even if they don't know that the other person or people are familiar with it. Though many are aware of American media output by virtue of the cultural colonialism enacted since brute force fell out of fashion. Even if they're not explicitly speaking about TV they're still doing the IRL version of posting reaction GIFs by quoting memes in response to earnest conversation.
      • tqi 3y ago
        > There's no good reason to believe there's a tight correlation there. You don't think there is a strong correlation between how people spend their time and what they talk about?
  • swatcoder 3y ago
    Not to interrupt your principled tirade against lazy Americans or whatever, but it's not a "claim", let alone an ideological one. It's just a bog standard literary device for framing a puff piece.
  • com2kid 3y ago
    > "Most important piece of furniture" is a heavily loaded ideological claim. It points to the rampant American culture surrounding media consumption. My family doesn't watch TV. I purchased my sofa when I didn't even have a TV. The most important aspect of my living room arrangement is how well it facilitates long, deep, conversations with friends who come over for visits. I have 3 pieces of seating in my living room, a chair for reading placed next to a book case (large enough that a couple small kids can sit in the lap of an adult who is reading with them if so desired), a smaller 2 person sofa, and a larger 6ft long sofa. I know plenty of other families who have similar arrangements with sofas so placed as to emphasize socialization with friends. Now if we are talking about the 90s and early 2000s, yeah, it was all about amazing TV watching experiences. > The only time I'm on my couch is when I have a few people over. And even then we're usually doing other things than just lazing about. The couch is where you retire to after dinner has been finished and everything cleaned away. Board games may occur in other rooms (depending on one's coffee table situation) the of course a room that is laid out for conversation is going to see the most use when there are people over to have a conversation with. FWIW now that I have a kid, I am hosting social events more often than ever before (watching children has a negative co-efficient for small values of n > 1, 3 kids are easier to watch than 1!), but even in my DINK life (at which point I didn't even own a TV), my couch got plenty of use.
  • zachmu 3y ago
    https://www.theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-doesnt-own-a-televisi-1819565469 https://www.theonion.com/area-man-constantly-mentioning-he-d...
  • nonameiguess 3y ago
    Are you sure it's "Americans" or is it the Internet? Our experience of Americans may not be identical. Even just my co-workers and family seem to rarely if ever be aware of the same things on television I care about, granting I watch far more nature documentaries than anything else and had no access to broadcast networks until they launched streaming services in the last couple years since I cord cut around 2011 or so. The only thing from the past 15 years I can think of that seemed widely at least known about to most people I talked to was Game of Thrones, but even that was far from universal. My HVAC guy commented that I looked different because I had long hair and a ponytail the last time he saw me a few years ago and I said it was because I grew my hair out for Khal Drogo cosplay and he had no clue what I was talking about. He'd never even seen Game of Thrones or probably any other television. I actually remember that about two of my ex-girlfriend's dads from when I was in my early 20s. They were both small business owners and had no knowledge whatsoever about pop culture. They were so focused on their businesses that they never watched any television or saw any films. In any case, even though there is nothing on television I watch with any regularity currently, I would still rate my sofa as a fairly important piece of furniture. Not as important as my bed, but it is the largest piece of furniture and the centerpiece of my largest room. My kitchen/living room is open floor plan townhouse and I cook quite a bit, and I can't just stand all day, so that's where I rest, even though I'm just listening to music when I do so and not watching television. When I lay down to read a book, that's also usually where I do it. If I take a nap during the day, it's typically on the sofa. We usually eat dinner there, too, even though we're not watching television, just because it's more comfortable than any other place we have to sit. I even work from my sofa pretty frequently. But I've got no complaints, personally. I paid $300 or so at the PX when I joined the Army almost 20 years ago and bought my first house and still have the same sofa. It certainly didn't fall apart on me. It's moved with me four times. My wife and I debate getting a nice one but always decide not to because our cats are going to tear it up and puke on it all the time anyway.
  • IggleSniggle 3y ago
    Does media consumption include "conversing with guests?" The sofa is the place everybody goes to chat unless we're having a meal. Frankly, we'd probably use it a little less if our dining chairs were more comfortable, and I do think there's a very good case to be made that dining room chairs are more important than the sofa, but nonetheless, I really don't think a sofa is especially tied to TV culture in any way. If we're going to be doing something rather than lazing around or eating, we're not going to be in the house at all.
• Share6323 3y ago
  Are any sofa manufacturers out there that still produce good quality for around $1000, preferably from Europe ?
  • asow92 3y ago
    $1k just ain't what it used to be. My wife and I just spent $5k on a sectional from West Elm a year ago and the fabric is already starting to pill.
    • lotsofpulp 3y ago
      This is why I trust IKEA’s price to quality ratio. I know I won’t be getting the highest quality, but I will likely be getting the highest quality to price ratio. Got this one in 2016 for $1,100, and it’s survived 2 kids with minimal pilling. It won’t impress anyone, but I have no problem using it. https://www.ikeaddict.com/ikeapedia/en/Product/60276883/us-en/tidafors-corner-sofa-with-arm-right-hensta-light-brown/Entry/ https://www.ikeaddict.com/ikeapedia/en/Product/60276883/us-e... I have no way of discerning furniture/fabric quality, and no one offers long warranties, so I don’t see a reason to spend more than IKEA prices.
      • vundercind 3y ago
        Yeah, the correct choices for furniture these days are basically: used (cheap if you’re not buying something trendy like mid century modern), IKEA, or super-expensive really-good stuff. Anything new that’s cheaper than that last category’s usually just gonna be as bad or worse than IKEA, plus 1.2x-5x the price. And likely uglier.
    • ch4s3 3y ago
      Oof! For $5k you could get something from Herman Miller, Hay, or Design Within Reach[1]. [1] https://www.dwr.com/living-sofas-sectionals/quilton-chaise-sectional/2530332-3.html https://www.dwr.com/living-sofas-sectionals/quilton-chaise-s...
      • 3y ago
• angry_moose 3y ago
  I've posted about our ~$2000 West Elm sofa that disintegrated within 2 years in a similar previous thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37393399 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37393399 The whole thing is just stapled together OSB. I ripped the dust cover off and added 3 new frame stretchers made from 2x8 construction lumber (and tied other loose joints back together) and its done pretty well since then: https://imgur.com/a/bqlLgW3 https://imgur.com/a/bqlLgW3 (wish I'd gotten a few more pictures, but I was tired by this point). Just shocking how terrible the construction is.
  • nerdponx 3y ago
    As if it wasn't bad enough that most consumer goods have completely bifurcated into "junk" and "luxury", now it's hard to even tell which products fall into which category, because there is so much junk now being sold as luxury.
    • angry_moose 3y ago
      Yeah. Even at the time we knew West Elm wasn't high end, but we were at least expecting decent. We know more now (and could afford better) whenever we have to finally replace this, but $2000 is a not-insignificant investment that shouldn't be a complete piece of crap.
      • elteto 3y ago
        My problem is that I don’t even know where to buy _good_ stuff. I don’t want to pay $5k for a couch, but maybe I will _once_ in N years, for some large N, if I know it’s very well made and I like the design. But I have no idea where to go for this. The overlap between junk and luxury is too large nowadays.
        • JohnFen 3y ago
          As with so many goods these days, I find that buying stuff made at least a couple of decades ago works best. It's much easier to tell the garbage from the treasure if you aren't buying stuff made recently.
• fy20 3y ago
  The part about springs is interesting because all the sofas I've owned in the past decade have used foam, and I don't miss springs... When they are new maybe it's ok, but over time they wear out and the sofa becomes really noisy and uncomfortable as they aren't even. The same thing with mattresses, I'm never buying a sprung mattress again.
• o11c 3y ago
  Despite the article mentioning other things, it seems like at least half the problem can be avoided by never buying furniture online.
  • dangus 3y ago
    Not really. Regular retailers aren’t immune. Let’s be real too: nobody’s going underneath the sofas at Crate and Barrel to see how they’re constructed. It doesn’t really matter that you can see and touch them. I don’t even think the luxury brands are much better (e.g., RH). They’ll give you some solid woods and finer materials where you can see them. They are better but not by the amount I would like. The cheapness isn’t something these manufacturers need to do, it’s just in their interest. Higher margins, more repeat purchases. It’s not like salaries are high in big furniture production countries like Vietnam. They could do things in a more labor intense way and still make a profit. It’s just that they’ll make more money by making the construction cheap, and making a product that lasts decades is a good way to restrict future business.
    • theGnuMe 3y ago
      Darn I was hoping pottery barn would be reliable..
      • dangus 3y ago
        I’m not a fan of Pottery Barn, I think Crate and Barrel or CB2 are the essentially the same products with better service.
