"... into a space he’d so painstakingly restored. So he taught himself how to make furniture, and he and his girlfriend, Ashley Hauza, now have a home where he handcrafted nearly every stick of furniture from solid wood. There’s a western red cedar waterfall bench. There’s a white oak bed frame with a hand-cut bridle joint."
Is the NYT shaming the people who need or choose to buy inexpensive items for their home? After all, you could learn to "handcraft" your own furniture and spend oodles of time transforming "solid wood" into chunky items like that western red cedar waterfall bench. I suspect the wood alone would cost more than an equivalent bench from IKEA. The idea seems to be that cheaply bought stuff is readily thrown in the trash, whereas if you invest your time in crafting things or just spend a lot of money on expensive things, you'll be keeping them around, moving them arduously to your next apartment and the apartment after that.
I love the language "found he didn’t want to bring" — Greene found he didn’t want to bring mass-produced furniture into his special space. A lot of people "find they don't want to bring " insufficiently refined items into their house, but they accept the good-enough wares of IKEA and Wayfair.
I remember when simple, tasteful mass-produced consumer goods were celebrated. Here, because of the chance that they'll be thrown out, they are sneered at.
The article quotes a professor of industrial design for the proposition that IKEA and Wayfair furniture is "designed to last about five years." Do you find that to be true? I have IKEA shelves that seem like they'll hold together for 100 years. Is the idea that I'll grow tired of them more quickly?
The professor does say: "I relate to fast furniture like I do to fast food. It’s empty of culture, and it’s not carrying any history with it." Is that really about clogged landfills? Seems to me, fast food gets absorbed and processed the same way as fancy food.
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68 comments:
As ever, the strange mix of sanctimony and snobbery at the Times ...
There are actually people called 'craftsmen', many of whom work in the State of North Carolina. They spend their entire lives making furiture. Good, quality furniture. Various styles. And they've done it for decades. You do have choices other than IKEA or learning to make your own, especially when it comes to quality furniture.
The NYT is the perfect progressive vehicle as, for all its preening about social justice, most of the pages are really just a high-brow version of "lifestyles of the rich and famous." They want you to feel bad about yourself if you're not a millionaire taking expensive vacations to exotic locals. How dare you want to have a furnished house if you're not wealthy? The Times thrives on envy.
The mass-produced furniture that sold furiously during the pandemic could soon be clogging landfills" (NYT).
Landfill space is literally unlimited.
Is the NYT shaming the people who need or choose to buy inexpensive items for their home?
NYT is engaging in elite white privilege.
Again.
I 'handcraft' IKEA furniture myself. One flatpack at a time. One hex wrench at a time. I'm an IKEA artist.
Seriously, some of IKEA's solid wood products deliver the best quality/value on the market. One can't fake the properties of solid wood, and mass produced items are in many ways (quality | durability | function) equal to all custom furniture. Snob appeal? No.
Urban, high-income-reader publications ranging from NYT to the Financial Times have snobbery and spending components to their weekend editions. One rich person spends more each month on yacht fuel and heating swimming pools than it'd cost to buy 100 IKEA items. Carbon offsets are the Catholic paid indulgences of our era.
As often east coast NYT snobs are the market.
There’s a 100 year old, solid oak, table in my basement with Queen Anne cabriole legs that once upon a time would have been regarded as “mass produced furniture.”
Its actually pretty easy to pick up older, not mass produced furniture for reasonable prices. Most younger people don't want it and you can pick it up at estate and garage sales.
I’ve never been a huge fan of flat-pack furniture, but I have bought such items because of necessity and will not belittle people’s choices to do that. Sometimes it seems folks with limited funds need to have useful items to furnish their spaces and sometimes the cheaper options work for them. 62 years ago when my parents married, they had an expensive bedroom suit that is still in their house. But over time they upgraded the quality of things throughout the rest of the the house. Cheap couch to better couch to expensive couch, and I would guess that is how many people approach home furnishings. But Ma never got rid of the lamp daddy made in high school shop class. Just upgraded the bulbs. 😂
I don't even know how to describe the.....arrogance?.....of that piece.
