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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
by 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.
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- hammock 3y agoYou 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 agoRoom 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.
- bradgessler 3y agoI recently cut open a heavily used R&B sofa and found 1” thick plywood used through the frame. It was solid. The down feather pillows didn’t do well—lots of feathers made their way out of the pillow.
- illegalsmile 3y agoI've never really enjoyed down cushions on a functional everyday couch. Feathers inevitably make they're way out of the pillow, through the cushion's exterior fabric and into your back/arm/leg/etc... or just around the room. They lose loft and aren't as easy to replace as say cutting a piece or two of foam and inserting those. My current couch has a down cushion on the top of the seated part and backrest and when they go I'll replace them with memory foam.
- jasondigitized 3y agoAgreed. We researched a ton of sofas and landed on Room and Board. Super happy so far.
- caseyohara 3y agoRoom and Board makes very good furniture. When my wife and I moved into our new home a few years ago, we decided to invest in high quality furniture that would last decades. Originally we ordered a sofa from Interior Define that never arrived. Something wonky was going on with that company, many people never received their orders and they wouldn’t issue a refund. Thankfully we were still within the window to do a chargeback. We have a sofa, coffee table, bed, nightstands, and some wall sconces from Room and Board. I am very impressed with the materials and build quality; I can tell everything will wear well and age nicely. Worth the investment, highly recommended.
- gexla 3y agoPlease give us an update on how stuffed pillow guy is doing these days.
- selcuka 3y agoHe stopped cheating at poker, so they set him free.
- theendisney 3y agoIt was some how relevant. I had a similar job making sofas in similar price range. We also had a crazy person stuffing everything. I asked why his job was not in the normal task roulation. They said for that job you have to be insanely strong, have insane endurance and you have to be insane. The guy tried it one time. How hard could it be? After 3 hours he literally couldnt lift his arms.
- bondarchuk 3y ago>They said for that job you have to be insanely strong, have insane endurance and you have to be insane. Lmao. There's some jobs like that. Always heard (less surprisingly maybe) the morse code operators on ships tend to be kooky as hell too.
- tacocataco 3y agoThere is probably a certain kind of person that is interested in communicating with beeps and boops.
- rlonstein 3y agoWhen I was in grad school I accidentally wandered into the workshop for Montauk (https://montauksofa.com/collections/sofa/montauk/ https://montauksofa.com/collections/sofa/montauk/) with my girlfriend. They were very polite and I took their card. A few years later when I had some money, and my girlfriend was my wife, I still had the card and we bought one. More than twenty years since we still have it and it's just starting to get to where some of the cushions need the down stuffing refreshed. Quality.
- BenFranklin100 3y agoGorgeous design.
- btbuildem 3y agoHow did you accidentally wander into their workshop? That place was in a random industrial zone off the 20 somewhere near Point St Claire.. Also super spooky, how did you know I was talking about them?
- TylerE 3y agoHe didn’t, you just accidentally doxed yourself.
- rlonstein 3y agoI remember we were staying in a hotel Ibis in a cheap part of the city (I was still in grad school), not sure where now we went a few times. The hotels are now Travelodge, I think. We are avid walkers so we went down Rue Sherbrooke and angled toward the water and just stumbled onto it. It was sunny and the craftsmen had the doors open. So we went in just to see. How did I know? I didn't. But it related to my own story about buying the one really high-quality piece of furniture I own.
- lambic 3y agoI also have a 20+ year old Montauk. I had the cushions replaced a couple of years ago because they don't offer a restuffing service. Not cheap, but should keep me going for another 20 years.
- karim79 3y ago> things would be blanketed and wrapped up just the right way, then tetris-ed onto the truck. *tetris-ed and Sokoban-ed onto the truck (Sorry, couldn't help myself)
- m463 3y agoI think the problem I've noticed is - the furniture that is built to last very frequently fails the partner test - "that looks like old fart stuff". Same sort of issue with cool remote controls. For example, la-z-boy has pretty good controls - remotes have better designs, have lots of adjustments, and motors seem to move faster. And they too fail the partner test - "that looks like old fart stuff" I kind of like some stressless recliners. oh, there is one class of furniture that has a lot of control - the massage chairs. Except they seem to be furniture you want to hide from everyone, they fail the "normal human being" test. maybe I need to know pointers to other furniture/designs?