    • arp242 3y ago
      > nobody’s going underneath the sofas at Crate and Barrel to see how they’re constructed. I also don't really know what to look for. Most people don't. In the past you could more or less rely on the store being somewhat reliable and somewhat trustworthy. I say "somewhat" because of course you wouldn't fully trust a salesman, but by and large: you could more or less trust that something was "quality" if it was advertised as such, and/or more expensive and the cheaper options, usually. You didn't need to have a Ph.D. in sofa construction to buy a decent sofa. Now it's best to assume everything is a lie. Everyone is lying to your face, or just don't know what the they're talking about. Even expensive items marketed as "quality" cannot be relied on being quality at all. Once upon a time a sofa was a product sold on the market because some people needed sofas, and some people and/or companies knew how to make them. "A fair product for a fair market-conform price". Classic capitalism and free-market economics where everyone wins. But now it no longer matters if people need sofas, or whether anyone actually gets anything remote to a "fair deal", or any externalities like climate change, or if kids in Vietnam are being exploited. Burn the world, as long as I can sell my crummy sofa, because "free market allows it" is the only logical and moral argument that exists for some people. A sofa is no longer a product; it's just the means to making a profit. There's a subtle difference between to two. All of this is part of "the financialisation of everything" and "toxic capitalism" that's been going on since the 80s.
• vkou 3y ago
  The article seems to exaggerate a bit, because neither in 2024, nor in 2004, would I have expected a $1,200 couch to be 'well-made'. (Although I wouldn't expect either one to actually fall apart in two years of use.) This isn't exactly a novel problem.
  • pyb 3y ago
    Correct. According to this 1975 catalog https://ikeamuseum.com/en/explore/ikea-catalogue/1975-ikea-catalogue/ https://ikeamuseum.com/en/explore/ikea-catalogue/1975-ikea-c..., Ikea sofas could be bought for the equivalent of $1000 today. Higher-end sofas would have logically cost much more...
• 303uru 3y ago
  Most are cheap junk bought sight unseen. My stressless couches are built from real wood, full grain leather, etc... My eames chair likewise. But you're adding a 5-10x multiplyer to furniture costs for that quality.
• bluedino 3y ago
  In the Midwest, the "better" option is to buy furniture from "The Amish". Parents bought a living room set, it was double what a similar set would be at the local furniture superstore, but the fabric/cushions were a new level of terrible. Basically fell apart in two years. It's a great place to find wooden tables, beds, dressers, but it's all heavy (as you'd expect) and hard to move. If I was buying a sofa today I would get something from Stressless.
  • SauciestGNU 3y ago
    Although the furniture quality is excellent, I worry about supporting child labor when doing business with the Amish. They pull their kids out of school after grade 8 to put them to work. I've also heard various things regarding the commonality of abusive practices within their religion. Trade-offs for everything!
    • inglor_cz 3y ago
      "supporting child labor" From their point of view, the modern society may be needlessly infantilizing people who are halfway to adulthood. We even treat university students like kids, hence all the obsession with micromanaging their campus experience.
      • nozzlegear 3y ago
        Child labor seems a bit more serious a concern.
        • deleted 3y ago
          [deleted]
      • illiac786 3y ago
        There's a big range between 8 year old and average first year university student...
        • 3y ago
• SeanAnderson 3y ago
  I've been very happy with my Lovesac sofa, but its pricing is borderline extortionate.
  • Moto7451 3y ago
    They seem to have specials at Costco periodically. They’re not my thing but I suggest taking their discount if you can.
  • adsims2001 3y ago
    I am happy with my Lovesac sofa, too. It was expensive, but I can't think of another product I could expect to be as happy with, so Lovesac seems to be in a class of their own and can demand whatever price they want. In particular, it's comfortable, well built, but not bulky. I can take it apart move it in my regular sized SUV if needed. I move a lot, and eventually grew tired of bulky things that were difficult or impossible to move without professional help. I also tried a Burrow sofa which has the same modular properties, but it was not comfortable at all and I had to return it
  • wsatb 3y ago
    Their cushion quality can be hit or miss, but I'll say they're pretty receptive to exchanges. Also, never pay full price. They offer 25-35% off many times per year, usually around holidays.
• rsynnott 3y ago
  I hear this a lot, but my fairly inexpensive IKEA sofa is about eight years old with no problems at all so far. EDIT: Actually, in general I've found that my IKEA furniture has done pretty well (basically everything in the house is IKEA) with the sole exception of a "Lack" coffee table, whose surface is kinda disintegrating after 8 years (I think it's basically made of cardboard with a veneer...). The name should perhaps have been a warning.
  • IggleSniggle 3y ago
    Yup, we've had the same IKEA furniture for 16 years now, it's still going strong.
  • i80and 3y ago
    I got an IKEA couch about 9 years ago. It was like... $700? The construction is definitely very cheap and you can tell if you flip it on its back, but it's very comfortable and sturdy enough that it still feels solid in normal use. I don't think "cheap" construction is necessarily a bad thing, honestly. There's ways to do cheap construction such that it works just fine.
    • AtlasBarfed 3y ago
      Ikea has to engineer it. They are a global company and they can invest in engineering to avoid as many returns/refunds. It's worth it to them. So while the materials are cheap and the style not high end, from what I've seen they maximize the engineering to make it durable.
  • baby 3y ago
    For some reason people hate IKEA in the US. Was trying to sell a standing desk I bought there for 750$ and nobody wanted it. Ended up selling it for 150$. I also had a Jarvis and it was gone in an instant, even though the IKEA one was much much better. I Often hear people saying that IKEA furnitures don’t travel well or don’t last long. It’s like we’re not going to the same IKEA.
    • 3y ago
• bombcar 3y ago
  I've liked reading this blog - https://insidersguidetofurniture.com/buyers-guide-to-furniture/ https://insidersguidetofurniture.com/buyers-guide-to-furnitu... and basically what it comes down to is most modern cushioning will fail in five years or so. You need 2.5 density foam or higher, or you need a "uncushioned" style couch.
  • rapnie 3y ago
    I have two pre-WWII Gispen chairs with thick foam seats, and only recently (last couple years) they started to dry out (become 'crispy' at the top surface). I suspect it is because I am not actively using them anymore, rather than because of their age.
  • jonah 3y ago
    I second your comment on high-quality foam. If you're looking at re-doing some old furniture or having your own made, study up on foam - not just the density - which is important - but also the type and grade. Decent stuff should last 25+ years - and be more comfortable along the way. (A little tip - the density you want for proper comfort varies by the thickness of the cushion, the weight of the intended users, and the whether it's the seat bottom or the back. The back needing a softer foam.)
• wonderwonder 3y ago
  Made the mistake of buying a couch off Wayfair for a little nook in my office. It lasted a year before I got rid of it. Never again. Couches really are one of those areas where you get what you pay for. With the possible exception of Ikea. Got an Ikea couch for my 10 year old's room and its holding up remarkably well.
  • romafirst3 3y ago
    Wayfair is absolute trash. Pictures look good but it always disappoints. It’s the one online furniture store I will never buy from again.
    • hatthew 3y ago
      Maybe I got lucky, but I am quite happy with the desk I got from wayfair a couple years ago. It may not be fancy, but it's sturdy, durable, customizable, and probably less than half the cost of a high-end solid hardwood desk.
• bloomingeek 3y ago
  Next time you stay at a mid-range or better hotel, notice the furniture. They don't but junk because in the long run it never lasts, and whose going to pay for a nice hotel room with tacky furniture? A couple of months ago, we stayed in a newer Holiday Inn Express. The bed and cabinets were very nice and well built.
  • theGnuMe 3y ago
    I imagine holiday inn is all custom built to spec.
    • lotsofpulp 3y ago
      All the hotel brands have design schemes, and contract with certain designers who the hotel owners have to buy from. For example: https://www.charterfurniture.com/products/hospitality/desk-task-chairs https://www.charterfurniture.com/products/hospitality/desk-t... https://www.taisenfurniture.com/ihg-hotel-bedroom-set/ https://www.taisenfurniture.com/ihg-hotel-bedroom-set/
  • radicality 3y ago
    Or common areas in offices / apartment buildings. For example, the building I live in has nice couches that look like they can take a lot of traffic. I once looked at the brand tag - Ligne Roset. It’s not cheap, but at least does seem high quality.
  • bombcar 3y ago
    They revamp furniture more often than you might realize, because even great quality stuff looks tired and worn after awhile. Investigate and you can usually find the liquidator in your area that handles them.
