apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I am a second-hand buyer... nothing is more fun, and rewarding, to me than finding an antique and restoring it. I think those pieces have infinite more character than anything at Pottery Barn, including the ones with the fake distressing on them.

There's no hatred in my relationship with IKEA, except maybe the jerks who can't pay attention to the arrows on the floor and have 5395893 people in their group. As far as the quality of the products goes, you just have to know what to buy there. This book reminds me of the junk that was shoved down my throat freshman year of college.

I'm glad someone else heard this! I got to listen to part of it on my way home from work today. Can't wait to hear what other people think.

Ugh. Not this debate again!

I prefer to buy older secondhand furniture as I feel it is generally better quality and will last longer and if the item needs some restoration I dont mind paying a bit extra to have a professional restore it, if I can't so it myself. I also like the idea of supporting some of my local craftpersons.
A friend of mine recently moved house after purchasing all modern mass produced furniture and some of it fell apart in the move, even without any rough handling.

The world cannot continue to consume as it has in the past and these issues are going to be some of the greatest challenges we face for a sustainable future.

I look at the “scavenger finds” on here with envy. I live in a traditionally poor area of the deep south (ok, for only two more days…) and finding older pieces of good quality (regardless of style and/or era) is a rarity. Making the stop at a mass merchant (yes, Ikea) is a must when we are anywhere near civilization.

Just because someone's thesis doesn't taste good, doesn't make it junk! I think all the points Shell made are completely valid, and have been backed by research from other people besides herself. It's very hard to ignore the detrimental effects our cheap goods can have on other societies and the environment, and while Ikea does have a (seemingly) great and thorough policy towards foreign labor and other issues, how can we know how valid it is? Firsthand is sometimes necessary, but secondhand is definitely better.

Me and my boyfriend recently purchased a house and we are having a competition in regards to our designated rooms. We are going to decorate them but the catch is you can't use anything from Ikea, Target, K-Mart, Walmart, etc etc. I think this works in my favor well because basically he goes to Ikea and decks out a room right out of the catalog. Which drives me insaneeeeeee. The only other restriction is we have to stay with in a certain budget, which includes materials and tools or the process of restoration of furniture. I think there comes a point when you need to fill in the gaps you should go to big box store but I feel sometimes people go overboard and should develop their own taste and make the space theirs even if it doesn't look like it belongs in a magazine photo op.

Honestly I love Ikea but target...eh. I've shopped here for a whileeeee. Yea sure everyone might have the same exact thing you do but everyone has different style/taste. They're things aren't always 150% great quality but whenever I go to other furniture stores such as Crate & Barrel, Pottery Barn, BoConcept etc... I don't always find great quality items there either. Ikea is a great store for basic stuff but I wouldn't buy the entire catalog a few things are good there and last long for a great deal. You just really need to shop around before you make a commitment to big pieces of furniture that you use everything and sometimes you'll find a good deal or a really expensive deal or you'll even end up getting things custom made.

the bottom line is: shop around, think about it, imagine it in your home and finally if you really think it's great get it but if you feel even a little ify then wait it out and do the process again until you find the right one!

How interesting to see someone who has so recently validated my exact viewpoint...

...unfortunately, it seems that the folks who will be purchasing her book are the ones who already have an understanding and acceptance of her ideas. The one's who really need to read it will consider it something along the lines of "the junk that was shoved down my throat freshman year of college".

I completely agree about the increasing rarity of middle of the road priced/quality items. I really don't know where to find that any more. It makes me think of the furniture my parents bought when I was growing up: it wasn't flashy, designer name, trendy furniture, but it was beautiful, very well-made furniture that has lasted 15 years and is still going strong (it was by no means inexpensive, but was a fair and honest price for the quality, not just a bunch of hype and status symbols). I wouldn't know where to find that anymore.

Also, a sidenote: it really annoys me when people aren't willing to restore a secondhand couch for a few hundred dollars at most but will drop that much without a thought for an ikea (or equivalent) couch-- the secondhand one will look better and last longer, but because it's not *new* it just can't be as good...

