Remember like two weeks ago when someone posted a question asking why IKEA was in business when good quality wood furniture was basically the same price? Hilarious.
Even the used furniture market is obscene.
Used flat pack shit that lasts maybe 10 years in optimal conditions goes used for only half the price, bad lean and all.
Anything solid wood you might as well buy new, cuz it’s nearly the same price, like damn.
I now go to habitat for humanity restore locations or goodwill, because they -can’t afford to charge a lot for big stuff- because they don’t have the space to store it. It’s not great stuff, but refurbishable.
My local reStore wants $100 for a 20 year old washing machine with a tag that says “we don’t know if it works”. They want $50 for a shitty old door ripped off your parents house. I used to love that place, now it’s not even worth looking.
*Edit: grammar
Yeah, I used to love thrifting. Could find really awesome stuff for a couple bucks. Now it’s too trendy. They’ve figured out that people were buying it from them dirt cheap and then reselling it in their own “vintage” shop for like 20x the price. Society has even ruined thrifting.
This doesn’t apply to furniture but the Goodwills in my area ship all the good stuff to a central location two counties away where it can be listed for sale online. The stuff in store is mostly garbage.
Has anyone made a !ThriftGrift community?
I subbed :)
I appreciate you.
Fair. I live in a LCOL area, mine don’t touch appliances, outdoor stuff, etc., can’t even donate to them, so it’s really just a place for cheaper remodeling stuff.
They have furniture, cabinetry, and building supplies. That’s about it. Limited plumbing fixtures, limited lighting, some “extra” paint and carpet tiles in mostly neutral colors.
Doors (no frame) are like $5-10, same with window sashes. Doors with frame are iirc $25, I never looked at windows with frame.
An entire very nice kitchen cabinet set ripped out of a newer condo is like $600.
Shit, there is an upscale consignment shop near me where they have “vintage” flat pack furniture straight from Wayfair marked above list price. I know because I have the same fucking table. The whole midcentury modern revival has gotten completely out of hand.
-.-
No offense to your flat pack, but it was garbage then and it’s not better now (you have apparently taken good care of it to not have it fall apart since)
I have had a lot of flat pack stuff because poverty, including a full wood coffee table that sat in a box for 20 years (mom bought it) before I used it. Took 6 months before that one started to wobble from normal use.
It’s never been good. I’d almost argue they are better now than 20 years ago, because people can’t afford legacy furniture and everything is flat-pack. And that is not saying much.
Put some thread locker on those shitty table leg bolts. That’ll keep it sturdy until the bolts rip themselves out of the pressboard garbage they’re glued to
That wasn’t the problem, it was just shoddy construction, but thank you.
Used everything is insane. People think they’re going to get 80% minimum of the original price.
Then the next thought is, “oh I can make that, doesn’t look too hard” and then you realize the tools you need to make it and make it more than a couple boards nailed together are as much if not more. And that’s not even counting how expensive the wood itself will be
Hell even making wood furniture yourself is expensive as hell with lumber prices as they are right now
IDK maybe it varies by area and what you a re looking for but almost all my furniture is thrifted/scavenged and I think the most I paid for a single thing was a 100 bucks. I go to a local thift store not one of the big chains. I also don’t have to buy with any sort of time pressure.
E: the idea that it invalidates IKEAs existence is crazy though.
Thrifting gets pricey nowadays. I’ve had better luck scouring FB Marketplace and Craigslist for curb alerts, if not trawling around the neighborhood looking for stuff to pluck up and take home myself. For free, even!
This usually depends on the country/region. For example in India ikea is obscenely expensive for what they are selling when you can get a miles better product at a similar price.
At least in Delhi you can get really really good furniture at a fair price.
But most Ikea furniture isn’t wood tho
Yeah, their post was about why do people buy crappy ikea furniture when nice wood furniture exists for the same price. Why the OP thought nice wood furniture could be purchased for the same price as flat packed particle board was the question.
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Real talk though, where do you all buy your furniture? I have a hard time finding shelves that land between between “affordable and flimsy” and “outrageously expensive and only for the 1%”
The secret is it’s ALSO Ikea.