• patwolf 3y ago
  About 10 years ago I went shopping at Furnitureland South, mentioned in the article. The selection was a bit overwhelming, but we picked out a solid wood bedroom set from a manufacturer in Canada. It's held up great, as has my kids' IKEA bedroom furniture. I've purchased couches from West Elm, Restoration Hardware, and a few other well-known places, and they've all been disappointing. From now on I'll stick to Furnitureland and IKEA, but I don't know if I have the energy to go couch shopping at Furnitureland.
  • nytesky 3y ago
    Our kids destroy all the nice furniture (dumb ways, like sitting on couch soaking wet from the pool, spilling food, drawing on the cushion while doing homework or a project, doing gymnastics off the cushions, fort building). They aren’t actively destructive like attacking with scissors but I can’t see investing in nice furniture until they are adults (even teens can be rough as you can imagine). By then, I don’t know if I’ll care?
• swatcoder 3y ago
  This is a good dig into changes in design and manufacturing trends, which makes sense for Dwell, but I suspect we'd see more people complaining about their furniture quality these days even without manufacturing changes because many people are like 50% heavier than the people in sitting in couches 50 years ago -- and often more likely to collapse into a sofa than to set themselves down upon it. So it's actually kind of a two sided loss in quality: the designs are flimsier even while the engineering requirements have become more demanding.
• Joel_Mckay 3y ago
  Because people don't want to pay for good plywood, proper webbing, and quality fabrics. Real furniture weighs a lot, and doesn't make sense to ship around the planet. Thus, people get foam, OSB, and cardboard in a fake canvas bag. Good upholsterers are hard to find, often eccentrics, and usually will not tolerate cheapskates. If you own something pricey like a boat or restaurant, than most are happy to get something that will last. Even a few yards of period correct fabrics or leather is more expensive than the typical Ikea living room set. One needs to learn these things if you want to stay married. lol =)
• pornel 3y ago
  OT: I can’t read the site due to a massive “We value your privacy” pop up informing me about the 1532 data-harvesting “partners” they sell information to, and there’s only “Allow All” button accessible (which is illegal by GDPR). They really value my privacy, for its resale value.
• UberFly 3y ago
  I look through the antiques subreddit often and lots of really nice quality furniture is hardly valued now because it's out of style. A good quality sofa should be able to be re-foamed and fabriced forever but I think we're all just too mindset on cheap and disposable since that's the easiest route.
• gnicholas 3y ago
  We bought some sofas secondhand when moving into our first home. They were great, and they held up well for many years. But ultimately we sold them and bought new ones because we didn't know if they had the fire-retardant chemicals that used to be mandated in CA (until they were discovered to be carcinogenic). The new sofa (from Costco) seems good but the sofa chairs (from Wayfair) are not so good. It seems like the frame in the back has some sort of support that is made out of a material that is closer to cardboard than wood. When our kids run into it, the back of the chair deforms a bit and has to be bent back. I have no idea why the frame of a chair would be made out of something so weak. I expect we'll have to replace them in 5 years or so, and we'll aim for something more old-school.
  • 39 3y ago
    Wayfair is largely dropship trash.
    • gnicholas 3y ago
      Yeah we used filters to search for just solid wood (no MDF), but apparently even the "solid wood" stuff is still pretty flimsy.
• zachmu 3y ago
  My leather sectional cost as much as a decent used car and it hurt to write that check, but it's definitely well built.
• maxglute 3y ago
  Sofa bases seems to be getting shitter and shitter as manufactures value engineer with increasingly more low quality engineered wood. At this point my next sofa frame is going to be sturdy metal outdoor furniture. I've also seen a few tiktok sponcon videos of sofas with industrial plastic molded frame, like industrial pallets. Probably not enviromentally friendly, but seems durable. Seems like Sofas are last to make the economical steel channel furniture jump, you can get tons of sturdy/durable bedframes for like $100 shipped on Amazon. Most cheap metal futon frames also last forever if it wasn't for the moving mechanical components. I'd like to see more steel + bolt sofas.
• justinlloyd 3y ago
  Last time I bought a couch, a new one, it set me back $6,000. It took me the better part of eight months to find it. Solid wood. Proper joinery. Thick padding. Pig skin leather. We kept it for 20 years before giving it to some friends who had it reupholstered where I expect it will last another 20 years. I used to have some expensive, but ultimately crap, book cases. Book cases are not designed by people who own a lot of books. 36" to 48" spans of fast growth pine will stretch and bow within a year or two. I designed my own book case. I went to a furniture making store. We went back and forth a few times. The biggest sticking point that took four attempts for the furniture maker to understand was where to put the fixed shelf. It does not go in the middle because that wastes space. We made it out of pine. 7' 8" tall, so that when standing it up, it will clear an 8ft ceiling in modern American homes. 22" wide shelves so they cannot flex. Fixed shelf to counteract gravity. Made specifically to carry paperback novels and similarly sized books. "Sand it three times, prime it, sand it, prime it, sand it, paint it, sand it, paint it, no I don't care that a single book case will cost $200." I bought 24 of them. Many hundreds of lineal feet of book cases. We still have them 24 years later and they are as good as new. And the paint job, because it is two layers of prime and two layers of paint, on a mirror surface, looks like you just took the item from the showroom floor. I have a plywood bookcase I made to store cooking books. The cheapest plywood you can imagine from the big box store. But because of the structural design, 15 years later it still holds up without any bowing or flexing. Modern furniture is absolute junk. Even the "good stuff."
  • readingnews 3y ago
    >> it set me back $6,000. The issue is that most modern households in the U.S. can not hack that kind of pricetag for a sofa / couch. Hell, I could never spend that kind of jack on a couch, even if I literally saved up for it (which would take years)... it is just far too much of a percentage of my income for one furniture item. So, how do we solve that issue (e.g. its good, but if it is 10% of your gross annual income, how could you afford it)? Either people need to get paid more, or ???
    • mycologos 3y ago
      I read a book about chairs a few months ago, and one bit from it is > Eighteenth-century furniture was expensive. At a time when a journeyman joiner earned three livres a day, a good-quality armchair might cost as much as a hundred livres.
• waylandsmithers 3y ago
  ...not to mention furniture stores seem to keep no inventory, so you get it 6-8 weeks after you buy because that's how it takes them to build and ship your new couch
• frankus 3y ago
  One of the draws of the DTC model (and IKEA) is the apparently heavily commission-based pay structure of the sales staff of most brick-and-mortar furniture stores.
• MikeTheGreat 3y ago
  This article about about sofas opens with "The most important piece of furniture in your home..." Did anyone else find this weird / funny? Like, just off the top of my head I'd put my bed at the top of my list, waaaay ahead of a sofa. Next might be the desk & chair I WFH at, and then it goes on from there. I get that the article wants to build engagement by "raising the stakes", but c'mon. Sofas are not that important :)
  • pixl97 3y ago
    I get there would be some caveats here, but when it comes to furniture others see, for most beds and office chairs are down on the list. Of furniture guests are apt to see and use the sofa is pretty high up.
• illiac786 3y ago
  The cookie popup of this site is some dark design to behold, I have to say. You need to disable every single "goal" one by one - once you have figured out this is the least worst option. You can otherwise disable the 1400 partners one by one. This is completely illegal in Europe and I think it's illegal to serve this UI to an EU IP, even for non-EU websites. Anyway, who cares, it's almost funny what lengths they go to to get you to accept cookies.
  • nytesky 3y ago
    I surf things like this in incognito mode or Firefox focus, can’t I safely accept all cookies and move on as they will be nuked in next session?
  • askvictor 3y ago
    Didn't notice a thing (using ublock origin with easylist->cookie notices)
    • illiac786 3y ago
      I was using Safari iOS with AdGuard
• dojitza1 3y ago
  Second hand sofa market is surprisingly good in all cities ai lived in (Europe) You can get great stuff for less than 100eur. Good luck figuring out there transport and cleaning though.
• jonah 3y ago
  I just spent about $700 having new cushions made for a 50+ year old Danish Teak sofa that I inherited from my grandparents. The original cushions were long gone, but the wooden frame was still in great condition. I sourced high-quality foam and wool upholstery fabric from Maharam and took those to one of the best upholsterers/furniture restorers in Los Angeles. They did a wonderful job and now I have a super-comfortable couch with many good childhood memories, that should last me another 25 years before I need to replace the cushions again. Point being, get a classic old piece and restore it. It will last a lifetime.
  • andirk 3y ago
    Is it super heavy? I've noticed weight often equals how long something will last in good condition, and old furniture is often way heavier and bulkier.
    • analog31 3y ago
      Not the OP, but my family has a bunch of Danish teak furniture, as does my mom. The sofas are not super heavy. Cushions on a frame. You can see under it. Now, there's no bed inside. My mom's was re-upholstered once. Ours isn't old enough for that yet. We've re-upholstered the dining chairs a couple of times. As for other pieces of furniture, e.g., cabinets and stuff, we bought them used from a place that combed estate sales in Denmark for furniture and sold it in the US. One attraction is that the old furniture is smaller, so it works in a smaller house.