Bepsf I can assure you that if I read this book it wouldn't change who I am. Books like these rarely provide anything new and, in your own words, "the folks who will be purchasing her book are the ones who already have an understanding and acceptance of her ideas."

To put it another way, the book is useless. Junk, if you will.

Anyone who doesn't think this is a problem doesn't live near a Target. I can't even count how many times I've heard "I went in for diapers and ended up with two new outfits and a Michael Graves toaster" or "I can never spend less than $100 when I go there." Pottery Barn has contributed enormously to the "everything must be perfect in my home" culture. Yes, these retailers have their place, but I am sure a lot of what this author says is true. I'm glad I have a circuit of flea markets, antique malls, and Craigslist to turn to when I feel the need to add a little new life to my home.

There's an extra issue which hasn't been mentioned. If everyone is buying furniture from Target and IKEA, the pool of good quality second-hand furniture dries up pretty quickly. You can be as smug as you like about buying vintage, but after a generation or two the second-hand stores are filled with nothing but worn out Target and IKEA furniture. In order to have good quality second-hand stuff, someone somewhere needs to have bought it new. If no one does, it simply won't exist.

I find precisely this problem in my large, booming home city which was little more than a country town 50 years ago. The second-hand stores are not filled with 50 - 80 year old wooden furniture. They're filled with ten year old veneered chipboard furniture. Around here battered bentwood chairs and chipped art deco plywood tables that would be tipped into dumpsters in other places are sold for IKEA-equivalent prices... if you can find them. It's taken me years and hundreds of dollars to assemble a household that you could probably replicate in a week for free in New York.

Blandwagon, I completely understand. I also live in a young city with a major lack of flea markets and decent thrift stores. There are a few around, but the selection is hit and miss. I would love to challenge a secondhand-buying New Yorker to duplicate their look in my hometown. I'm not making excuses, but we don't all have access to the same resources.

http://www.swankydigs.blogspot.com/

i just recently viewed the film the story of stuff (annie leonard) and its really eye opening- same idea as this article. http://www.storyofstuff.com/

I prefer to buy older secondhand furniture as I feel it is generally better quality and will last longer and if the item needs some restoration I dont mind paying a bit extra to have a professional restore it, if I can't so it myself. I also like the idea of supporting some of my local craftpersons.
A friend of mine recently moved house after purchasing all modern mass produced furniture and some of it fell apart in the move, even without any rough handling.

Oh definitely. For the past year I've been trying to buy as many locally/American-made/fair trade things as possible. Sure, some things aren't possible, like electronics, but furniture is totally doable. Try to find local craftsmen or at least companies that make their items ethically. Or find vintage stuff. My local antique stores have pretty decent prices on their furniture. So look around. Don't go to the big box store and think you're going to get the best deal. It may look good on paper, but two years later, when your dining table has fallen apart, you may think otherwise, and will regret not buying that affordable 100-year-old piece that would last another century. At least.

Me and my boyfriend recently purchased a house and we are having a competition in regards to our designated rooms. We are going to decorate them but the catch is you can't use anything from Ikea, Target, K-Mart, Walmart, etc etc. I think this works in my favor well because basically he goes to Ikea and decks out a room right out of the catalog. Which drives me insaneeeeeee.

That's a great idea. It's way to easy to automatically go to the nearest big box store and get furniture, etc. It's reasonable to maybe do that for a college dorm room, when you're short on cash, but not in a place you intend on making your home. It's not just about getting something that ethically or locally or American-produced. It's also about making your place your own unique style by getting things from various sources—not just the IKEA or, heaven forbid—the Wal-Mart down the street.

I'm all for purchasing second hand, and believe that you can often find better quality items than if you just default to a big box store. That said, I think that stores like Ikea have a place, and what needs to change more than anything is the consumer mindset that it's fine to use mass produced furniture for a few months or a year, then toss it in the garbage once the school year, or whatever, is over. When I was a poor student, I bought an Ikea bookshelf and desk because it was what I could afford. And I had them for ten years because I didn't treat them like disposable pieces of crap. Rather, I treated them like I did the pricier pieces of furniture I eventually came to own - with care. And when I eventually did replace them, I gave them away for free on Craigslist so someone else got some use out of them, too. I guess the point is, this isn't an all or nothing issue. Few things are.