>100 years ago, the vast majority of people lived in their parents homes or built/moved into homes down the street. They sourced large products, such as furniture, from a local manufacturer that produced either on-demand or small batches. That then became generational homes and furnishings for families and typically didn't move much. The supply/demand and quality balanced to the needs. Those supply/demand curves involved alot of waste (i.e. using huge amounts of large lumber) and could not flex to sudden demands quickly.
Modern society often involves much more frequent moving, re-locating, moving away from parental houses, etc.
Our society also does not have the time or resources to consistently make one-off pieces of furniture.
Enter in super thoughtful designers + manufacturers, such as Ikea.They serve a wonderful market need. They operate at extreme levels of efficiency for their resource demand. And they can flex up and down globally to demand and re-location needs.
Fun fact: I write this sitting at my $800 adjustable desk (Uplift 2), Herman Miller Chair, crate and barrel pull out sofa behind me, and cheap plastic pot filled with a simple plant next to me. There is a place for all types of products in this world, and snobbery towards one typically reflects a poorly thought out approach.
I'm actually thinking of making a bed for my wife and I, not because I have anything against "mass-produced" furniture, but because we can not find what we want.
Just not a fan of particle wood furniture.
Ikea spoons work just fine.
We just did the whole 'get rid of furniture and move' thing. This is on top of helping my elderly parents downsize and move. There is a LOT of furniture out there people don't want - so much that we have to pay people to cart it away. I would argue that if you are willing to hunt a bit, you can get quality items that won't get tossed on the landfill via Craigslist, Goodwill or local antique stores.
The NY Times people think they are elite and above having mass-produced items. So it is clear they are virtue signaling their superiority in this article. However, I have read about many Ikea items being poorly constructed, but they serve a purpose for those who do not have large sums of money thrown at them like the elites do. Thanks for sharing your synopsis of the NYT article.
On the sustainability matter, this has been a trendy focus by people who have no clue about true sustainability. What would they do if they didn't get the latest iPhone? The horror!
I've seen lots of really finely-made wood furniture crafted by very skilled hobbyist or independent pro woodworkers. Lovely wood, excellent joinery, exquisite finishing. Just great stuff. But even with that, it can seldom escape that "I made this in my home workshop from a 'Fine Woodworking' pattern" look to it. And thus I've never been tempted to buy a piece of it for my home.
I suspect the wood alone would cost more than an equivalent bench from IKEA.
You suspect right. The price of good, quality wood is astounding, especially if you are doing it yourself and not in the business.
Acting on a preference is not snobbery, it's the exercise of free choice, even if you sweat while doing it. But doing it with your nose in the air, is snobbery.
"Is the NYT shaming the people who need or choose to buy inexpensive items for their home?"
True. But you are not surprised, are you, that progs dislike actual poor people, and of course the petty bourgeoise, and their deplorable taste.
I've built a number of furniture pieces and still choose IKEA for some situations. We've bought a couple of 6 drawer IKEA dressers to equip our children's rooms. These are now selling for $200. I estimate that it would take me 100 hours and $500 in materials to build something equivalent.
I choose to build rather than source, only when it's rally worth it: So, some combination of, easy to build, the piece needs to be a specific and unusual size, or the item is intended to be a show-piece.
The "professor of industrial design" in his classroom probably dry humps the the post war plastic - Formica - chrome garbage we boomer had to endure.
With exception of an Ekornes Stressless Recliner that I treated myself to over 20 years ago, all of my furniture is from Ikea. The bed and mattress are still just as comfortable as they were 20 years ago (though I have shifted the over mattress a couple of times), the desk and bookcase just as solid and the sofa still serviceable after changing the outer fabric. The only thing that I have thrown out from Ikea are their really cheap items, like stools and the Lack Tables that only cost me $5 on sale.
I don't think the price of furniture has so mush to say with how long you keep it. There are plenty of people who need to change their furniture and the interior of their homes every 5-10 years, regardless of the cost of their old furniture. And their are some people who will keep their furniture until they move or die, regardless of how much money they have.
That's the thing. To acquire skills takes time and desire. Most people don't have the desire or the skills. Most people with the skill are happy to impart their knowledge. Most people are incurious.
"To assemble Japanese bicycle requires great peace of mind" Persig.
Isn't making your own furniture somewhat ableist?