      • jonah 3y ago
        I also have my grandparent's danish teak dressers and dining table and chairs as well as some various side tables, lamps, bed, etc. I've acquired elsewhere. The all look wonderful and I get a nice feeling of connection to my family whenever I grab some socks, or sit down to eat, etc.
    • nntwozz 3y ago
      That's because old furniture is usually made of heartwood and not the cheaper sapwood part of the tree; I like to call it cardboard furniture. Same goes for old wooden windows etc. that can last a hundred years or more if properly taken care of. "Heavy is good, heavy is reliable. If it doesn't work you can always hit them with it." — Boris 'The Blade' Yurinov
• whateveracct 3y ago
  I have a leather Benchmade Modern couch that has lasted half a decade no problem now. I think they switched facilities/materials at one point though ..but I got grandfathered into the real wood, better facility when I got my second couch (I called and asked)
• andirk 3y ago
  Glad to hear everyone agrees that most couches are pretty subpar. I bought $10,000 worth of stuff from a high end furniture place because the French girl started working there. Then that boat got stuck in the Suez Canal, the shipping container finally arrived months late, and it was empty. So I got a full refund and she still got her huge commission, and after reading this the couch probably sucked.
• deeel 3y ago
  This is a major issue we have found while building https://www.unwraplife.co/ https://www.unwraplife.co/. We only list brands that are A) plastic-free and B) use non-toxic materials. The list of large-ish brands that fit those specifications can be counted on one hand. The industry is rife with corner cutting, greenwashing, and lack of disclosure.
• tptacek 3y ago
  This article echoes something I've learned since we moved into a larger house this past summer: don't buy new furniture.† We bought very nice leather couches a few years back (we have dogs, leather is the only option) and paid dearly for them. And they're great. (We looked carefully at the construction details before buying.) This summer, we had some rooms we cared a lot about and others we just needed to fill in some blanks in, and we camped Facebook Marketplace looking for stuff. Pretty soon, even the living room was getting stuff we found on Facebook, at comparable levels of quality to our old "new" furniture, and at pennies on the dollar. People are simply always getting rid of good stuff, and there isn't a meaningful secondary market for it; they're just thrilled you're getting it out of their house and getting a couple bucks in the process. I submit that you would end up with a better-furnished room faster, more easily, and at a fraction of the cost of high-end furniture retailers simply with Facebook Marketplace and TaskRabbit (for near-instant delivery). † Leastways, not if you live in a major North American metro.
  • _xerces_ 3y ago
    Are you not worried about bedbugs buying furniture off Facebook?
    • verticalscaler 3y ago
      Or ghosts? I mean if the house it comes from is haunted maybe an evil spirit will migrate with it. You never know.
      • echelon 3y ago
        I got pesky moths from getting something used once. It isn't worth the hassle.
        • tptacek 3y ago
          For me it's the other way around: anything I might want that's of reasonable quality will take 1+ months to arrive (usually, it'll have to be constructed to order), where I'm only a couple clicks away from having the new thing the next day buying used. I want to be clear that I'm not saying everything on Facebook Marketplace is great. Most of it is crap! You still have to be discriminating. But everybody is always unloading high-quality furniture, and, at least for now, Facebook is full of excellent deals.
• catlover76 3y ago
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• al_borland 3y ago
  When I moved to an area for work I wasn’t planning to live long-term I ended up buying the cheapest sofa in the store. I think it was around $270. After a prolonged illness I grew more and more displeased with it, to the point that I went and bought a better one after I was better. I bought from a place that advertised the inside of the sofa more than the outside. It was all about the build quality and how long it would last. Ended up coming out to around $3k if I remember correctly, but it has a lifetime warranty on everything but the cushions, and even the cushions after 6-7 years of daily use are just now only starting to get to the point of feeling like they are beginning to break in. Quality can still be found, it just can’t be assumed. I think that’s the case for far too many things these days.
  • scoofy 3y ago
    I've been wanting to buy nice furniture for a very long time... unfortunately the housing crisis has prevented my from ever having a sense of permanence. If I had known I'd live in my last place for nearly a decade I would have purchased nice things, but as it stands, until I have a mortgage of my own, I refuse to spend good money on something I may need to replace next year.
    • ghaff 3y ago
      Sofas, perhaps especially, are pretty hard to fit for non built-in furniture. I bought a used sofa off my brother. (Ironically, their replacements ended up being terrible because they lasted about a year with their dogs.) I was also very lucky though. I thought I could configure the sectional in a couple different ways. Turned out I rolled the dice the right way because I couldn't. And only discovered this after many months because I was on crutches at the time and couldn't do anything about the sofa sitting in my garage.
    • neilv 3y ago
      I'm glad I'm not the only one. The buying up of precious housing as investments by non-residents should mostly be banned, starting with institutional and overseas investors. AirBnb should also be banned. And the people who profited off that startup, who must've known they were creating illegal hotels and destroying rental markets, should be hit with devastating fines, maybe also imprisoned.
• gh0zt 3y ago
  in my experience when it comes to sofas the old "buy cheap buy twice" holds true. there are reputable brands such as ligne roset for example. they are pricey bit if you can commit to buying and owning for > 15 years. owning a clam and a togo for more than ten years and the are basically like new. foam & fabric. i understand this might unaffordable to a lot of people but buying second hand can be a great deal on high end sofas.
• mikeInAlaska 3y ago
  Any opinions on Ekornes sofa from Norway?
  • mycologos 3y ago
    My parents got one 15 years ago and it's still in great condition with no real effort on their part. I have no idea what has changed at Ekornes in that timespan though, for all I know they got acquired by private equity and turned to crap.
• Glyptodon 3y ago
  I hate buying furniture because it's easy to tell that most of what's out there is utter junk, but not very easy to figure out what's at least decent but isn't super expensive. Or what's expensive but not just marked up.
  • kiliantics 3y ago
    This is how I've begun to feel about almost every consumer product out there these days. This "enshittification" of the bulk of the output of our economy puts so much burden on any discerning consumer to do all the research needed just to get some basic dignified standard of quality from whatever they are forking over hard-earned money for. It will soon make more sense to put all that time and money into producing these things yourself via some micro cottage industry. (Personally I already do this for a growing number of things.) It's really depressing that we have gotten to this point, seemingly the logical conclusion of the so-called efficient capitalist market.
• levocardia 3y ago
  >There are absolutely sturdy, beautifully made sofas constructed in the United States. There are custom designer pieces made here or in France or Italy or Scandinavia, which tend to be prohibitively expensive for the masses. But low- and mid-priced sofas are a relatively new phenomenon, and, frankly, they often suck. But do they suck less than not having a sofa at all? I am a several-time-over beneficiary of cheap made-in-southeast-asia sofas. Shipped in a fridge-sized box right to my doorstep, assembled (by me) in ~15min, and perfectly serviceable. Is it up to the same quality level as a $5000 made-in-USA solid wood hand-woven twine-joinery (etc etc) masterpiece? No, but I couldn't have afforded that kind of sofa. And it didn't have to be hand-packed by a furniture transportation expert, and it didn't weigh 800 lbs. I don't really see the "loser" here exactly - broke grad students, college kids, people in rural areas, and starving artists win; workers in developing countries win (the furniture factory sure beats the rice paddies); Instagram-sofa tech bros win. And gilded solid wood sofa makers can always market to the rich, who can afford to spend several months' worth of my rent cost on a piece of furniture.
  • hatthew 3y ago
    The losers are the middle class who want something 2x the price and 2x the quality, not 10x the price and 3x the quality.
• btbuildem 3y ago
  Twenty some years ago I used to work at a business that made and delivered sofas. They've got showrooms in key large cities in North America, fancy schmancy top end stuff. The factory was a real place; the frames were made of solid wood and plywood, there was a sewing floor and even one (incredibly kooky) person whose sole job was to stuff the pillows. This guy was in a little room full of feathers all day, and they'd follow him around to the cantina and bathroom like a cartoon character.. but I digress. My job there for a while was to make the sofa legs -- that was a sixteen step process, and they didn't even trust me to glue the boards together, just to do the cuts and shape the pieces. Sand and stain and wax and polish, yes sir! They had a dedicated delivery crew, and what the article mentions about packaging is true -- things would be blanketed and wrapped up just the right way, then tetris-ed onto the truck. Sitting shotgun on that truck and hauling sofas up stairs and through various spaces was what I did after making the legs got too boring. These sofas sold for $3000 ~ $4000 and up, and that was at the break of the millennium. I think the cheapest chair they had was around $2000. I should really swing by the showroom and see how much these are now -- and whether they're still made like they used to be.
