4 ms·

ikea has solid wood furniture that'll last 10+ years no problem

by llljk 1mo ago

selfhoster1312 1mo ago
Yes, the problem is durability before Ikea was counted in centuries. Sure, this or that furniture may need to refit the hinges or refill the cushions every few decades, but your local handyman/handywoman would do it for cheap and the furniture would be well for some more decades. That, and apart from the tiny unfortunate period during which everything had to be leaded or mixed with uranium, your traditional furniture will degrade gracefully over time and not poison your entire family. Ikea-like (not just Ikea) furniture is already full of toxic chemicals.
- gbear605 1mo ago
  You’re unfortunately vastly overrating the world before Ikea. I have the furniture passed down from the 70s and 80s and it’s all falling apart and made from plywood. You have to go back to the 30s and earlier before you get furniture that will stand up like that, and making that furniture new today would cost more than almost anyone could afford.
  - selfhoster1312 1mo ago
    You are correct, I used Ikea as a generic name for cheap plywood stuff. But there was still strong furniture being built in that era, it didn't all stop in the 1930s, if anything, because a portion of the population even in the global north had not converted to a "modern" post-WWII lifestyle as we see in the movies.
  - Cthulhu_ 1mo ago
    And the only 30's - 60's furniture that survives will be mostly solid cabinets; they are neither in style (if you care) anymore, but more importantly they're no longer practical, as they were built for different lifestyles and - habits. Writing desks are cute in theory but nobody sits down to write letters anymore.
- bborud 1mo ago
  People don't get rid of it because it gets worn out. They get rid of it because they want to change their surroundings. Imagine being stuck with the same furniture for the rest of your life? Why would I want to buy furniture that lasts centuries? I'll be dead in a few decades and exactly nobody would be lusting after a couch with decades of my flatulence trapped inside it. As for durability, the average age bit of IKEA furniture is old enough to vote.
  - selfhoster1312 1mo ago
    > People don't get rid of it because it gets worn out. That's true, but once you move it around and/or disassemble it it gets very easily damaged, which prevents second-hand use. > Why would I want to buy furniture that lasts centuries? Well it's not all just a matter of personal taste. The ecological lifecycle of massive wood kept over generation is much better than throwaway furniture. Very egoistically, you may want to live in a society that values preserving an inhabitable planet. Alternatively, you may appreciate that some people do and that being stuck with the same furniture (among other arrangements) is a small price to pay.
    - bborud 1mo ago
      You make it sound like IKEA isn't fit for second hand use. I live in Scandinavia, the classifieds and the second hand furniture shops that do not specifically cater to the vintage crowd, says otherwise. There's a lot of IKEA furniture on the second hand market. Of course it gets second hand use. And if you are in a university city, you can bet that a lot of the furniture students have is on its third or fourth owner. As for "ecological lifecycle", that's a more complex question than can be expressed in a few paragraphs because one needs to understand what timber is and where it comes from. As well as how it is used. If this genuinely is a worry of yours then I'd be more worried about what to eat, since the deforestation that actually matters, that of untouched virgin forest, is mostly to produce what ends up on your plate. Mostly beef, but also oil crops etc. The timber in your furniture comes from managed forests. Essentially crops. Of which there is no shortage. However, there is a shortage of virgin forest. In Europe genuinely untouched forest, which is the kind that matters for biodiversity, is somewhere in the region of 2%. Which is why most Europeans will never see actual virgin forest during their lifetime. The thing they think of as forest is managed plantation with low biological diversity. (The situation in the US isn't nearly as bad as in Europe. Alaska has mostly virgin forest for instance) This is why countering deforestation isn't about "just planting trees". If it were about that we wouldn't have a problem because we plant orders of magnitude more trees than we fell in virgin forests. In the US alone about 1.2-1.3 billion seedlings are planted yearly during the planting season. To maintain an equilibrium. Where I live he amount timber, by volume, has tripled in the past century. The problem isn't that we have too few trees - it is that we are behind on managing their age distribution. 40-45% of the forest where I live is harvest ready. About 10-15% of it is overdue. (And we haven't even touched on recycling, and the amount of recycled materials found in the products of IKEA and others. Of course, if one has romantic notions of solid wood furniture then one would most likely sneer at products made from recycled wood)

ikea has solid wood furniture that'll last 10+ years no problem

by llljk 1mo ago

ikea has solid wood furniture that'll last 10+ years no problem

Yes, the problem is durability before Ikea was counted in centuries. Sure, this or that furniture may need to refit the hinges or refill the cushions every few decades, but your local handyman/handywoman would do it for cheap and the furniture would be well for some more decades. That, and apart from the tiny unfortunate period during which everything had to be leaded or mixed with uranium, your traditional furniture will degrade gracefully over time and not poison your entire family. Ikea-like (not just Ikea) furniture is already full of toxic chemicals.