Hope they enjoyed the process of making the things that surround them. Not an option for most. We're in the process of having kids move out on their own and have lots of surplus furniture from the years stored in the basement. The kids don't want it. We've been giving it to St Vincent dePaul or Habitat for Humanity retail outlets. Someday these clunky items so carefully handcrafted as described in the NYT will go there too!
From an ecological standpoint--all the carbon in the IKEA particle board will be more-or-less permanently entombed, if it ends up in a landfill.
As a wannabe cabinet maker, I can attest that this article is just another monies elite self congratulatory snobbery fest. Furniture grade wood is still very expensive even though it down a little from its peak during the Covid years. That is when he was crafting his furniture if he has a home furnished with it now. To build with "solid wood" in contrast to furniture grade plywood, which is itself very expensive and is used by excellent craftsmen (see multiple You tubers) is pretentious crap. And you don't build it with a hammer and saw. Precision power tools cost hundreds to thousands and take up a ton of space. Think table saw, out feed tables, reciprocating miter saws, bandsaws, perhaps a lathe for those special design touches, biscuit joiners, edge jointers, drill presses, routers, surface planers and sanders, as well as electric hand tools that perform similar functions for special purposes. And the true outrage is that real carpenters who make fine furniture for NYT readers are likely to be the kind of person who wouldn't even think about reading the NYT. I got into breeding and displaying fancy finches and designed and built a huge furniture grade display cage for them. Seven foot high, four feet wide and two foot deep. The lumber and hardware cost over $700 and that was almost 15 years. A 4×8 sheet of good, not great, oak plywood costs close to $100 today at the big box stores. I know because I am building a 6'x38"x14" counter for my kitchen and the price went from $89 one day to $96 the next. Also BTW, solid wood warps and expands/contracts with humidity in ways that are difficult to deal with during design and construction. So, yes, this article is elitist BS.
As an engineer I admire the intelligent design and value (function per unit cost) that IKEA represents. I have an IKEA bookcase in my office that’s been holding up several 100 lbs of books for more than 30 years.
When our first daughter was born I crafted a cradle for her that still stands in a place of honor in our home. When our first grandchild was born we went to IKEA and bought one for about $100. She slept her first nap here in the one I made. After that it was the IKEA crib.
Our local sports talk radio station was purchased last year by Audacity. From what I understand, it’s owned and run by a bunch of hard core Lefties. They run a spot late at night when they have no paying advertisers called What’s Your First Step? From what I understand it’s a pet project of the founder’s wife. It encourages us to take one simple step to save the planet.
One of the first spots I heard encouraged listeners to “make friends with your local beekeeper”. After grilling him/her/they about their humane and climate friendly beekeeping practices, (whatever they are) you were encouraged to award them you business.
Every spot since has been similarly elitist, silly and pointless.
Lefties.
Sheesh.
The masses no longer like “brown furniture” thus depressing the prices of fine pieces. Side boards a thing of the past.
Like most American industries, the NC and VA furniture factories closed down in the 1990s. The cherry, oak, ash and other hardwoods that grew in those areas were cut and shipped to China where the American wood was factory made into ugly rectangular big pieces and shipped back under the old brand names. That went for the custom made pieces too. A European / American art form was exterminated by an International investor’s race to abuse dirt cheap Chinese slave labor. The Bush family’s new world order required it.
"Is the NYT shaming the people who need or choose to buy inexpensive items for their home?"
Could it be they're just writing about a phenomenon that is occurring within a particular (and tiny) cohort of American consumers...or just a few ambitious eccentrics like those featured in the story?
..."could soon be clogging landfills"
Oh noes we's out of holes!
MrEdd said exactly what I was thinking, about the tools needed and their costs.
This article is another example of trash written by ignoramuses who think that their degree makes them elite, all knowing, and all understanding
I once made the mistake of buying some expensive furniture. The problem is that you're stuck with it for life and after awhile you're weary of looking at it......The thousandth time you do something, you do it better than the first time. If you make your own furniture, there's a good chance that your first attempts are going to be clumsy and inept. If you have to throw out any of your these attempts, it's harmful to the environment and no one wants a splinter in their ass from some poorly fashioned cedar bench.