  • deleted 3y ago
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  • hammock 3y ago
    You can still get made in the USA sofas with real hardwood, not rubber wood, which is fine, or worse, soft pine or particleboard or OSB) North Carolina was and is the center of solid wood furniture), and they still cost several to many thousands of dollars, and they will still last 100+ years with a couple reupholsterings or so, but most furniture comes from Asia now and is sold for 10x less, and is not worth reupholstering, and you will be lucky if it lasts 10 years. The was a great company an old colleague of mine started called Interior Define that sourced custom furniture from China for a BluDot price but much higher quality, but they did not survive the pandemic and have since been sold in bankruptcy to a company that has reduced the quality to par
    • nostromo 3y ago
      Room and Board sells great sofas that are made in the US. We've been very happy with ours. It's made from solid wood and stuffed with real feather down. It's several years old now and has shown no signs of aging.
• standardUser 3y ago
  I have 3 sofas and all of them were free. One is from a neighbor and the other two from the Buy Nothing group on Facebook. I have never been able to convince myself that any piece of furniture is worth the thousands of dollars that an average couch costs. The one exception being the bed (which is the actual most important piece of furniture anyone owns). What truly baffles me is how, in my middle-class suburban hometown, all of these families were able to furnish their massive 3-5 bedroom homes. Many families, including my own, would have a living room that was mostly for show (because hanging out happened in the den/TV room) yet contained thousands or tens of thousands of dollars of furniture.
  • ghaff 3y ago
    What you describe doesn't seem "enormous" at least as bedrooms are normally used in descriptions. I have a den/living room which is what we normally use with company as we don't really watch TV so there isn't one there. That has a sofa from my brother. A couple other good futons elsewhere (guest bedroom and a very small TV room) but just futons. And that's about it.
  • swatcoder 3y ago
    > middle-class That's your explanation. The modern professional "middle class" was once called the petit bougeuosie and characterizes itself by trying to replicate aristocratic aesthetics and lifestyles with earned wages, which is mostly a lost cause and just creates a endless treadmill of labor and consumption. Good on you for being so thoroughly free of the compulsion that they're an alien bafflement to you!
• brikym 3y ago
  The key aspect that allows the businesses to get away with this is the buying frequency. You might buy a couch once every 10 years so it's very difficult to judge quality. Whereas with something like coffee beans I'm buying it every week so I have 52 opportunities every year to analyze the quality and change brand. The couch seller knows you probably won't make a repeat purchase so it's all about marketing tricks.
  • deleted 3y ago
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• hwc 3y ago
  I would rather have a hardwood bench with good thick cushions tied on. Then instead of reupholstering, you just replace the cushions.
• amelius 3y ago
  Perhaps this Wirecutter article can help: https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/guides/buying-a-sofa/ https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/guides/buying-a-sofa/
• aridiculous 3y ago
  Remembering the old adage: don’t cheap out on anything that touches the floor (shoes, sofas, beds, cars, etc)
• ak217 3y ago
  If you're looking to reupholster, I've had great luck with https://www.slipcovershop.com/ https://www.slipcovershop.com/. They make custom slipcovers and sell affordable cloth by the yard that you can use to easily reupholster stuff yourself if the shape is not too complex. Other than that, I wish this article went less into things that don't matter (properly sized brackets are no worse, and sometimes better, than joinery, etc.) and more into the ergonomics, types of foam and other materials that actually matter. Like, how do I tell how long a cushion filling or fabric will last, or tell if there are springs that will sag without taking it apart.
• yuuuyuyyy 3y ago
  Yup. A few years ago I bought a $1500 sofa from I think BluDot? It was trash. It rocked back and forth on a flat, level floor because the legs weren't all the same length. One of the legs was already cracked when it was delivered (independent from the different lengths problem). And the cushions were absurdly hard, but also too soft. I didn't take the cushions apart to see what was going in there but it felt like you were sitting on a wooden board with a way-too-soft spring underneath. They offered a 10-day return policy, and what do you know, when I requested a return on day 2 and then again on day 5 and then again days 6,7,8,9,10,11 ... they just didn't respond, until eventually like a month later I managed to get someone on the phone and they told me the 10day window had already elapsed so no backsies. When I left a bunch of 1star angry reviews calling them a fraud on every website I could think of, someone hired some mover-on-demand service and an old minivan showed up at my house to take it away. The mover didn't know where they were supposed to take it to. I gave them the store address where I bought it. What an absolute trash company. Years later I spent $3500 on a sofa from Design Within Reach and it's terrific.
• rayiner 3y ago
  Sofas and rugs are inherently labor-intensive things to make well, where quality materials make a huge difference. I grew up with real wool-silk rugs my parents brought over from old country, or my dad bought on work trips to Afghanistan or Pakistan. I never gave them a second thought until I bought my own house and tried to furnish it. What I had thought were just regular rugs would cost $5,000+ in America.
  • tptacek 3y ago
    Rugs are famously an expensive luxury item.
• spike021 3y ago
  I've had a two-seat sofa from Living Spaces since.... 2017 and it's held up really well. Even the cushions have no wear despite my dog loving "digging" into them (basically scratching for a while digging an imaginary hole). I think this sofa was like $800 plus tax/delivery but I sit on it every day and it's held up really well, especially through one move. I think there's probably just quality:price tiers and mine happens to be in the economical but decent quality range.
• ownedthx 3y ago
  Amish furniture is built extremely well. And the price is not cheap but not exhorbiant. And clearly American made :)
• deleted 3y ago
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• robert-brown 3y ago
  The best way to acquire a quality sofa is to purchase a used one made by a furniture maker known to create high quality pieces. It requires a bit of research. You need to figure out which builders around you produced excellent furniture 50 or more years ago. In the USA, Dunbar is an example. Buy an old Dunbar sofa from the 1950s and reupholster it. It will easily last another 100 years.
• farhanhubble 3y ago
  And why are the cushions so freaking soft? Sure you don't want your back to perch on lumber but you don't want to sag inside like an embryo, either.
• VoodooJuJu 3y ago
  Lots of people suggesting buying second-hand because the old stuff is made better - and it really is. The problem with thrifting is that everyone is doing it. The word is out. Price goes up and supply dwindles. Same situation with buying used cars. New cars suck. You can't work on them yourself and they have terrible UX. So people started only looking for used. Except the used prices skyrocketed to match supply & demand. We can't keep this up. We can't all keep thrifting. Everyone knows it's better, everyone is on the prowl, and everyone has easier access to buyers, thanks to the internet.
  • smileysteve 3y ago
    I mean, we can, as long as repairing is part of it, and rethrifting is too. The US largest generation is approaching life expectancy and we are below replacement numbers.
• sanderjd 3y ago
  Ok, but I have no clue - either before or after reading this article - how to go about finding furniture that isn't junk. Truly, I can't figure it out. I've been to every furniture store in town and tried to figure it out via the internet, to no avail. For somebody who prefers to spend more money less often on actually good things that last a long time, but has neither the time nor inclination to be a hobbyist vintage store frequenter, what is one to do?
  • deeel 3y ago
    You honestly might just have to have one custom made. For ex. Ecobalanza makes very high quality and nontoxic furniture.
    • sanderjd 3y ago
      I don't really even want new furniture though. I want a way to find high quality used furniture that isn't super time consuming. The best options seem to be "go to all the vintage shops every week" and "check facebook marketplace / craigslist every day", and I just don't have that level of dedication.
  • kube-system 3y ago
    Furniture in the normal "furniture store" price ranges are built for price-sensitive markets with economies of scale. If you really want measurably higher quality furniture, you're probably going to want to look at brands with pricing an order of magnitude higher. This quality of furniture typically does not sell at high volume, so it is often only at specialty retailers, or is made-to-order. A good place to start in my opinion is with the well regarded office-furniture brands, Herman Miller, Steelcase, Hon, etc. They are well experienced in making furniture that can handle abuse, because commercial furniture takes a lot of abuse. And as far as durability goes, they make durable furniture in the highest volumes and have the most reasonable prices you're going to get.
  • anon291 3y ago
    Go to an estate sale; pretty much everything you need for a house will be there. No need to frequent vintage stores.
• nealabq 3y ago
  In the mid 80s I had a sofa and wing-back chair made by a little factory called Bader and Fox(?) in Portland OR. I went to the factory (the two owners were the only ones there) and picked out fabric/style/etc with some special instruction about the angle of the arms and stiffness of the stuffings. Cost about $1600. Best furniture ever. Carted across the country twice. I still use both pieces every day. They've been reupholstered once.
