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Post by villanelle on Dec 16, 2020 13:53:11 GMT -5
Until we got to DC, we almost never bought nice furniture. In Japan, our coffee table was an Ikea item literally held together with duct tape. Our lifestyle is hard on furniture, and it's also hard to spend much money when you are never sure what is going to fit in the next house.
So we have/had a lot of crap. When we got here, I was *done* with having shit, and we started buying decent stuff. Our bedroom set, which was 30 years old, a gift from my parents when they upgraded, and was missing a drawer that some movers broke, is gone. A few other things have been upgraded as well.
But we still have some old pieces. I'd love to replace them, but I struggle with the idea of waste. We have a set of drawers (bought to sit in the entry 3 homes ago, and be the place to toss keys and store essentials like batteries and tape). It wasn't expensive. I got it at TJ Maxx. It's probably 12 years old. It's not crap quality, but certainly not fine furniture. The paint is well chipped, it has some dents and gouges in it from movers, and generally has seen better days, but it is usable.
This has led me to wonder how long people tend to keep furniture items. Is your answer different for a dresser or TV stand, vs a sofa or other upholstered piece?
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Post by RobinAnn on Dec 16, 2020 14:01:34 GMT -5
My bedroom set was 25 years old and had many, many years left but it would not fit into our new house (at all). My living room couch and arm chair are also 25 years old. My living room tables are 35 years old and are in great condition yet but very dated. I have a kitchen table and hoosier cabinet in my office that are over 90 years old. Our entertainment center is a 140 year old buffet. I have a 150 year old hutch in my dining room.
All my furniture has moved many times (but not quite as often as yours). The older things have moved 5 times since I've owned them and the newer (hah) has moved 3 times.
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Post by stellarfeller on Dec 16, 2020 14:20:39 GMT -5
The dresser in my bedroom is the one I had when I was a little girl, so it’s very close to 50 years old 😄
Our living room furniture and kitchen table/chairs are not quite 10 years old, but the furniture we had before that was probably 25 years old (the couch/armchair) and several decades old (kitchen table).
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emmjay
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Post by emmjay on Dec 16, 2020 14:46:15 GMT -5
We didn’t take any heirlooms or antiques with us when we moved out of the country, but we did bring what we had. At this point, I think we have a few bookcases, a desk, and a kitchen table/benches left. Everything else has been replaced at some point in the last 9 years. Our plan is to move onto a boat in 6-7 years, so we aren’t planning on keeping any of it. Most of it will probably end up in whatever house our kids live in at university. Most of my parents’ furniture has been around for decades. They reupholster or paint things when they want to change them.
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Post by Peachy on Dec 16, 2020 16:45:14 GMT -5
The only hand-me-down piece of furniture I have is a hutch that was in my grandma’s living room. It’s sitting unused in my basement. It’s 80s-era tacky, but it was still my grandma’s so I hold onto it for sentimental reasons only.
When we lived in our old house, we bought quality pieces of furniture as we could afford them. Our dining room table is probably close to 20 years old and still looks practically new.
The dressers and nightstands in our bedroom are probably almost as old as the dining room table. I don’t foresee needing to replace those for many, many years yet. We used to have a giant wall unit headboard, but we repurposed it into separate nightstands and just bought a new wrought iron headboard/footboard maybe 10 years ago. I still love it so we’ll hold onto that.
We are hard on our living room furniture, though. I don’t know the life expectancy of couches and recliners, but after 6 or 7 years, they could stand to be replaced. We still have the same coffee and end tables that we bought when we moved into this house almost 13 years ago.
We have cheap IKEA furniture in our guest room. It’s anyone’s guess how long those pieces will last.
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Post by villanelle on Dec 16, 2020 17:06:33 GMT -5
This thread reenforces kind of what I was thinking. If we suck it up and buy nice stuff, it will last longer. But in the mean time, I feel bad getting rid of the cheaper, lower quality items that we do have. That set of drawers I mentioned is a dozen years old (maybe 14). But the drawers never slid well, and I hate looking at the obvious damage to it. I'm guessing I paid less than $100 for it, so it has served its purpose, I suppose.
OTOH, I'm nervous about buying expensive stuff because it will hurt a lot more when the movers put dings and scratches and dents in it.
I definitely won't do anything until we move again (or find out we are staying here a while longer), but when I do, I think I might go with quality and hope the movers are kind to it.
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emmjay
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Post by emmjay on Dec 16, 2020 17:18:56 GMT -5
The only furniture we bought new from a store was the upholstered living room stuff (big chair + couch). The rest was handmade stuff from Etsy, or used things we bought from expats who are moving country and unloading their entire households. And they tend to have nice furniture because they get a huge moving allowance from their companies! I don’t want to spend a ton of money because we are somewhat transient (though not as much as you are!), but I don’t want poor quality. So secondhand and Etsy are my go-tos.