I'm thrilled you're discussing "CHEAP: THE HIGH COST OF DISCOUNT CULTURE" by Ellen Ruppel Shell, because in the most recent AT IKEA discussion, I raised it, and hoped that you would.

But I'll bring back some of the issues that I raised in my post that don't seem to be getting much airplay here:

- the use of child labour;

- like WAL MART, squeezing suppliers so hard that often times workers are not even paid the minimum wage

-being disingenuous about the significant deforestation their production causes.

IKEA is not the ethical company people are led to believe that it is -- that is just a clever illusion, the product of canny marketing.

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/surveys/discuss-are-you-generation-ikea-085923

That's just IKEA.

The other big box stores are not much better -- they steal designs and knock them off for cheap, guaranteeing they will need to be replaced, ensuring themselves continuing business...

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/best-of-three-white-linen-armchairs-089497

Everything is designed to feed a trend, guaranteeing that furniture and decor items will need to be replaced on a regular basis.

Europe is different. People tend not to have as much disposable income, and things tend to be more expensive (there really isn't the equivalent of say, a Pottery Barn or Crate & Barrel). People use items handed down through their family more often, or purchased from a brocante.

We live in government housing right now, and so there is a good amount of IKEA stuff in it. But the investigations I did into IKEA as a result of jacksonlalonde's post, and this book have convinced me -- no more. No more IKEA in our lives. We will try to find a way around it, around the EXPEDIT shelving, around the LACKE shelf, around the GULLIVER crib. No more relying on IKEA crutches.

I urge everyone to check out this brilliant little animated video:

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

I'm a huge fan of Ikea, and a huge fan or garage sales, and don't find it contradictory. I buy cheap stuff that won't last at Ikea: fun glasses for the summer, cheap wooden garden seats, 3 euros glass vases... that sort of stuff. Ikea's just the greatest when you want a light modern touch of design. When my husband and I went to Murano Italy, it took us two days to find a quality vase that wasn't screaming "my design hasn't changed since the 60's and it was hateful then". Quality modern decor is not that easy to find.

My "big" furnitures I buy either new, but not Ikea (like the bed), or second hand. I have a lot of hand-me-downs I love. The trouble is, older furnitures are... well, old-fashioned. They're very, very heavy on the eye, they take a huge amount of space in our tiny rooms, and they're consistant with the way I live and decorate. I mean, what am I supposed to do with a huge oak (aka: I won't paint it) buffet with a window display ? I hate displays and the wood is dark and heavy.

Style can be a problem with second hand furniture. It's not because it's good quality that it's beautiful. I think that's what this article lacks (didn't and won't read the book): the idea that cost and quality don't make style.

Plus, I'm so happy antiques are neglected in France nowadays: the'yre cheaper and I can afford some of them!

I wouldn't recommend Ikea for cheap furniture - that's for sure.

@mschatelaine: Don't make assumptions about it being better in Europe (I live in Holland) -- it sounds like you may never have been to a European IKEA on a Saturday afternoon. (Can you say crowd hell?) Yes, they are also big believers in cheap big-box retail, so-called lack of disposable income be damned. (Although I disagree with you about the lack of disposable income part.)

I've spent a lot of time buying second-hand, but with three children, I have to admit, I am tired of babysitting the antique art deco pieces we have. They were nearly as cheap to buy as something crappy at IKEA, but because they are old, a lot of delicate parts are coming off, becoming warped etc... and just try to have an antique table stand up to the barrage of small kids slamming into it. One of our lovely 1920s chairs is coming apart at the joints from too much use -- before that it was sitting in a collector's garage for years, so it was hardly used. Our IKEA chairs on the other hand have barely a dent. I love our old furniture, but I don't want to live in a museum and worry about destruction all the time.

For now, I will continue to use IKEA and a local version of Craigslist for some things. More antiques will just have to wait until the kids are older.

Some seem to be working under the assumption that everyone LIKES vintage. If you like what you find at your local thrift or antique store, great.