  • steveBK123 3y ago
    To be fair, that must have been a lot at the time right? Adjusted for inflation its certainly a lot compared to furniture now. In 1986 a Mustang GT was under $11k, now its about 3x that price. 1985 median home sale was $80k, 2023 median home sale was about $450k.
• the_af 3y ago
  This article seems to make it an American (US) thing, but I can assure you the sofas here in Argentina are mostly shit. If you look under the hood, they are every bit as crap or worse than described in TFA. It's not "cheap imports" either, I don't think sofas here are imported. They are made to order in my country. They are just garbage. I'm talking about midrange and even higher priced sofas. If you see the armature, it's mostly crap wood with "lots of staples" as mentioned. And a fancy cover, of course.
• donatj 3y ago
  My wife and I spent a couple grand on a "leather" couch about 5 years ago. A little over a year ago the "leather" started developing holes in it from wear all over the place. The so called leather is literally paper thin and bonded to some low quality fabric. I've never had this sort of problem with a couch before. It's very frustrating.
  • gilfoy 3y ago
    heh, nice leather shoes or boots cost in the hundreds, no way you're getting that much leather at any kind of decent quality for that price. maybe starting at 10x that.
• throwawaaarrgh 3y ago
  Built my own sofa. Fabric from JOANN, foam from a shitty IKEA thing thrown on the street, some plywood and pine from Home Depot, hardware, staples. Cost me $75. It's comfy and I can lay on it or sit on it. What the fuck about this is supposed to cost >$1,000, I have no idea. Are they stuffing sofas with live minks or something? It's just wood, bolts, foam and fabric. For cushions I already had some, but you can easily make them with more JOANN fabric and a big box of poly stuffing. Extremely basic sewing skills and a pair of scissors are all you need. Give a man a fish...
• swayvil 3y ago
  I dream of an inflatable couch. Bear with me. It could be well designed and high quality. And with a nice slipcover. There is somebody who makes them but for the life of me I can't recall who. They come with a built-in compressor.
• MarkusWandel 3y ago
  We got a couple of secondhand ex-living room sofas very cheap. IKEA. Full leather, looked nice and an absolute dream to sit and lie on, just exactly the right combination of firm and soft. These were for the kid areas. They had reduced the previous (IKEA Ektorp) sofas to rubble over a couple of years. These new ones didn't last long at all. The suspension underneath the cushions is criss-crossed webbing in a softwood frame. Well you can imagine, a 90lb child jumping on that, the forces that develop. And then the frame breaks at the front. And there's nothing structural at the front of the sofa, just some 1/4" thick fiberboard, to anchor replacement frame material to so you can't really fix it. Oh well. One of them now has solid plywood - very well fastened to what structural elements are available - so it's now very firm but the kids don't care. The other, I had the inspiration of mounting the plywood lower and putting another layer of cushioning in there (leftover seat cushions from the demolished Ektorp sofas). That's actually pretty good. But without rambunctious kids, these sofas, which were already 10-15 years old, would have lasted quite a while longer. It's wizardly, the seating comfort they got out of such simple and cheap materials.
• dwighttk 3y ago
  People want new sofas every few years bur can’t afford good ones
• Tiktaalik 3y ago
  > ...modern consumers "are buying a couch online that looks four times as good, costs two times the price, and is made twenty times more poorly." My friend had an Article couch and after a handful of months it was so uncomfortable it was as if the stuffing somehow just vanished. And yet when I look around the net all I can see are glowing reviews of Article couches all over :\
• nsxwolf 3y ago
  After being burned by this many times, finally got a couple Chesterfield style sofas from Costco about 4 years ago and everything about them has been rock solid. And they were about $700 each. I later wanted something matching for a different room - but the problem is, the Costco furniture changes seemingly every day and you never see the same thing again.
• RangerScience 3y ago
  FYI, if you're in or near Los Angeles and have a budget, I can strongly recommend https://www.thejonesesla.com/ https://www.thejonesesla.com/ Got a custom from them and (partly because I asked) it's crazy sturdy. Cost a lot, and I got what I paid for :D
• rufus_foreman 3y ago
  A while back I moved half way across the country, the only two pieces of furniture I took with me were the standing desk and a leather sofa. Cost a lot to have them moved. Whatever else goes on in my life, I've got that sofa problem handled.
• linsomniac 3y ago
  Around 5 years ago I tore down my sectional sofa to the sticks and completely rebuilt it. This was around 5 years old at the time, and was a cheap sectional (at most $600, possibly less, I don't recall), my wife convinced me to go cheap because "the kids will destroy anything we get". I will agree with the upholstery person in this article: it's not going to be worth it to pay someone to do it. I ended up reupholstering ours for around $500, but that's because I did all the labor myself. An amazing amount of work. It was made with a lot of OSB, some of the most curved pine I've ever seen, and lots and lots of staples. I fixed the frame by adding a variety of supports and glue and screws. The frame went from being barely sufficient to quite solid. I doubled the webbing and springs, and completely rebuilt the cushions. To an extent I used the existing fabric as the patterns for the new fabric, except: my wife wanted the cushions to have piping (that was a huge effort), and originally it had the back cushions built in and stuffed with polyfill, but I wanted to make them removable so I had to redesign the back and custom design the cushions. The biggest mistakes I made were the foam I used for the cushions was way too firm. If I were to redo it I would do something like a 3 layer: firm, medium, maybe latex or low density memory foam. I'd also probably have used a leather considering all the effort I put in, largely to keep the cats at bay. The real down side is that we're thinking of getting rid of it because it's really too big for our space, and unless I redo the cushions it's way too firm to use without additional pillows. But, despite all the work I put into it, I'd be willing to bet that we could't sell it, and probably couldn't give it away (selling furniture on craigslist is so frustrating). End result: https://photos.app.goo.gl/Q8DMxQU7L9AggCBDA https://photos.app.goo.gl/Q8DMxQU7L9AggCBDA Starting reassembly: https://photos.app.goo.gl/rQRJfmYmSLew3rSN8 https://photos.app.goo.gl/rQRJfmYmSLew3rSN8
• ryukoposting 3y ago
  I just bought a sofa 6 months ago. It was my first time buying a big piece of furniture from a proper furniture store. It's (allegedly) American made. It is one of those pull-out queen bed convertible things, and that part is fantastic. The couch is nearly identical to the pull-out-bed couches I see in hotels. The only difference is the fabric. The bed mechanism is rock solid, but the couch itself is creaky and the cushions are already noticeably deformed. It's like they wrapped a great, tried-and-true bed mechanism inside a much shittier couch. It's clearly a step above Wayfair detritus, and I certainly didn't break the bank to get it, but I'm still a little disappointed.
• theendisney 3y ago
  We need an app to design your own sofa. When done order the parts precut with a drawing and instruction videos. You also have to make a selfie so that you can see yourself construct it in the videos.
• baronswindle 3y ago
  I have nothing to contribute but this video from comedian Rob Paravonian It's probably 20+ years old, but it frequently pops into my mind when I think about the apartments I lived in during my 20s. The materials were shoddy, but the price was right! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8mV8BvVzYA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8mV8BvVzYA
• wly_cdgr 3y ago
  Christianity
• bluSCALE4 3y ago
  I have decent and great furniture. Penny Mustard is outstanding and Room and Board is ok. My kids treat the Penny Mustard couches like a bed.
  • j_heffe 3y ago
    My Room and Board sofa from 2011 is still rock solid. I was a bit nervous buying it used a few years ago because of the age but it turned out to be a great purchase.
    • bluSCALE4 3y ago
      Yep, my only complaint was that an obese buddy of mine wore out a seam but R&B were good about it and sent someone out to fix it onsite. It's going on 10 yo and still looks new.
• topkai22 3y ago
  I bought a sub $700 leather coach from Costco in 2007. It lasted 6 moves and 16 years until my kids finally found its weak point (leather seams at the cushioning and back) playing “the floor is lava.” Honestly, it’s probably repairable even after that, but the wife wanted new furniture anyways. I haven’t had to replace any of the relatively cheap stuff I’ve gotten from cost plus world market over a decade. I might just be lucky or special, but I don’t think cheaper furniture is necessarily bad or throwaway. I’m not sure what the trick is. We’ve tended to buy robust looking furniture— solid wood dining table, welded metal dining chairs, a plush and thick sofa. Frankly, our stuff looked very pedestrian compared to some of our friends, but it has lasted.
• RespectYourself 3y ago
  [dead]
• anon-sre-srm 3y ago
  Most people buy IKEA sawdust or are low information consumers, and the market responds accordingly. As such, people don't buy fine furniture or understand how to discern quality in a specific durable good.
  • cheeseface 3y ago
    The funny thing is that IKEA sawdust will most likely last longer than some more expensive ”drop-shipping luxury brand” described in the article.