gbear605 1mo ago
You’re unfortunately vastly overrating the world before Ikea. I have the furniture passed down from the 70s and 80s and it’s all falling apart and made from plywood. You have to go back to the 30s and earlier before you get furniture that will stand up like that, and making that furniture new today would cost more than almost anyone could afford.
- selfhoster1312 1mo ago
  You are correct, I used Ikea as a generic name for cheap plywood stuff. But there was still strong furniture being built in that era, it didn't all stop in the 1930s, if anything, because a portion of the population even in the global north had not converted to a "modern" post-WWII lifestyle as we see in the movies.
- Cthulhu_ 1mo ago
  And the only 30's - 60's furniture that survives will be mostly solid cabinets; they are neither in style (if you care) anymore, but more importantly they're no longer practical, as they were built for different lifestyles and - habits. Writing desks are cute in theory but nobody sits down to write letters anymore.
bborud 1mo ago
People don't get rid of it because it gets worn out. They get rid of it because they want to change their surroundings. Imagine being stuck with the same furniture for the rest of your life? Why would I want to buy furniture that lasts centuries? I'll be dead in a few decades and exactly nobody would be lusting after a couch with decades of my flatulence trapped inside it. As for durability, the average age bit of IKEA furniture is old enough to vote.
- selfhoster1312 1mo ago
  > People don't get rid of it because it gets worn out. That's true, but once you move it around and/or disassemble it it gets very easily damaged, which prevents second-hand use. > Why would I want to buy furniture that lasts centuries? Well it's not all just a matter of personal taste. The ecological lifecycle of massive wood kept over generation is much better than throwaway furniture. Very egoistically, you may want to live in a society that values preserving an inhabitable planet. Alternatively, you may appreciate that some people do and that being stuck with the same furniture (among other arrangements) is a small price to pay.
  - bborud 1mo ago
    You make it sound like IKEA isn't fit for second hand use. I live in Scandinavia, the classifieds and the second hand furniture shops that do not specifically cater to the vintage crowd, says otherwise. There's a lot of IKEA furniture on the second hand market. Of course it gets second hand use. And if you are in a university city, you can bet that a lot of the furniture students have is on its third or fourth owner. As for "ecological lifecycle", that's a more complex question than can be expressed in a few paragraphs because one needs to understand what timber is and where it comes from. As well as how it is used. If this genuinely is a worry of yours then I'd be more worried about what to eat, since the deforestation that actually matters, that of untouched virgin forest, is mostly to produce what ends up on your plate. Mostly beef, but also oil crops etc. The timber in your furniture comes from managed forests. Essentially crops. Of which there is no shortage. However, there is a shortage of virgin forest. In Europe genuinely untouched forest, which is the kind that matters for biodiversity, is somewhere in the region of 2%. Which is why most Europeans will never see actual virgin forest during their lifetime. The thing they think of as forest is managed plantation with low biological diversity. (The situation in the US isn't nearly as bad as in Europe. Alaska has mostly virgin forest for instance) This is why countering deforestation isn't about "just planting trees". If it were about that we wouldn't have a problem because we plant orders of magnitude more trees than we fell in virgin forests. In the US alone about 1.2-1.3 billion seedlings are planted yearly during the planting season. To maintain an equilibrium. Where I live he amount timber, by volume, has tripled in the past century. The problem isn't that we have too few trees - it is that we are behind on managing their age distribution. 40-45% of the forest where I live is harvest ready. About 10-15% of it is overdue. (And we haven't even touched on recycling, and the amount of recycled materials found in the products of IKEA and others. Of course, if one has romantic notions of solid wood furniture then one would most likely sneer at products made from recycled wood)