Go to the Ikea website and search for bookcases. The standard Billy bookcase is $89 in my location. It’s made of wood veneer over particlebaord. They last about 10- 15 years or so before the glue holding the particles together breaks down and they become fragile.
Then use the Materials option to limit to “Solid Wood”, the same size Hemnes bookcase is $250. Same height, similar styling, made of solid wood and going to last much longer.
You can buy solid, long lasting furniture at Ikea, but it’s not the cheapest option so people often miss it.
I don’t shop ikea almost ever but had no idea they had solid wood options… Honestly, thanks for the info.
I got my new dresser from IKEA and it’s all solid wood. I was looking for something similar to the particleboard one I had before, since the configuration was nice, but the bottoms were falling out of the compartments. @hedgehogging_the_bed@lemmy.world is completely on the money.
Maybe I’ve been too harsh on Ikea then.
We just get stuff from IKEA and don’t abuse it.
I feel you. I resorted to making all of our shelves. Its a fun hobby, but I wish I had better options. Also I don’t know how to make non-shelf furniture.
And even that is really expensive, if you want more than the most basic, MacGyver shelf. I tried to build a shelf in a weirdly shaped corner and due to cuttings and waste, I would have to pay something like 200€ just for wood - and end up with a bunch of wasted wood planks.
I’ve thought about this too. I think I would like woodworking, and I like to have a project.
When you learn woodworking, you get to spend 20 to 60h building whatever it is you need, and it only costs you about twice as much as store bought! Of course, that’s once you’ve spent 3 to 10 thousand euros on the gear first.
Start small or at least start so.ething that can be broken into simpler smaller pieces. Not a comment on your skill just that the equipment can get very expensive very quick
You can do a lot with a hand saw, chisel, mallet, utility knife and hand plane. Check out https://www.youtube.com/@Paul.Sellers/playlists starting with making a workbench
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Europe? Second hand.
High quality but modernish oak furniture? You can often collect it for free. Paint it white if you think it looks too dated and attach a few new knobs.
Want to pay a bit more? Antique cupboards over 2 meters are invariably easier to dissassemble/reassassemble than an IKEA cupboard. You need less bolts if you make stuff from actual wood. Often just 4 bolts for a huge antique cupboard or no bolts at all just wood clamps/pegs. The top decoration can also often be removed. I’ve transported a 2.4x1.8m cupboard in the back of a VW Passat. But people don’t know that and are scared it won’t fit in their house or car, so don’t buy them.
Wood is also easy to repair. I’ve bought early 19th century biedermeier cupboards for under 50Euros that now look like they just came out of a palace. The 16th century cupboard I bought, literally came from a castle. 100 Euros. 2m40 tall. Scares people off, they don’t realise it’s easy to dissassemble and that the top bit is usually detachable/extra, or they want ikea crap because it’s what the neighbours have. People will tell you how much they paid for them(often thousands), then thank you for buying them at less than 10% because they simply don’t sell and they would otherwise have been forced to chop them up for firewood. Often old people downsizing and moving to a retirement home. They’d be forced to pay hundreds in storage fees for each month it’s not sold.
Some of them look bad when you buy them. I either use a (dark) furniture bees wax or pledge furniture renovator. Not a bit, but a lot of the stuff. Quality wood and you can rescue something that’s been stuck in a damp shed and covered in pigeon shit for a decade, and make it look like new. Cracks? Two planks, some wood glue, some bricks. Holes? If the bees wax doesn’t fill it, there’s filler or wax for that. Etc. etc.
Some of my furniture has no screws, all dove tail carpenter stuff. Some has handmade screws, because they’re from before industrialisation.
Only thing to avoid is wood worm, unless you have a large sauna, are willing to take a gamble on the wood not cracking as you cook it, and want to spend an entire day filling tiny holes afterwards.
Old furniture is usually from rather high class households and thus often made for large rooms. In a regular apartment, you can’t really use much of that. My great grandma had a bunch of these pieces, often older than her. But they take up tons of space that most people simply don’t have. And the fact that they’re usually pretty dark doesn’t help.
You can get a piece or two as a highlight, but not more.
Estate sales?
My friend upcycles old furniture they find and I pay them for their work.