Not everyone feels that a mid-century sofa and an Eames chair (generalization, I know) constitutes that be all and end of interior design. But this subject fuels the flame of superiority for those who do...

It's definitely possible to find quality old furniture affordably. All of my chairs, for instance, are 100 years old or more, and none cost more than $50.

BUT it's probably impossible to assemble an entire household of vintage furniture in a short period of time. In my 20s, everything (except my mattress) was off the street or from Goodwill until I could upgrade to an antique. It takes patience to assemble a nice collection of vintage/antique furniture.

In the past few years (at least, until the economy collapsed), the concept of waiting and trading up was replaced by an insistence on magazine-worthy interiors RIGHT NOW. Thus the popularity of the design-conscious big boxes. Who wants to save for five years to buy a couch anymore, when you can get the knock-off for $300.

I'm a green designer; I love to re-use and repurpose things in my designs. But I do live in an area with fabulous re-sale resources: flea markets, thrift stores, architectural salvage, garage sales, Craigslist, estate sales, antique stores. So that makes it almost mandatory.

I also really like the "freshness at a great price point" that many really well made items from IKEA provide. For example, I have used the kayak-shaped dining table with great success and the excellent quality is there. See at: http://chicprovence.blogspot.com/2009/01/elegant-sustainable-pragmatic.html

I would carefully shop both IKEA and Target and get good strong quality stuff to mix in. I agree that if you care for it it can last for years.

I'm in agreement with the sentiment, but not necessarily sure that Ikea is the company upon which to heap all the blame. If anything, we'd want to be singling out places like Walmart. At least Ikea has a sustainable forests program, to the extent that those who wish to supply Ikea with wood for their products need to comply with quite stringent sustainability criteria (or they did a few years ago - my dad was in on one of their meetings with prospective companies). Walmart, on the other hand, doesn't give a damn what happens to the environment.

I'd also like to point out that no matter how virtuous any of us want to sound, the very fact that we visit this site - which is filled with mainly things to purchase new, and which celebrates consumption in many ways, and the very fact that we live in a capitalist society - which exists and thrives *only* through consumption, suggests that all of us are, to a certain extent, hypocritical.

If we're really not into buying, then AT wouldn't exist at all. We wouldn't be buying things to transform spaces, we wouldn't be looking for storage for all the magazines we buy, we wouldn't be judging our love of ikea against our love of any other store (that is somehow better because it's more expensive).

I tend to look at issues such as this from an environmental and business perspective. I also recently finished a thesis on mass retailers logistics practices. From these perspectives, Ikea and Walmart shine! Walmart's scorecard (when implemented) should be a practice adopted industry-wide.

I do prefer to wait for the most perfect piece, but at this point in time, when I need a place to eat dinner or a shelf to hold my sundries, I go to Ikea. In my area, when that item is replaced, and I put my interim furniture on the sidewalk, it is claimed in minutes. I suspect that unless you can afford to buy from a LOCAL craftsmen, then your environmental impact is far better from a mass retailer then taking delivery from the private freight carrier used by Crate and Barrel...and the furniture is only slightly better.

I guess I’m a bit of a prude, but I’m hung up on the fact that a discussion on the ‘ethics’ of shopping (and paying for) items from a big box store is being moderated by a website that had absolutely nothing to say about one of its contributors promoting stealing with a wink and a smile and calling it ‘borrowing.’

i am among those who may not learn anything new from this book, but still appreciate it...the inexpensive big-box stores are great for accent pieces, but, major furniture purchases that will stand the test of time? not so much. especially if you want REAL WOOD and not composites and particleboard with veneers.

i plan on purchasing "Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture" for my 16 year old cousin, who recently asked me to buy her a pink camouflage print ottoman from a cheap, big box store. i asked her if she's still going to love this print by the time she takes this thing off to college. her reply "psshhh, i'll just get a new one, they're like 20 bucks"...to my horror.

honestly, i don't see how going to big box stores is "easier" for some people than thrift stores. it takes me like an hour to just to buy some baskets at IKEA, because i'm sifting through those people who want the "ease" of shopping there. by the time i get to checkout, i'm ready to smash an EXPEDIT over someone's head.