I don't know why we don't have more aluminum based furniture. I agree the old maple/shaker/brown furniture is sort of out of fashion.
And the plywood/particle board stuff is incredibly heavy.
As for ikea, like most places, they have tiers of furniture. The expensive stuff is basically the same stuff you can get anywhere else, except with nordic style. The cheap stuff is what the NYTs would want you to think about reading this.
Any 34 yr old who has time (and money) to refurb a house and build his own furniture has no children. We've been tricked by the misdirection of this article to scorn the wrong lifestyle choice.
What are they smoking? Yeah, pretty much everyone makes their own furniture these days.
"Clogging landfills". Sounds absolutely awful. There are forests like that, though, covered with wood from broken trees. Landfills can contain a lot of problematic things, but wood ain't it.
Fast food and fast furniture may not have any history, but fast food can make people passionate. Look up posts online about Wendy's Sriracha sauce or chicken fries or McDonald's McRib or Rick & Morty-inspired Szechuan sauce. Which is better, for one person to be deeply satisfied with a meal or a piece of furniture or for thousands (millions) of people to be moderately happy with their affordable furniture or fast food meal.
Nice thing is, we can have both.
You can buy high-quality hand-crafted furniture if you want it. There are thousands and thousands of such craftsmen doing this work in the US, and it will be much cheaper to buy such goods from them than learning to do it yourself. The motivation to learn and do it yourself isn't economical in that sense- you learn to do because you want to learn to do it, not because "saves the planet".
Stuff AWFLs like
My daughter's best friend -- the child of two well off professionals -- refuses to drive the new car they bought her when she turned 16 because of privilege and capitalism and stuff
She is not going so far as to give it to a struggling single mom who pulls her toddler and umbrella stroller onto the crosstown bus, though, is the thing
Wasting countless hours crafting your own furniture so you can whack off about how virtuous you are when you could be using that time to actually fucking help someone who needs a hand is the ultimate disgusting luxury belief
I loathe those people
What MrEdd said.
Over the years I've refinished doors, window and door frames, benches and some old furniture in our 95-year old home.
They've mostly come out very well.
BUT.....the equipment and skill needed is minimal. Not so with "start from scratch" projects to create tables, chairs and the like.
The fact is, very few people outside the carpentry business have the time, money and experience to craft fine furniture.
When I was in junior high shop class, the best I could turn out was a cribbage board.
At best I'm a "measure three times, cut twice" kinda guy.
I know my limitations.
If I tried using tools such as table saws I am convinced I would become a bilateral amputee within minutes, suitable only as "second base" in that old joke.
I don't know about anyone else, but I anxiously await the surely upcoming NYT article extolling the virtues of artisanal electricity production.
I would swear that a couple of years ago, at the height of supposed anti-boomer angst, we were informed how the zillenials have rejected the clunky heirloom furniture of yore.
You can tell a generation is starting to take a share of sociopolitical power when articles meant to flatter them stop punching up at their elders and start punching down at the poors.
Oy, what a pointless article.
Back when I lived in an apartment, finding IKEA was a dream come true. Cool looking furniture that was easy to get home. Particle board furniture often can't survive a move, but it was cheap enough that it didn't matter.
The article could have mentioned that any furniture with some utility left, often goes to Goodwill. NYT could have lobbied to get the Environmentalist of the Decade Award to the guy who started Craigslist. It's my understanding that young people don't want "brown furniture" anymore. That refers to older, vintage or antique furniture that is no longer considered stylish. I don't know if that trend is true because the article didn't address it.
I went to the NYT article to see Mr. Greene's furniture. That waterfall bench is shit. The Western red cedar was expensive, but he didn't do much more than cut miters, glue, sand and lay down some polyurethane. Don't wiggle when you sit on it, or those miter joints will pop. The rest of his furniture that we see, looks like it was bought from IKEA.
"Our local sports talk radio station was purchased last year by Audacity"
Correction: Audacy
"...hand-cut bridle joint." The term "hand-cut" is redundant IMO. Don't think I've ever seen a machine-cut bridle joint. It may be possible but unless you have 10s or 100s to cut, why bother?