Essentially she finds broken furniture (not fully broken maybe paints all scratched, chair missing a few legs, etc) and fixes them up. Local pickup furniture people are giving away for free cause they moving or something like that.
If you can track down liquidation sales they are a pretty good source for desks, chairs and even shelving. I spent $50 on a beat up butcher block slab and with $20 worth of materials I cleaned it up into a decent looking desk.
String is a pretty nice shelving system.
Like someone else said, ikea and don’t beat it up. Most of their stuff isn’t high quality lumber but it’s not particle board like Walmart either.
I bought particleboard furniture from a German company ten years ago. One of the planks weighed more than an entire new IKEA book cupboard.
IKEA quality has gone down hill significantly.
It used to be cheap but relatively good quality.
Now it’s often (but not always) overpriced low quality stuff.
So comes with a 10 years warranty in most cases so keep your receipts!
The matrasses too.
They’re counting on no one using it, because a matrass is annoying to transport, but that’s really worth it.
IME they rarely last ten years, but that doesn’t matter. You simply return them every few years, once they start sagging a bit or get dents. Just use a matrass protecter against the worst stains, obviously.
Very affordable matrasses too, compared to other places.
Mattress 😉
There’s a small town near where I live where you can walk to a bunch of small furniture stores, some with antiques/used and some with new stuff. Prices range but you can usually find a good deal. I’d look for one of these types of things, or IKEA
I visited to a few local antique stores and regretted it. I love a lot of their stuff, but the prices were crazy.
Thrift stores, basically. I worked in various thrift stores for 5 years and mostly furnished my home that way. Just be thorough when you’re inspecting it before you buy it! Check for bugs, broken/missing pieces, wiggly legs, cosmetic damage. We’ve gotten some really cool stuff in great condition for actually reasonable prices. My favorite is an ancient La-Z-Boy for $12, in decent shape.
If there’s a Re-Store near you, they’re great too! We got an adorable coffee hutch for $65, a decent couch for $80, a couple nightstands for $10-20 each, a solid, heavy duty coffee table for $30. It requires patience to find what you might be looking for, and it helps if you already know which thrift stores tend to get better quality items. Antique stores are worth a shot too, if you’re ok with spending on the upper end of cheap? You can get some really well built, old, beautiful furniture. Or see if there’s a furniture consignment store around you!
I think things like IKEA or Target are fine too, as long as you take care of your furniture. I’ve never had any problems with anything from IKEA, even when I buy used, but it probably helps I don’t have kids, lol.
I bought a metal filing cabinet that would ordinarily go for $400-$500 online for $15 off of Craigslist. I also scoop up and repair free shit from the curb. FB Marketplace and Craigslist are a mixed bag between shitty and overpriced and ridiculously cheap for what the actual retail value would be.
I did that, but I bought a 2020 GT350R.
More non-memes with hundreds of upvotes… Pathetic.
We’ve reached the point of: funny = meme
I blame Gen Z for this, lol
Except this isn’t even an attempt at humor, either. This community is full of no-effort garbage like this because everything gets upvoted. I have yet to find another community that is such a concentration of idiocy that the voting system is worthless.
Just… Block the community?
Tweets are not memes. Downvote that shit.
Nice meme
In a really strict reading every idea is a meme.
Though thecontext matters imho. Personally a meme should be something created, or shared, that picks up a new type of meaning along the way. If a stirn of text is pasted there isn’t any meaning added. It’s just lazy.
I like my memes just a sliver above lazy, I like them low effort. Same difference between a raw steak and medium rare. It’s not much, but it makes alle the difference…
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Post gourds!
Gosh I miss Nat’a videos. I hope she’s doing great.
I follow her on Instagram. She’s keeping busy! She hosted Australian Bake Off which I haven’t been able to find a stream online but tbh I haven’t searched that hard lol.
My first thought as soon as I saw the name.
Unbohlivable.
It better be made of solid gold and ivory for that price
I’ve got no idea about the specific book case, but it also probably had a lot of hand carvings. People underestimate how much real wood carvings add to the cost of a piece of furniturw
Maybe this one…? Not gold but still really cool. Not $70k cool
Not $70k cool, but murder cool. That looks sweet.