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Post by kimbelina on Dec 16, 2020 17:45:00 GMT -5
I don't really have nice furniture other than my dining room table and it's less than 15 years old. My stuff isn't falling apart junk but it's not high end either but it works for us and I still like it. I bet you could sell or donate some of your stuff that's a little worn if you feel bad about throwing it out. I know when we first got married all our furniture was second hand and we didn't care. Heck, our couch came from a hair salon waiting room and it was hideously ugly but it was the most comfortable couch I've ever owned. Looking back now that's pretty gross but it was ours so we didn't care
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Post by Inky on Dec 16, 2020 19:14:07 GMT -5
We are NOT hard on our furniture and I've found that you simply cannot tell if it's really good or not by where you buy it or how much you pay. For example, we bought a really nice sofa/chair set at a LazyBoy store about 10 years ago. Far from cheap, and had to be custom made, not bought off the floor. After about 6 years, the fabric started failing, and not necessarily where it would get wear. When we went back to the store it was the usual crap you get from places "Oh if you had come in before it was 5 years, we would have replaced the fabric. NOT fixed the couch & chair, or given us a new one. They would have given us the new fabric, sewn to shape, and WE'D have to pay someone to re-upholster them! Thanks but no thanks. We gave it away to a nice young couple starting out (it still looked okay because I had made covers for the areas that looked like shit) and went to Leons and bought a new set. Middle of the road pricing, just went with what we liked, and looked well built (who knows if it is!)
We had bought a VERY expensive loveseat years ago from an exclusive store - that lasted just about as long as the store did - maybe 6 or 7 years, before the pillows all looked like garbage and the fabric wore thin.
Our dining set we got off kijijji and we LOVE it. Nice and solid, with a great buffet to match. DH recovered all the chair cushions and we could not be happier.
I say, if you like a piece of furniture and it can be painted/refinished go for it.
Don't think if you spend a lot you will get good stuff - it's a crapshoot. So just buy what you really like.
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Post by Truffles on Dec 16, 2020 20:11:24 GMT -5
I love ikea! Most of the stuff lasts pretty well, I find.
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mare
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Post by mare on Dec 17, 2020 12:20:17 GMT -5
We have a nice bedroom set we bought when we moved into this house. It has held up well. We also bought a dining room set that is in OK shape. Living room furniture has been replaced twice in 25 years. Kids and hubby are hard on it.
I have a hutch that was in my dad's house. It's Ethan Allen bought in the 60s. It's in pretty good shape, but it was taken care of. I keep it for sentimental reasons.
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Post by nansel on Dec 17, 2020 13:25:30 GMT -5
We don't have much furniture. Just the basics.
Our living room has a leather couch/love seat set we splurged on at Sears over 15 years ago that is still looking pretty good. When we moved to this house we bought a locally made 6-seat table and chairs. Those are the only "good" pieces we have.
The rest is mostly Ikea or thrift store. Our experience with Ikea is that it generally holds up pretty well. We're not hard on stuff, though.
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Post by shaena on Dec 17, 2020 16:06:10 GMT -5
I am sitting on a couch I bought at Salvation Army. I bought a whole set last year for 350 bucks. Its basically a 1990's den/family room set with full recliners. Looked like it must have come from grandma's and never touched, or unsold from a showroom, never touched. I snagged a lamp that day that was still wrapped from a Midwest furniture store. so who knows. It weighs a ton, the bones are excellent. Good quality furniture can be reupholstered if the construction is good.
My bedroom set was my parents, so it is almost 60 years old. Thankfully I like mid-century modern! But again its solid quality construction. Its heavy, and solid wood built throughout.
Currently looking to once again replace our dining room furniture. We actually spent a lot of money at a very nice store. Hated it almost from the moment we got it home. There is not enough gorilla glue in the world to stabilize it!
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Post by villanelle on Dec 17, 2020 16:19:10 GMT -5
We are NOT hard on our furniture and I've found that you simply cannot tell if it's really good or not by where you buy it or how much you pay. For example, we bought a really nice sofa/chair set at a LazyBoy store about 10 years ago. Far from cheap, and had to be custom made, not bought off the floor. After about 6 years, the fabric started failing, and not necessarily where it would get wear. When we went back to the store it was the usual crap you get from places "Oh if you had come in before it was 5 years, we would have replaced the fabric. NOT fixed the couch & chair, or given us a new one. They would have given us the new fabric, sewn to shape, and WE'D have to pay someone to re-upholster them! Thanks but no thanks. We gave it away to a nice young couple starting out (it still looked okay because I had made covers for the areas that looked like shit) and went to Leons and bought a new set. Middle of the road pricing, just went with what we liked, and looked well built (who knows if it is!) We had bought a VERY expensive loveseat years ago from an exclusive store - that lasted just about as long as the store did - maybe 6 or 7 years, before the pillows all looked like garbage and the fabric wore thin. Our dining set we got off kijijji and we LOVE it. Nice and solid, with a great buffet to match. DH recovered all the chair cushions and we could not be happier. I say, if you like a piece of furniture and it can be painted/refinished go for it. Don't think if you spend a lot you will get good stuff - it's a crapshoot. So just buy what you really like. While I agree that price and quality aren't directly paired, I think there's a pretty strong relationship. That Ikea coffee table I mentioned earlier? It was not only Ikea, it was literally the cheapest coffee table sold at Ikea at the time. The laminate started peeling. When it got a small dent, because it was particle board underneath very dark laminate, the chips were very obvious and couldn't be sanded or stained to match. (Though scribbling in them with a sharpie made it less bad.) The shelf was held on with external fasteners only, and that's what failed and was replaced with duct tape (dark, so it was less obvious). I think that more money relates to better quality more when you are dealing with wood pieces than with furniture. Although I really want a LovSac sofa, so I don't want to admit that! (But seriously, the modularity of the Love Sac seems perfect for us!)