“There are actually people called 'craftsmen', many of whom work in the State of North Carolina. They spend their entire lives making furiture. Good, quality furniture. Various styles. And they've done it for decades. You do have choices other than IKEA or learning to make your own, especially when it comes to quality furniture”
We have had really good luck with Amish built furniture. Probably PA area, but not sure. I inherited an oak table dating from the latter 19th Century. My partner can date it better. First we bought six chairs. Simple, solid, and heavy. Then a hutch/baker’s rack. All the metal, including the wine rack, looks like rustic iron, to match the table. Again, simple, and extraordinary sturdy. I am just not used to chairs that you lean back in, and they don’t flex, creak, or anything.
Nice furniture is a luxury. I’ve had Nokia before, and was happy with it. I have had lower quality stuff too. My partner preferred shopping a lot of antique stores. We have a couple rooms with mostly antiques. But I am not allowed much time in them, lest I break something, which means that the room is a waste. Looks good, but are used a couple days a year for guests. We can now afford to have quality furniture built for us, and do. But we are very lucky. My guess is that a lot of Nokia is going to be bought over the next couple years, until we can get the Dems out of running the government, and the economy growing again.
“There are actually people called 'craftsmen', many of whom work in the State of North Carolina. They spend their entire lives making furiture. Good, quality furniture. Various styles. And they've done it for decades. You do have choices other than IKEA or learning to make your own, especially when it comes to quality furniture”
Let me add that you don’t learn to build really high quality furniture in 10 years. It takes generations.
Also, got hundreds of hours to spend "crafting furniture" and you're living with your "girlfriend" at 34.
Grow your ass up, Doug. Be a man. Not a boy. Get married; make a family. Spend your time wisely.
I've found that if you take the time and carefully assemble iKEA or other quality flat-pack furniture they will last and are quite sturdy.
I’m all for quality craft wood furniture! Let’s chop down some forest and make carpentry great again. I hear that cry from the NYT, “cut down the trees!” What say you, LA Times?
Mark doesn't like people who earn their read with their hands.
Alanc709
Lol. It sure is. But all skills can be learned by just about anybody. All it takes is time. All endeavors of this kind are first intellectual. It is the kind that lifts something that is merely craftsmanship into art.
IKEA furniture doesn't get a chance to "clog the landfill" in my neighbourhood. People shift the unwanted stuff to the curb, and it's gone to a new home before the end of the day.
I myself have a 4x4 Kallax, a couple of computer desks and several Billy bookshelves I've acquired from the folks on my street over the years. Durable? They'll outlive me, that's for sure. Attractive? The Billy and Kallax cases have actual birch veneer, looks great. The white melamine stuff is ugly but you don't have to settle for that.
I just can't see spending 800 bucks and two months of my life learning how to build sturdy vinyl record shelving from scratch, when I can pick it up for free off the sidewalk, or for 20 or 30 bucks from the thrift shop.
But, you know, find your bliss. I mean, the Philly couple going the "hand-crafted" route are fine; my uncle was the same way. (He was also a professional cabinet maker.) It's the sneery snobbery and slander of the article writer that grates.
"The fact is, very few people outside the carpentry business have the time, money and experience to craft fine furniture."
Carpenters don't build furniture, they build houses. Not to say they can't, but that makes them woodworkers too. Almost all of my furniture in my home (and in my late home before it burned down) I built myself. Most Shaker and Arts & Craft style. It isn't really that hard. I consider myself a hobbyist. The time? Less than golf. Money, less than golf. Experience, well that comes with time. Quicker than you think. Most of it came through reading.
Fast Furniture' Is Cheap. And Americans Are Throwing It in the Trash. The mass-produced furniture that sold furiously during the pandemic could soon be clogging landfills.
Clogging? I think not. The wood in a well managed modern landfill will quietly decompose ... just like an unfortunate tree in the forest felled by the wind, lightning or old age.
When DH and I moved from Boston to SF, we gave away/sold a lot of our furniture/housewares, on the assumption that none of it would likely work in the new space. Typical SF houses are on the smallish side, particularly on the West Side where you're most apt to see Doelger-designed row houses block after block to infinity. https://outsidelands.org/doelger-types.php
We did keep a few good things: A 70s era Scandinavian Designs teak dining room set, given to us by my MIL before we were married, and a Birdseye maple wardrobe bought when we got married. We have items from Pier One, Cost Plus/World Market and even secondhand shops. We've been looking for a good knock-off Mid-Century Modern style accent chair and have found some good potentials on Craigslist. If the price is right and it's in decent enough shape, it will work.