• teddyh 3y ago
  Is online shopping turning most everything into a market for lemons?
  • ejb999 3y ago
    IMO, yes - Its a lot harder to stay in business selling trashy products when you deal with people face to face in a given location, and hope to be there for years.
• peter_retief 3y ago
  I imagine that they can go sofa but no further. Probably get some hate for this silly comment, someone had to say it.
• secretsatan 3y ago
  The article goes on about the quality of manufacturing, which is very fair, but something that bugs me, and it seems to apply to cheap sofas as well as very expensive ones. Why are so many of them just plain uncomfortable? I'm looking for one I want right now, and I have to go around a furniture shop and try each out and I reckon, maybe 1/4 of them are suitable for a place you might enjoy sitting in. The high end furniture shops seem to be the worst, i've seen 4 figure sofas that are the most uncomfortable thing I ever tried. Champions of form over function. My last favourite sofa was around 2500 I guess, lasted 10 years, was excellently comfortable, but was unfortunately the wrong shape for my new place, I have not found anything anywhere near as good as that one. It may be my height, much furniture seems a little off to me, and it is hard in general for me to find things I'm happy with.
  • swatcoder 3y ago
    > Champions of form over function. Sofas have many different functions. The plush sofa you sink deep into for TV at the end of the day has a different function than the firm sofa your dinner guests sit on the front of while sipping cocktails, etc Many of the sofas you were looking at were probably designed for a different function than you were seeking.
    • pixxel 3y ago
      Cocktail sofas. I’m not posh enough to have imagined such luxury.
    • thfuran 3y ago
      What exactly is the difference in function?
  • colloydi 3y ago
    I think this speaks to an important factor which is that most of us have little awareness of our posture and typical sofa designs reflect this. We want sofas to 'collapse' on rather than to sit comfortably. I became aware of this from learning the Alexander Technique to deal with another issue. One hack you can perform on most sofas is to add some height to the rear legs using castors or wooden blocks or something. This tilts it forward a bit. Sitting back or reclining is fine in a dentist's chair because there's head support but it's no good on a sofa! There our head and spines need to be balanced. Anyhow -- quality of materials and design are both important but the fact is that average bodily awareness is poor and this is a fundamental reason why our furniture is worse than it needs to be!
• globular-toast 3y ago
  The funny thing is someone told me this in an IRC channel about 20 years ago, a full decade before I'd even be in a position to buy my own sofa. Can't remember which channel it was, certainly wasn't a sofa-related channel, probably Linux related. I've never forgotten it for some reason.
• 01100011 3y ago
  Bought an Ikea particle board couch back in 2017 and it's still going strong despite heavy use by two fat people and 3 moves where it was dis/re-assembled. I recently added a support to the armrest where the unbacked fiberboard had caved in a bit. Sure, quality furniture is great but I'll wait until we settle down. For now, no regrets.
• thesaintlives 3y ago
  They are bad because they don't cost 10-15k. Human bodies are difficult. They weigh quite a bit and often move about. Put multiples of them onto the object then stresses and strains will add up. Want that object to look cool, perform perfectly for multiples of years then you have a challenge!
• dt3ft 3y ago
  All of the "steals" pictured look anything but comfortable.
• denton-scratch 3y ago
  Not a sofa; but I'm sitting in an Ecornes Stressless recliner. It's the best piece of furniture I've ever bought. It's made from "engineered wood", covered in quite good leather; I should have chosen a lower grade of leather, because hide isn't as easy to look after as some of the lower-grade leathers. FTR, I've bought sofas and armchairs from artisan/craftsman makers, from junk shops, and I've also bought cheap disposable shit. After the Stressless, my best buys were all from junk shops. But this Stressless, I more-or-less live in it.
• classified 3y ago
  Manufacturers discovered the same principles as the software industry. Most sofas are probably made by LLMs.
• m000 3y ago
  TL;DR: Capitalism breeds innovation. Just not the type of innovation the consumer would like.
• pif 3y ago
  I have not read the article, but I bet the answer is a plain and simple: "Because people buy cheap instead of quality!"
• gmac 3y ago
  In the UK I would thoroughly recommend these guys: http://www.ecosofa.co.uk/ http://www.ecosofa.co.uk/ We picked them because they were one of very few UK suppliers who could supply a sofa that's not covered in toxic flame retardants (the UK has kept some very dubious legislation in place on this issue, I think mainly because the industry lobbies for it as a protectionist measure). The sofa we bought was on the expensive side, but not ridiculous. It's also seems beautifully made in general, and was carefully delivered by the firm themselves, who spent about half an hour manouevring it in.
  • switch007 3y ago
    Don’t get me started on flame retardants. It’s definitely lobbying. So they can use cheaper materials which tend be more flammable then just drench it in toxic liquid and call it job done
• class3shock 3y ago
  Has anyone found good options that are between stapled together cardboard with cheap foam that will fail in a couple years or $5000 and up designer brands? I love buying high quality goods that will last a lifetime but who has $5k for a couch/sofa?
• cchi_co 3y ago
  [dead]
• anon291 3y ago
  The highest quality furniture can be found in antique stores or estate sales. Perhaps it's just me but my default has always been to buy old things with the idea that, if they've lasted this long, they'll probably last longer. I've always felt it was lower risk. But please don't all rush to buy old things; because I like the low prices too.
  • boringg 3y ago
    Don't worry I don't think this comment is going to the move the antique furniture market. Your secret is safe :)
  • phatfish 3y ago
    There are charity shops in the UK that get good furniture donated and they resell cheaply, the British Heart Foundation for example. You do have to check regularly to find something of a specific style/type though. Sometimes they don't know what they have, I picked up a Herman Miller office chair for £30. It did have some paint specs on, which might have been why it was sold so cheaply. They came right off with a damp cloth though.
• danielvaughn 3y ago
  I know I'm going to sound like an old person shouting about how "they don't make'm like they used to", but it's honestly true. This isn't just sofas - it's almost everything. Businesses know that it's far cheaper to make something look high quality than to actually make it high quality. And if you can make it seem expensive, then you can charge expensive prices for it.
• hoosieree 3y ago
  I'd like a sofa that: - is comfortable - isn't full of fire retardant chemicals which turn out to be cancerous right after the warranty expires - for less than $10k. Pretty sure that means I'm going to have to learn how to sew.
• meitham 3y ago
  The cookies “partners” on the page is insane! Had to scroll through 100s of these then navigated away without reading the article!
• zac23or 3y ago
  Everything is bad these days, not just the sofas. 1. The new switches I bought broke before the old ones, which are over 20 years old. 2. LED bulbs last less than incandescent bulbs, even with a 20-year warranty. 3. The new cell phone's screen breaks very easily, it's not like the old Nokia's. And nowadays something expensive is no longer guaranteed to last. This is why I value old things so much: I have an old chair to work with, it's not a good chair, but it's better than anything new. I did a restoration instead of buying a new one because the new one might not last long. I have a 10 year old car, I'm scared to buy a new one with the bizarre stories about new 3 cylinder engines breaking (throwaway engines?) I try to use old things as much as possible. I stopped using an old Android when SSL stopped working. It's not a matter of lack of money, it's a lack of confidence in new things. The last brand that I gave some value to was Sansumg. My last cell phone... THEY FORGOT to add a piece to fix the flat cable for the on/off button. And twice the on/off button stopped working, and twice I sent it to technical assistance. The third time I opened the phone and repaired the button myself. My two Sansumg TVs break a few days after the warranty ends. My sofa broke in less than two years.
  • katbyte 3y ago
    I think there are still quality products out there, but they are rare and expensive and you have to spend forever researching to figure out which products are :/ still are as so many see to be purchased and then running the ground for short term profits
    • runeb 3y ago
      There should be a market for a Wirecutter type site for buy-it-for-life products
  • lowlevel 3y ago
    I fully agree that new is very often worse than old. I've had to return 3 new iPhones in a row for manufacturing defects and out of box software errors. A TV lasts me maybe 4 years before it's 'broken' and needs to be replaced.' Home appliance longevity is laughable now.. (especially Samsung, my gosh.) I've purchased 5 new cars over the past 15 years or so, only one of which didn't have serious problems from new that had to be dealt with.. or could not be resolved/etc. We're just hitting bottom here, the next 10 years are going to be pretty rough.
• akkad33 3y ago
  This reflects my experience so much it's surprising to read
• hcknwscommenter 3y ago
  I'm generally very skeptical of brand/store loyalty type arguments, but lately I've found that in the US, Macy's furniture is still good value for good quality. I've had to completely furnish a few rooms over the last couple of years and looked at all the usual, e.g.: costco, ikea, wayfair, jordan's, etc., as well as expensive hand-made local shops, and I keep ending up at Macy's in the end.
