[pbronez]

Ugh garbage furniture is so annoying.

My partner and I needed a couch and narrowed it down to IKEA, West Elm, and American Leather. We decided that we owned too much IKEA already, so skipped that. We liked the American Leather but it cost 2-3x the West Elm and we doubted it would last twice as long. So we bought the West Elm.

It’s been terrible. It was defective from the start. They sent someone out to fix one problem, and that kinda worked. Another problem popped up and they paid us to just void the warranty and keep the couch. I’m so annoyed. I just wanted a comfortable, durable couch.

I keep thinking we should have sprung for the American Leather one… but just a couple years later we’re changing things up and need a different sized couch. If we got the expensive nice one we’d be screwed because who’s gonna buy that off you.

So it seems that once again I screwed up by not buying IKEA. Higher end IKEA stuff has a great price/quality point. Apparently you have to spend 5x as much to get meaningfully better quality from somewhere else.

[ClumsyPilot]

'So it seems that once again I screwed up by not buying IKEA. Higher end IKEA stuff has a great price/quality point.'

IKEA does state materials, and some of their more expensive items are made of real wood - so at least choosing simple items like a desk is quite straight forward

[Seabiscuit]

You are not alone in your struggle with West Elm quality. This blog post describes the 'Peggy truther' community (of people surprised and upset with their Peggy couch): https://www.theawl.com/2017/02/why-does-this-one-couch-from-...

[lgabraham]

Oh my. Furniture does seem to elicit strong feelings. The moment someone decides their home is worth more investment than they have ever invested before is a special moment, indeed.

[somberi]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/style/ikea-cabinet-hack-r...

[lgabraham]

Yes, even deciding on preferences, including time horizon, is difficult in the first place. I think rental models like Pabio (YC S21) will catch on for the optionality they provide.

I do agree that IKEA, which is vertically-integrated at scale, offers very compelling price-per-quality.

[Aeolun]

IKEA is a great trusted brand for cheap stuff.