My furniture rant involved furniture that was sold as solid wood. Hey, my dad was a woodworker as a hobby. I know the difference between veneer and solid wood. Selling particle board or some sort of composite material covered with an oak veneer is not solid wood. Sure, the composite material is made of wood, so I could see how one could make that stretch to claim the piece is solid wood. But I will not be paying $1000 and upward for composite crap – that is no better quality than IKEA or Target furniture.
So… where it mattered to me, I went with antiques. It was easy to comb the estate sales, consignment shops, and antique stores to find quality pieces. The prices were no more unreasonable than the overpriced, crap-quality fancy furniture store prices. I found an art nouveau dresser and vanity – for $800, which is about what I’d pay for two bedroom pieces. I found an art deco head & footboard that I think I acquired for less than $100 – I had to buy the metal frame pieces (from Goodwill) to connect the two and I bought a new mattress & box springs. So I ended up with a solid wood bedframe, and with the other bits I purchased new, I probably spent less than $300 for my guest bedroom bed.
I couldn’t agree with the OP more: brand new furniture is bullshit. Particle board covered in oak veneer doesn’t last any longer than IKEA particle board that’s painted.
Part of the problem with making your own furniture is that cushions are really expensive - if you don’t care about that, I’ve seen a lot of really cute make-it-yourself furniture on Ana White. Built with off-the-rack sizes of lumber, too. Probably as easy as making your own could be, but it’ll still set you back a small bundle for wood.
Sure, but at least you got what you paid for… you know, actual wood. I don’t mind paying wood prices for wood. I do mind paying wood prices for composites covered in veneer.
Preach it. Now that my husband and I are out of the “something to set a drink on” furniture buying phase and into “I want to die with this coffee table” phase, I hate walking up to a piece of furniture only to see the (usually already chipping) veneer upon even cursory inspection. I’m surprised at how hard it is to even find real wood furniture sometimes, especially since our favorite places have closed down.
Antique stores are nice, and craigslist is a decent bet if you live in a populated area and are willing to put effort into digging and checking things out.
Word to the wise, try to have your kids (if you are having kids) before you buy anything too expensive or that you love too much. They are pretty hard on your stuff (even when you teach them not to be, coordination takes some time to develop).
I’ll also endorse craigslist on this one. With sofas in particular a lot of them you can get for free if you just come and get it (also pool tables, interestingly). It will likely be shit and who knows what they’ve done on/to it, but hey, the price is right!
Wow… that’s a nice set of plans. Simple but attractive, easy to make. Actually just the thing I need, as I’m moving to a much larger place in a few weeks, and I’d rather fill it with simple pine furniture than Ikea particle board.
Not to hijack too much, but are there any other similar websites full of furniture plans? I like that it can all be done with dimensioned wood, as that means I can build stuff without investing in a table saw and planer…
My pool table came from Craigslist. It wasn’t free, but it was a hell of a lot cheaper than getting it new, even with paying someone to refelt it. I love that thing, even though I rarely have time to play pool now. Currently I have a carved antique chair from Craigslist sitting in my garage, waiting for me to refinish it. If you don’t mind taking on staining projects and doing minor repairs, you can find some really unique things there.
As far as the kids thing, that’s just a risk we’ll have to take. Thus far, we’ve only invested in extremely durable furniture we love, so unless we have some kind of pyromaniac kid, the worst they can do to it will only leave it needing to be refinished.
This is an excellent point. Before spending tons of money on new furniture consider where you are in your life. All of our furniture was free or severely discounted as it was passed down from relatives or purchased from garage sales and it looks like it was free or bought at garage sales. However, we have to cats with their claws, a puppy, and a baby on the way. We need furniture that can be peed on, puked on, torn up, etc. and have us not be tons of bothered by it.
My parents failed to take this into account and got rid of perfectly nice (albeit slightly shredded from their pets) furniture and replaced it with $6,000 worth of beautiful leather pieces. That furniture lasted a week before it started showing claw and teeth marks from their 3 dogs and 1 cat. Now they have cheap slip covers on everything to try and keep it as nice as possible but it has obviously been abused and will never look new again. If you are going to spend a ton of money on really nice furniture make sure you aren’t going to have any reason to think it may not stay that way for a good long while.
You could also do something like this DIY porch swing out of a bunk bed, only put legs on it instead of hanging it. Bunk beds (or just an appropriate twin bed) are frequently on Craigslist for cheap, and you could clean it well if you’re worried about bedbugs. (Link to thread where I saw the swing, the post is about 3/5 of the way down the page, or search for “swinging daybed”.) For cushions you could get a twin sized memory foam mattress from Overstock.com for less than $150, and cover however you wanted.
I buy much of my furniture at auctions, either estate or from local auction houses. Here is a local auction house with furniture. It’ll all go very cheap.
My head is an average circumference, but when viewed from above it’s shaped pretty much like this (imagine my face instead of the stem there). Complete with two large dents right before the temples. Bald baby pictures of both my father and I are amusing, but slightly disturbing.
Whatever works for you! I have great success buying online, but I know lots of people like to see things in the flesh first.
Are you kidding me? I have folding chairs that can take that.
Now before the “Well, use folding chairs!” remark, I’ll say that I’d rather have something nicer and it’s the “nicer” where they soak you for way more than it’s worth. You accept it because the alternative is folding chairs. That doesn’t make it justified or less of a scam.