- namaria 3y agoPartner sounds like a fashion victim. If social media consumption is making one's taste fond of low quality flashy crap I'd say grow some critical thinking skills.
- mynameisvlad 3y agoI mean… not really. Quality and style generally are pretty correlated, with higher quality pieces traditionally being more “old school”. And that was basically GP comment’s point. One can value form over function, especially if there’s a specific style that the rest of your house uses. If your entire house is decorated in a contemporary style, then a traditional sofa is just going to stand out like a sore thumb.
- namaria 3y agoThis whole thread is about overpriced crap that sells because people don't know better. And if one's partner prefer flashy crap to quality stuff by calling quality stuff "antiquated" because it doesn't conform to styles peddled in social media and are devoid of fundamental quality well... that's not a conflict of taste, that is a story about choosing flashy crap for the sake of flashiness. Which doesn't seem defensible to me.
- mynameisvlad 3y ago
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- stephenhuey 3y agoBeen putting off commenting for over 24 hours and this is still on the front page! I can confirm there are quality furniture makers here in the USA, though they can be hard to find. A decade ago, I shopped for the first time at the most famous furniture store in this part of Texas: Gallery Furniture. Growing up anywhere within an hour or two of Houston in the 80s, Mattress Mack was more recognizable to a kid like me than any news anchor or any other television personality. Before the 80s was over, I'd probably seen him hop in the air hundreds of times with a fistful of dollars, talking about how Gallery Furniture will save you money, and he's still going strong today. He even toured big city and small town schools warning kids about drugs. Anyway, I had gotten by for years on hand-me-downs and IKEA furniture, but it was time to replace something ratty, and I walked in there with a vague impression that it might be more pricey than other stores. They told me it was all made in America (some places up north like Indiana?) and when I was asking about cheaper sofas that a guy over 6 feet tall could comfortably nap on, they pointed me to one they said was made locally in the Houston area. It was very long and had a very simple design and had firm foam that wouldn't sag (something I had asked for), and they let me have it for $500, and it felt like much better quality than a lot of the prettier stuff in other furniture stores. A couple years later when I got married, we were looking for a nicer sofa, and I figured out that the local furniture maker that Gallery Furniture had been selling was called Living Designs Furniture and had a factory in the East End: https://www.livingdesignsfurniture.com https://www.livingdesignsfurniture.com Their factory's showroom was very bare, but it was full of pieces, including a colorful chair in the shape of a stiletto shoe! We found an elegantly shaped light gray sofa long enough for me to sleep on, and again with high quality foam, and they built one with some slight customizations we wanted for $1,081 total. Unreal, because we have a white sofa from IKEA that isn't much less, but the quality is on another level! I'd really like to see a resurgence of products like this in the USA. I've heard of some custom sofas costing several thousand, but somehow this local company is managing to sell at a lower price point. 18 years ago, a buddy of mine was living in Charleston, South Carolina. He had talked to a local high end furniture maker about doing a 3-year apprenticeship to learn how to make fine furniture, but in the end he knew he'd make very little per year in wages (he estimated $35,000 or so). Instead he pursued another dream and went to Napa Valley for a one-year course at the only open-wheel racing mechanic school in the country and ended up working on an Indy Car team for a dozen years. Hopefully more guys like him can find the furniture maker route feasible in the future if American consumers can escape the throwaway mindset. The average household doesn't need expensive Amish Craftsman offerings. A lot of people could afford this local furniture maker we have available, but I understand it could be a risky business venture to try to compete with the stuff shipped over the ocean.
- bradley13 3y agoThis. We paid $10k for two sofas. Leather-covered, solid quality. That was more than 20 years ago. They look a bit weathered now, from kids and pets, but they are holding up fine. Pay for quality. It saves you money in the long run.
- elwell 3y ago> Pay for quality. It saves you money in the long run. Unlikely. Our sofa is like $300. Let's say it only lasts 3 years before it shows wear or we get bored of it and get another $300 one... your $5k sofa would have to last for 50 years to 'save money'. Not to mention the opportunity cost of those funds. Pay for quality if you want quality, not in an attempt to save money.
- iknowstuff 3y agoI was hoping this stream of consciousness was going somewhere