  • wobbly_bush 3y ago
    Can you elaborate on why you chose Macy's over others?
• causi 3y ago
  I wish I could find a sofa that was designed for repairability. The only thing that ever wears out is the cushioning under the seat but I've never been able to find someone who offers repair services.
• racl101 3y ago
  I have always found that the best sofas are the ones you least expect. Never a rich person's big fancy sofa but some girlfriend's, who lives in her tiny apartment, beat up, sofa, for example.
• Ensorceled 3y ago
  When my mother was younger she used to reupholster furniture as a hobby. Older, antique furniture was much easier to work with and most newer furniture was practically impossible to reupholster at all. I was pretty easy to see the difference once the bones were exposed.
• ardaoweo 3y ago
  Soon the cheapest Ikea sofa I could find in 2015 (about 200 $) has lasted me a decade. Sure, the cover worn is worn out and covered with another textile for that reason, but it's still usable. I can sit on it and watch my TV, which is even older. Easiest way to find happiness in material quality of life is to lower one's standards.
  • ejb999 3y ago
    I agree, cheap taste in things is a blessing in disguise.
• mcguire 3y ago
  Pro tip: Estate sales. Many very good, long-lasting pieces of furniture come on the estate market for very cheap because a) no one wants to move the giant solid-wood china cabinet, or b) you can get a $15 sofa or table mailed to you, why would you want an ugly flower pattern on something that has already outlasted one owner? Look for Thomasville, Drexel, or similar from the 1950s to the 1980s. Lots of midcentury modern, if you like that sort of thing, but plenty of other designs. I'm writing this on a desk (currently missing the leather insert in the top) made of solid pecan. We got a 10' china cabinet, dining table that seats 12, and chairs for $300 a while back. Unfortunately, I haven't seen stackable bookshelves from the 30s-60s lately and they were getting somewhat expensive, which puts a crimp on my obsession to decorate entirely with books.
• Decabytes 3y ago
  I got a Lovesac Sactional after using a couch for years that was a handme down of a handmedown. I like it but it was not cheap (~4.5k). The modular nature fits our lifestyle so I'm willing to pay the premium. Having had to move a couch multiple times, I'm looking forward to just being able to break this one up into sections and take it out the door. They've got an ingenious model from a profit perspective as well. Since you can't charge subscriptions for stuff like that, they can sell you pieces of a Sactional and then you can get more pieces as the space you live in gets bigger or your life style changes. They also sell additional covers so if you get bored of the previous ones, you can change the color without getting a new couch (though it is not easy to get them on and off). My advice, wait until it's on sale. They regularly go for sale from 15-20%. If you aren't fussy about the type, Costco usually has them too.
  • iKnowKungFoo 3y ago
    I bought my Sactional in mid-December with a 25% discount. All of the reviews I found were very positive. This thing is a beast! I only wish I'd found a good rug before setting it up. It's on a tile floor but hasn't budged so far. I love its Lego-ness. The center section of my last sectional broke after about four months. Should any section break, I can quickly replace that piece instead of having to "deal with it" or replace the whole thing.
  • sumtechguy 3y ago
    I too bought into this system. My only grip is the cushions. They need to be regularly fluffed back out. Which does not give me good hope for the longevity of said cushions. The rest of it is fairly solid. The size I got would have taken a 3 man team to move/setup with a more traditional couch. I can do it myself in under an hour. Cleaning under them is pretty nice too as you can just pop out that one piece and clean under it quick. - (though it is not easy to get them on and off) no kidding. that was my second biggest gripe with this thing. I am in zero hury to use that feature.
  • AdamTReineke 3y ago
    We bought a pair of Sactional seats used for $1k. And I'm delighted that we did because we hate how uncomfortable it is for us. If you're thinking about dropping 10k+ on a Sactional set, keep your eyes open for used and even consider doing what we did and trialing a smaller section first.
• turtlebits 3y ago
  People aren't willing to pay thousands for furniture anymore. My Rowe furniture sofa is 21 years old now and sits as if it was new. If I have a problem, I'll get it reupholstered or just order a new cushion from the manufacturer.
• xn 3y ago
  You can geek out on quality furniture at myfurnitureforum.com if you're so inclined.
• mycodebreaks 3y ago
  low quality stuff manufacturing should be banned or limited to a low quantity. It's bad for the climate and environment on multiple folds.
• chiph 3y ago
  Ashley has a fair amount of their furniture made in North Carolina. It's obviously not at the same quality level as something like a Stickley, but if you want US-made furniture from a mainstream brand, they're a good choice.
• lnauta 3y ago
  When my grandma passed away I took the sofa because I was a poor student in need of a sofa. After about 10 years of daily use I started to notice some of the cushions sagging. Asked the family when she bought the couch and it predates my birth by about 10 years. Talk about quality.
• kjkjadksj 3y ago
  I have a cheap sofa today made of the sawdust and glue. I had “good” sofas before made of hardwood. They both feel fine under your butt and get wrecked by the cat before long. The new one comes apart in pieces so one person can easily move it in or out of a doorway or stairwell. Maybe the “joinery” is worse but who cares? It does the job and is easier to deal with, and that’s probably why these things have replaced the old beasts. Plus if you are interested in things like the joinery under your upholstered furniture there are still people who will cater to that for a premium you’d justify somehow.
• blago 3y ago
  When we moved to the US with two babies last year it was very important for us to buy non-toxic furniture. We ended up buying a sofa and chairs from Medley. Their products are made in LA out of wood and are free of formaldehyde, flame retardants, and PFAS. It's been only a year but it looks like the furniture is going to last.
• gytdev 3y ago
  sofas are boring. Screw a few bolts to the wall and hang a hammock instead
• pipeline_peak 3y ago
  Every sofa on that page looks like it belongs in the mansion of some Hollywood pervert. Just get a La-Z boy reclining sofa
• fuzzfactor 3y ago
  Sometimes there's a lowest common denominator that puts pressure on everyone else to reduce quality & value, especially gradually over the long run. When it comes to sofas there's a less common low, and that's "model home" furniture. These upholstered representations look just like the real thing but they are not counterfeits, merely imitations of what it would look like if the model home were to be equipped with actual furniture where its usefulness was a consideration. Occasionally appearing on the second-hand market so caveat emptor.
• j7ake 3y ago
  Because sofas that last are heavy and were meant for when people didn’t move out of the same estate for generations. Now people move every few years. And it’s hard to justify buying fancy furniture in a place you aren’t staying for long time.
• eYrKEC2 3y ago
  Is there "open hardware" in this space? Someone was selling laser-cut frames and sofas that you assemble, which made me wonder if anyone has gone whole-hog and created reasonable open designs for laser-cut, diy sofas.
• virtualritz 3y ago
  I dunno, but "design" sofas aren't that bad. Of course, you pay for this. My modular Cor Trio sofa has a list price of 6,500€ in the configuration I own. See [1] for a simpler one. One contributing factor is the fabric you choose. But the biggest one is labor. The wooden construction uses only solid wood too but that is the least cost either way. What I did when buying it is that I made a list of all design furniture shops in Berlin that sold Cor. Then I drove to each of them and asked: this is my best price from your competitors. What is yours? In the end I actually paid 4,500€. I also learned the margin is ~45% of the list price for the shop. Which gives you an idea about material and labor prices when you produce in Europe. I.e. Cor sells this to the shop for around 3k€. That already includes their margin. I would think producing this has costs of at least 50% of that attached. I.e. 1.5k€ for labor and materials. I just started helping a friend re-produce an old design classic of his [2] as WFH has made requests for it spike. It's not a sofa, strictly speaking, but the changes in costs probably make it worth mentioning them in this context. When we produced the first series, ca. 2004, we had material, CNC and labor costs of around 1,000€. Without upholstery. Upholstery varies greatly depending on finish. Different fabrics and leathers have very different prices and labor costs attached. We are now looking at over 4k€ for labor and wood (it's made of Ceiba which is difficulty to source). I.e. we have a ~300% raise in production costs over 20 years in Europe (not counting upholstery!). If we wanted to keep the previous price, we needed to switch to cheaper wood and move production outside of Europe. At the moment we are just considering targeting a wealthier clientele. Not everyone has this luxury though. I guess I'm saying I dunno how much these factors play a role in the enshittification of sofas everywhere. But they probably do ... :] [1] https://www.prooffice.de/shop/cor-trio-sofa.html https://www.prooffice.de/shop/cor-trio-sofa.html [2] https://www.saschaulber.com/shop/coffy/ https://www.saschaulber.com/shop/coffy/
• gklitz 3y ago
  What the hell, share my data with them and 1400 parters to read this, an No easy way to just say “Fuck No”. This kind of site design should be illegal.