My parents have a house full of 'country style' oak and maple furniture they bought at flea markets and barn sales and refinished themselves. It's all lovely and neither my sister nor I want it. Turned spindle oak chairs and fussy farmhouse tables are not our style. When the time comes, the first call will be to a local dealer to come in and offer for the lot.
I would argue that if you are willing to hunt a bit, you can get quality items that won't get tossed on the landfill via Craigslist, Goodwill or local antique stores.
Yep. Whenever we need something, the first places I look are CL and Marketplace.
Can easily find things nearly brand new for 35 cents on the dollar.
Germany imports American wood to burn in power plants. We could ship the old Ikea products back to Europe to help with their energy shortage. And plastic, too. Its just high molecular weight gasoline. This stuff is too valuable to be put in a landfill.
What traditionalguy said @11:02. CNC centers produce most of the really fine furniture, craftsmen, not so much. Those CNC machines are not in this hemisphere. Haven't been for several decades. Guangdong China jobbers wasted decades trying to grt their shit straight. Their finishes flaked and orange peeled, nearly ruining products for the first decade of production. A lot of beautiful veneers lost to history. Check out the dumpster at any furniture warehouse.
Landfills' decomposition of produnct is not real. Most of the landfills turned under daily by massive Caterpillar machines. Thus the process is predominately anerobic, especially below frost lines.
200 years ago in Philadelphia the furniture style would have been Chippendale or a mix of Chippendale with Queen Anne. Probably inlaid. Probably dark wood. Maybe tiger maple but probably not oak. Lots of furniture stores sell furniture like that.
I added a deck to the back of my home (easy), built a large storage shed (easy), put in a wood fence (easy), remodeled my kitchen and washroom (easy, but dirty) and I built a couple of chairs (very hard). The chairs were so much more difficult than everything else. Furniture making is an art form and requires a boatload of tools. I do not recommend, you'll hate it.
Amexpat said, “ There are plenty of people who need to change their furniture and the interior of their homes every 5-10 years, regardless of the cost of their old furniture. And their are some people who will keep their furniture until they move or die, regardless of how much money they have.”
You are exactly right. I remember that Lucy Ricardo went through three sets of living room furniture in five years back in the 1950s.
If being rich doesn't at least garner for you the right to look down your nose at others, what good is it, really?
Think table saw, out feed tables, reciprocating miter saws, bandsaws, perhaps a lathe for those special design touches, biscuit joiners, edge jointers, drill presses, routers, surface planers and sanders, as well as electric hand tools that perform similar functions for special purposes.
Am I the only one who got aroused by this sentence?
We bought cargo furniture 35 years ago. It still works just fine. Eventually landfilled furniture will turn into CO2 and CH4.
Too funny Mongo! And was seemingly always looking for money to buy a dress or whatever else, but damn sure that furniture was replaced. She’d have loved Ikea.
I have a garage full of power tools for woodworking. I am pretty meticulous, measure thrice/cut once and can produce a finish that is smooth as glass.
Currently in my garage are a rotting Adirondack, chair, a 10’ table and 10 chairs, 2 40” pine rounds and 3 8x30x2 pine slabs and probably some other projects I’ve lost amid the chaos or forgotten about. And frames for my enlarged photos and my wife’s painting in various staged of completion.
There are some shelves and tables on odds and ends throughout my house I’ve made over the years. Also a fully restored outdoor swing on porch. They hold up well.
I’d say the highlight of all my creations was the Pine Wood Derby car I created for my then Cub Scout son who took first place several years back (chop saw, router, band saw, belt and orbital sander, dremel)
My wife sort of humors me by letting me put stuff in the house but she knows, as well as I, that if she really needs something she is better off hitting Ikea for utility or one of the higher end stores for looks and luxe.
Woodworking is therapeutic and satisfying and maybe a retirement side job 10 years from now but challenging to do right and not something that delivers immediate results.
I’m all in for Ikea…
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