I listened to the author the other day on NPR. She was talking about boots.

There should also be a book called "the ethics of manufacturing cheap" or the "the ethics of eating cheap" or more simply "the ethics of being American."

The ethical American book would include a basic history about the ideals of Capitalism. Then it would talk about the idea of "conscientious consumerism." I don't know if this a scholarly term or not. It's sort of what I think about every time I buy something. I think of questions like this;

-Do I need this?

-Can I buy a better version?

-Did whoever make this get whipped?

-Can I make this food from scratch instead?

-Do I need this much on my plate?

-Do I need to consume anything I can get from a drive-thru?

Some of these questions guide me to make conscientious purchases and some of the questions lead me to never purchase certain things. But to me, being American is being free to earn, free to choose and free to enjoy. It also means there are those who take advantage of these opportunities and have manipulated the system to make it seem as if we don't have a choice. The "unethical" choice becomes the only choice for many people and they have been convinced that they are making the right decision because the idea of a "conscientious" choice has been bred out of their decision making process.

I moved from Ohio to NYC and miss affordable thrift stores! I brought a lot of my secondhand furniture with me in the move, and have since been slowly collecting decent free-off-the-street and Craigslist finds. But it's not easy and it's definitely not fast. You want a chair to sit on, but don't have the time to visit countless flea markets or thrift shops (or blocks on trash night)? Go to Ikea, buy a couple chairs, wait for the day you can get rid of them or sell them to someone else.... Another thing about Ikea furniture in the city- if you're constantly moving, it's kind of nice to have a couch that can be taken apart easily. Until I find an apartment with staying power, I won't be purchasing an expensive couch, because I would hate to have to sell it at a reduced cost or leave it if it couldn't move with me. Sometimes, it just makes sense to go Ikea. Living in the city just makes furniture collecting harder.


http://www.tangiedecor.blogspot.com

@crispywaffle --

I live in Europe. Have seen IKEA parking lots across Europe, so I get that it is big (it originated in Europe after all).

I think it is you who are not as familiar with shopping in North America...

The big box phenomenon is different in each European country, and the Netherlands are more retailing-inclined than others (like Switzerland, say), but nothing, nothing compared to the States. There is a wide range of big box stores that just don't exist in Europe that do in the US.

@wc_canuck

That sustainable forests program IKEA touts is more clever PR then anything -- it has just 11 forestry monitors, while being the largest furniture company in the world (don't tell me they don't have the funds to do more!).

"As Mother Jones has reported, up to 25 percent of IKEA's furniture is made with wood culled from the vast forests of northern Russia—an area notorious for illegal logging—and milled in China. There's just too much to keep track of, as one monitor admits in a company report: "It's not possible to be everywhere all the time."

http://www.nps.gov/history/HPS/tps/online_ed.htm

Well, recent rulings about lead content, etc. have put another crimp in resale of household items. I don't love Ikea or Target, but selling well-designed items at a democratic price isn't a crime. Most readers and posters at AT are too young to remember the ugly crap that was available to consumers--you might think it's retro today, but lots of it was ugly even when new.

Attractive household items were for either the rich or those who lived in big cities. When you shopped from a Sears catalog, there wasn't a wide variety of choices--and what there was is what you can buy at Goodwill today. Formica topped coffee tables, anyone? Not everyone bought original Eames, as any dedicated thrifter can tell you.

I prefer to do my furniture shopping free of ethical restraints. Thank you for sharing.

My father made furniture... so i have an awesome collection of mahogany, cedar, oak, handmade classic style furniture in dark colors, (which i don't plan to get rid of ever). But since he passed away, i've been wondering WHERE am I going to find such wonderful furniture... for replacement and combining.

The relation price and quality is sooo rare to find. That means i'm forced to really go around everywhere to find what I can and have learned that, (as wise people do with clothes, matching designer with salvation army) you'll have to see through everything.

