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WSJ: Sofas made much worse now
Posted on 4/22/24 at 8:29 am
Posted on 4/22/24 at 8:29 am
If your brand new couch is falling apart, it's not your imagination. The Wall Street Journal reported:
So you want to buy a couch. What should you do?
WSJ article. No paywall. Has a couple of nice diagrams of good and bad couches.
quote:
The lifespan of your new sofa may be much shorter than you expect.
Instead of once-a-decade purchases, furniture makers and restorers say, couches are becoming more like fast fashion—produced with cheaper materials, prone to trends and headed to the landfill after just a few years. High-quality sofas still exist, pros say, but they are harder to find. Mass-market options, even those that cost over $3,000, are increasingly made with less sturdy materials and construction methods. ...
Consumers are complaining that their new couch’s cushions are lumpier, springs squeakier and frames flimsier than those of the well-loved models they replaced. ....
Melissa Newell and Jennie Fisher spent $1,945 on an Eddy reversible sectional from West Elm in 2021 to upgrade their work-from-home setup, since Fisher often works from the couch.
“It is coming apart at the seams,” says Newell, a 54-year-old nurse anesthetist in Birmingham, Ala. Photos reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show misaligned edges with staples poking out, dented back cushions and pilled fabric. ...
A West Elm spokeswoman said, “We are proud of the product that we offer, and we have seen consistent improvement in customer metrics including a decline in returns and damages.”... (Ah, metrics, the bean counters favorite word. Customer experiences may suck but as long as you meet those metrics, it's OK).
It has become kind of the Wild West,” says Adam Rogers, an independent furniture designer in Portland, Maine. “People have to choose between the right aesthetic, quality and price. If they want all three, good luck.” ...
So you want to buy a couch. What should you do?
quote:
When it comes to leather, consumers often don’t know what they’re buying, says Boyer, who is based in Frisco, Texas. The “genuine leather” touted on many mass-produced options isn’t a single skin, but a slurry of ground-up slaughterhouse scraps held together with binders and glues, he says.
Genuine leather is the furniture equivalent of cheap cashmere, pros say. Buyers should look instead for top grain cowhide, which may darken from skin oils over time but won’t flake and fall apart.
One big advantage of older sofas is their hardwood or plywood frames, says Andy Buck, a professor of furniture design at Rochester Institute of Technology. Many newer sofas use particleboard or medium-density fiberboard, which Buck describes as compressed wood chips mixed with glue.
“It doesn’t hold a screw and over time it’s very difficult to repair, especially if it gets wet,” Buck says.
The easiest way to suss out your sofa’s skeleton, he advises: Look underneath. You should be able to see if the wood pieces are interconnected with one another in what is known as mortise and tenon joinery. With more brittle couches, those connections are made with an external bracket. Wiggling the arms and backrest is also a helpful test of their stability.
Boyer says he is getting more calls to fix snapped sofas, especially when the piece has an extendible foot or backrest. “It was a rare thing before, but we are seeing that happen even with some of the upper-end of furniture producers, where people are paying $5,000 or $6,000 for a sofa,” he says.
Low-density foam is one of Boyer’s biggest pet peeves. Fifteen years ago, cushions tended to retain their shape and comfort for a decade, he says. Now, homeowners ask him for help swapping out the innards in as few as three years.
WSJ article. No paywall. Has a couple of nice diagrams of good and bad couches.
Posted on 4/22/24 at 8:33 am to prplhze2000
Also doesn’t help the average person is probably like 250lbs now
Posted on 4/22/24 at 8:35 am to prplhze2000
Speaking of…. Best solutions for the foam issue? Any best site or local source (New Orleans) for new foam filling? Actual sofa is holding up ok to decent but the cushions are getting pretty pancaked.
Posted on 4/22/24 at 8:35 am to prplhze2000
quote:
Melissa Newell and Jennie Fisher spent $1,945 on an Eddy reversible sectional from West Elm in 2021 to upgrade their work-from-home setup
Of course they use a lesbian couple as their example
Posted on 4/22/24 at 8:35 am to prplhze2000
quote:Just like everything else post-9/11. Corporations cut costs to get more money to shareholders. Everything is made with shite quality with cheap materials in Mexico and Asia now. Thanks Nafta.
Instead of once-a-decade purchases, furniture makers and restorers say, couches are becoming more like fast fashion—produced with cheaper materials, prone to trends and headed to the landfill after just a few years.
Posted on 4/22/24 at 8:35 am to NoSaint
quote:
Best solutions for the foam issue?
Lose weight fatty
Posted on 4/22/24 at 8:37 am to prplhze2000
I paid 1,100 for one about a year ago understanding it'll last 4 or 5 years, but we are doing a lot to the house in those 4 to 5 years so it was worth it. It's not junk, but it's not the best either.
People that buy nice furniture and don't look underneath to confirm it's actual wood are insane to me.
People that buy nice furniture and don't look underneath to confirm it's actual wood are insane to me.
Posted on 4/22/24 at 8:38 am to Cosmo
I've bought some furniture made by a Texarkana company, Mayo. It was pretty well made.
Posted on 4/22/24 at 8:40 am to SWCBonfire
Furniture quality is dogshit now.
Posted on 4/22/24 at 8:41 am to SWCBonfire
Hmm.... didn't use to. Sorry.
Only thing I left out was personal experiences by customers. The actual info is posted above.
Only thing I left out was personal experiences by customers. The actual info is posted above.
Posted on 4/22/24 at 8:41 am to prplhze2000
We live in a disposable world now. Everything is cheap shite.
Posted on 4/22/24 at 8:42 am to fallguy_1978
quote:Yep.
Everything is cheap shite.
Everything is designed to fail.
Posted on 4/22/24 at 8:42 am to fallguy_1978
Furniture and appliances having to constantly be replaced is ridiculous though.
Posted on 4/22/24 at 8:42 am to Horsemeat
quote:
Everything is made with shite quality with cheap materials in Mexico and Asia now.
It's even worse than that. A shite ton of furniture is made in Mississippi.
Posted on 4/22/24 at 8:43 am to madamsquirrel
quote:They are purposely designed to fall apart after a period of use.
Furniture and appliances having to constantly be replaced is ridiculous though.
Why sell something you never need to replace?
Posted on 4/22/24 at 8:43 am to prplhze2000
This makes me feel great about picking out a new sofa this upcoming weekend along with a new bedroom set and mattress.
Posted on 4/22/24 at 8:45 am to Scruffy
Nothing lasts forever but $3k refrigerators and sofas not lasting but a couple of years is excessive.
Posted on 4/22/24 at 8:50 am to madamsquirrel
quote:
Nothing lasts forever but $3k refrigerators and sofas not lasting but a couple of years is excessive.
I've replaced every appliance in our house in the 10.5 years we've been here and some of them need to be replaced again
Posted on 4/22/24 at 8:52 am to madamsquirrel
quote:The expectation for most appliances is that they would last ~10 years. That is clearly no longer the case.
Nothing lasts forever but $3k refrigerators and sofas not lasting but a couple of years is excessive.
The design has shifted to cheap parts, plastic used instead of metal, the addition of tech that isn’t needed (my washer doesn’t need Bluetooth and my refrigerator doesn’t need a tv screen), etc.
On top of that, repair is almost always insanely expensive, making “buying new” the more economical option.
Why would any company want to make something that last forever? You immediately lose a customer in that situation.
Why make something where you get a repeat customer every 10 years, when you could get a repeat customer every 5?
This post was edited on 4/22/24 at 8:54 am
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