New furniture.. facepunch needed?

[gorion83]

Hello everyone.

We recently bought a new house and now we are furnishing the rooms.

Looking for the bedroom I came across an offer for a full room at around €1600.
I have some problems in assessing the quality of the furniture (I can't find any review online, just some comments which say "better than Ikea, but not very good") and I'm not really satisfied with the design of the closet.


We are looking for other brands which sells more solid furniture (double thickness compared to this one, better mechanisms, better materials compared to MDF) but they come 2x or 3x the price.


Our idea would be to buy something which can last for the next 30-40 years.

Are we needing a facepunch?

[lthenderson]

In my experience, the best way to shop for wood furniture that is solid quality stuff is to shop in person. Unfortunately, consumer demand for cheap goods have forced most wood furniture manufacturers to use particle boards/veneer and soft woods for much of their furniture. Where I live, it is impossible to find quality wood furniture in large retail stores. I have gone the route of making it myself or if complex, buying it from small private companies that still make everything from solid hardwoods.

[Lanthiriel]

As someone who just sold all of her particle board before moving, I feel for you trying to find quality replacement furniture. I've been trying to replace all of my college IKEA furniture with real wood (largely using Craigslist), and it's been rough going. We gave in and bought a cheap entertainment center for my husband's game room, but I refuse to give in and buy similar for the living room. I'm looking at using an oak mid-century modern lowboy dresser because my other option appears to be a $500 custom job.

Sorry for the rant. Long story short, I agree with lthenderson. I'd try to make this purchase in person or you might be sorely disappointed.

[awilbur27]

Auctions & Craigslist. You will save yourself a pile of money by buying really good, solidly build wooden furniture from the early 1900s for next to nothing and refinishing it yourself.  My side hustle is refinishing furniture and it ridiculously easy.  I can usually score antique 3 drawer dressers and hutches at auctions for between $30-50. It's also a little bit of a rush to bid on things!  An orbital sander, paint/stain remover, stains, paints, hardware, etc is fairly inexpensive, and it's all you need to get started.  This is some of the before/after photos:

https://www.instagram.com/sheikofshabby/

Good luck!

[chemistk]

The design of that furniture looks nice now, but timeless? Maybe not so much (at least not for me). Do you see yourself still enjoying the minimalist looks decades from now? Also, those large pieces would probably make moving a royal PITA.

We recently had to refurnish 2/3 of our house after extensive water damage and the best option for us was to buy different pieces from different places and put them together cohesively. We bought furniture from garage sales and consignment stores and refinished it, we got some from IKEA (most of it isn't MDF - you can still find a good number of pieces that are real wood there! [Ektorp line is very reasonable and mostly real wood]). We got some from relatives, and maybe one or two pieces off Craigslist. In the end, we spent far less on furnishings than if we had just purchased full sets.

[Laura33]

Why do you need new furniture?  Presumably you lived somewhere else before and had furnishings?  Were they sufficient?  If the issue is just that you now have more space and so have some empty rooms to fill, that is a "want," not a "need," which mean you can take your time in finding the right piece for the right price.  [Note: you may actually have a need here.  But I have noticed a tendency in some people to believe that new house = new furniture to make it all pretty and perfect at once.  If that is what is driving you, challenge your assumptions about what you actually need.]

I would never buy new furniture online without inspecting it in person, especially if you are looking for higher-quality pieces.  There seems to be a significant split in furniture, between low-priced crap and high-priced decent stuff (if you are looking at something priced in-between, I would assume that it is simply crap with a higher price tag).  Your best source for reasonably-priced quality furniture is the used market -- estate sales in particular (many of the older generation bought high-quality furniture designed to last a lifetime, and now their heirs don't want it), but also garage sales, Craigslist, auctions, etc.

Or if you need something now, just go to Ikea and get something cheap.  Your pictures are basically wall-to-wall wardrobes -- there's nothing special about that, they are simply utilitarian.  So buy something functional and be done with it.  Save your "fine furniture" budget for specific pieces that you will notice and love every day.