Matching low cost stuff with some high quality ones. Like most of us... can't afford to have custom made furniture and accesories. You go to Target or Ikea type stores and find pieces and stuff that are reasonably priced enough that you can take home and personalize, (breaking them down and rearranging them up as you like, or just reinterpreting their final purpose), without feeling guilty. Lighting, hardware, frames, shelves, textiles, etc. And then, with what you saved from that process, you can use to invest in finer pieces or art or accesories.

Truth is transport and communications have made it easier than ever to get finer things at cheaper prices. Silk, linen, accesories from exotic places are more accesible now... It's just about looking, reinterpreting and learning how to combine and customize mass produced with more selective pieces.

I won't let a piece of ikea furniture into my home...but for example kitchen and lighting are really decent and a great deal. Decoration accesories from other stores, the same. I don't want my livingroom to look like a catalog (or like the room of about 500 other people) but if you find basic pieces, you can really turn the into something else.

You really have to commit to get hands on, on this effort of finding or providing yourself with good price-quality, you could find a balance, but you have to work on it yourself.

If it wasn't for IKEA, our homes would look like a@@!

I can't speak for anyone but myself and my family - but we almost always buy secondhand. Not because it's trendy, or because it's the "environmentally responsible" thing to do - but because we're basically poor. Ikea gives people who otherwise would be stuck with Walmart furniture or hoping to find a great piece at the Salvation Army (which can sometimes be more expensive than Ikea) more choices. It also gives us the ability to find things that match and actually look good together.

I can fully understand the points of both the author and the commenters who dislike Ikea, Target, ect. for whatever reason - but it is not going to go anywhere. There will always be people who can't afford to buy lasting furniture, people who are too cheap too, or people who don't care where it came from or how it was made. I think that as long as there is no false advertising as to the quality of the furniture, then it's that person's own choice.

For me, when it comes down to a well built, long lasting, expensive sofa - or a mediocre sofa that looks just as nice but won't last - the extra money for bills and groceries wins every time.

I agree with the thesis of the book (it's been repeated ad nauseum by other critics of consumerist culture). But speaking at an individual level, ethical consumption isn't a viable option for many people, especially those in lower income brackets.

Blandwagon and Tara77 both pointed out something that I've argued in the past: quality second-hand can be hard to come by in certain areas of the country. I guess you can buy stuff on eBay but sellers tend to charge outrageous prices and shipping can cost more than the item itself. I try my best to be a responsible consumer, but honestly, I do not want to sleep on a mattress and 'furnish' my apartment with milk crates and bean bag chairs until I can save up enough to buy furniture that's decent quality and not from a mass market retailer (which, given my occupation, would probably be never). It is very easy to complain about Target, Walmart and IKEA if you can afford not to shop at any of those places.

Now, going back to the systemic level, yes, obviously we as a society should be more concerned about the ethics of consumerism. But sneering at those who are forced by circumstance to shop at big box stores (which I've seen on AT plenty of times) is definitely NOT constructive and only drives potential allies away from your cause.

yawn

I wholeheartedly agree that we all need to be conscious about our consumption for multiple reasons, and I do buy used, reclaimed and sustainable furniture/household items with that in mind. BUT the problem with discussions (and judgments) about ethical consumption is that, at some point, we're all willing to make tradeoffs somewhere.

We may buy well-made or second-hand furniture from responsible sources, but do we use cloth diapers instead of disposable?

Do we grow our own food, or buy only locally grown/raised?

Are we economical with food, or do we carry around a few extra pounds that we wish we could lose?

Do we really NEED to replace our couch/rug, or could we keep it for awhile longer and give some of that money to a charity?

Here's one - did we decide to have our own biological children, or did we adopt a child who already needed a home? That is an exaggeration, but something to think about.

I know I sound like a bit of a jerk, but my point is that probably none of us live with complete and total "responsibility." (I'm imagining there are few ascetics who frequent AT.) But just because someone has some furniture from IKEA doesn't mean they aren't socially responsible in many other ways.

That said, we all have to start somewhere, and we all have to do our part. How we fill our home may be a good place for some people, including myself, to start thinking about making changes.