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Post by coachgrrl on Dec 17, 2020 16:31:58 GMT -5
Most of my furniture was inherited or purchased at ikea. My mom had bought a beautiful bedroom suite and living room set when she retired in 05. When she moved into assisted living she gave it to us. It’s held up well. We still have dh’s parents dining room table with newer chairs, I would like to replace it, but it’s not a priority. The kids furniture and our den stuff is all IKEA.
At this point in my life I don’t need anymore stuff and what we have works for me.
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Post by Peachy on Dec 17, 2020 20:22:21 GMT -5
In a strange coincidence, dh just told me tonight that he’d like a higher table in the dining room. I told him to stop that thinking right now because our table is staying! 😂
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Post by justthinking on Dec 17, 2020 21:26:53 GMT -5
Our kitchen table is 18 years and 4 kids old, so it could use a good sanding and refinishing! My favorite living room chair is about that age as well, and the springs and reclining mechanism are giving out, but I am so sentimentally attached to it (it used to hold me and all four of my kids at the same time for reading stories), I can't bring myself to part with it. We spent a fair bit on the chair, but at the time figured it was well made enough it would be worth it. I do think we got our money's worth out of it. It has been used hard.
Our other furniture ranges from the desk my father-in-law used as a boy to shelves dh built. I am partial to solid wood because of things such as the issue you noted with your particle board furniture.
One thing we have discovered is even the really nice furniture stores have a back room of odds and ends on clearance. We have found some really solid pieces there for a fraction of what they would have typically cost.
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Post by Eli on Dec 17, 2020 21:57:10 GMT -5
Our furniture is what we purchased when we moved into our first apartment in 2002. We bought a high end leather living room set and a high end bedroom set. The bedroom set has held up, but our living room set gets a lot of use. DH's seat on the couch is broke and with the cats wear and tear, it's time for us to start looking, but I don't even know what I want. And I am at the point where I want something I like regardless of price. I'm old and want to be comfortable in my home.
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Post by Mamapalooza on Dec 18, 2020 15:38:34 GMT -5
I don't own high end furniture, most of it is inherited from somewhere. The dining set was my grandparents then my cousins, from the 80s probably. The dressers came from a yard sale on our street when we moved. That sort of thing.
The last good couch I bought was in 1987 and it lasted for 25 years. Might have lasted longer if we hadn't moved so much. I replaced the seat cushions once but the rest was solid as an ox.
My parents owned a lot of antiques when I was growing up. They paid $2k for their mahogany dining set in 1977, and it was an antique by then. That thing had 4 leaves, sat 14 or 16 people and was a conversation piece. Beautiful, but not something I'd ever buy myself.
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Post by villanelle on Dec 18, 2020 15:55:25 GMT -5
I don't own high end furniture, most of it is inherited from somewhere. The dining set was my grandparents then my cousins, from the 80s probably. The dressers came from a yard sale on our street when we moved. That sort of thing. The last good couch I bought was in 1987 and it lasted for 25 years. Might have lasted longer if we hadn't moved so much. I replaced the seat cushions once but the rest was solid as an ox. My parents owned a lot of antiques when I was growing up. They paid $2k for their mahogany dining set in 1977, and it was an antique by then. That thing had 4 leaves, sat 14 or 16 people and was a conversation piece. Beautiful, but not something I'd ever buy myself. That's actually likely to be better quality than a lot of furniture available today, even more expsnsive stuff. When I was shopping for bedroom furniture, I wanted solid wood so that and scratched or dents could be sanded and/or stained. It was difficult to find, and most of what I was able to find was extremely expensive and/or not at all my taste. The set we got rid of, gifted from my parents who bought it probably in the 80s, was solid oak. My parents always spent pretty modestly, so while I doubt it was super low-end and cheap, I'm sure it wasn't super spendy, either. I couldn't (or wouldn't) afford a comparable set now. EVERYTHING is laminate. Some have thicker laminate that is nicer looking and nicer quality, but solid wood hardly exists.
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