I think we are in a transition period with regard to consumerism vs. environmentalism vs. the global economy. One missing factor that I think communities need to start addressing is recyclable furnishings that lucky New Yorkers claimas "street finds" but that most of us watch being left in landfills.

Our landfill used to have a recycling center. You could drop off things that had potential re-use, and others could take them. Scavengers who collected this stuff to sell would haver around, hassling donors, trying to take things that weren't being donated, and I guess Public Works got complaints so they discontinued the service. (I didn't mind that SOMEONE was getting some good from the stuff, but it WAS a zoo...)

But maybe towns could collect or accept donated "ok to use" or fixable furnishings, and have a shed someplace where people could pay a token fee for maintaining the service, and less stuff would become part of the waste stream.

I like contemporary clean lined styles, but Arts & Crafts and Asian furnishings are great too. There is very little of that floating around here. New England is big (including in stores) on early American traditional, so IKEA (and other box stores) sell things I like the look of. I try to choose the sturdy things, but unless I go custom, which would mean living with stacks of cardboard boxes for several years while I saved up, so I chose Billy's and I'm happy -- they will sit right where they are until I die, after which someone else can probably use them. (I take care of my stuff.)

I have been a religious flea market shopper since age 13, and I do get a lot of second-hand furniture, if it meets my design needs. I don't think people are obliged to live with things they dislike just to be green, but I do think being green is a serious consideration. (Ethical considerations eventually will need to impact EVERYTHING we do, even if you can skirt the issue now.) (And people who care about the planet and the other people on it would do well to know more about where their products come from...)

My bigger issue is with the "disposible" culture. My dental tech gave me some sample flossers that are little plastic frames holding an inch of floss. Use once, add to the landfill. This seems almost immoral to me. For large furniture items (trendy dorm room poufs?) it's a choice we can avoid. We can use recycled materials, we can get a filter and not use plastic bottles of water, when we DO use plastic bottles, we can at least recycle them... small steps in the right direction can eventually lead to meaningful changes.

if i buy a piece of furniture at ikea i first think how often i will have to move it. truth is you really can't be moving furniture from there much. i also shop thrift shops and i will be selling some furniture i find there and i restore. in other words to decorate a wall, ikea, for a good piece of furniture, thrift shops.

Agree with the yawn....

Sometimes comments make me cringe at the nose-in-the-air attitude of some. Why yes, if I could afford to spend every day shopping for the perfect piece, I would. But right now I need function, a place to hold my stereo, a place to sleep, etc.

And if you really think buying a $2000 table is more ethical than buying a $200 table, because of all the reasons mentioned above, you're forgetting the idea that actually spending that kind of money on such a "want" possession - that you could have gotten the same function for far cheaper and donated the savings to charity and fed more than a few starving children in Africa - is fraught with its own unethical undertones.

What I do look for is function of my pieces, and enough style. Is my modern/industrial/loft style that works in my modern industrial loft going to be the same style that works for me in 10 years? Maybe I'll own an old house, or have kids, or live in Thailand, or whatever affects my style choices. I think especially of my low-back West Elm couch - one of my favorite purchases ever (is that unethical? cheap? terrible? does everyone scoff at my choices?). It's fabulous now, with my style, in my place, but it's unique enough that it's not something I imagine my grandchildren sitting on (I'm in my 20's). So, it'll last me.

Oh, and there is no IKEA near me, and it sucks. What they do really well is build smaller-space items like shelves and bookcases and cabinets that will work with my particular space NOW, in the place that I'm renting, that aren't guaranteed to work with my space later. I long for an IKEA near me....

Zeebot, you took the yawn right out of my mouth.

I'm only shopping at IKEA until I have enough room for a table saw.

Love my Karlanda, love Ikea. Proud of my home.

I'm thankful for the fact that I have been able to find good secondhand furniture. None of my furniture has cost me over $200, yet I have an awesome dining set, solid and comfortable armchairs, a good bed, and the most amazing find yet, a four-seater midcentury sofa which I just finished recovering.

That said, I've had to be patient with furnishing my house. I was lucky in finding the couch, but it had awful nubby, dirty lime green upholstery and I had to wait until a university break to take the time to recover it. In the meantime, we used a single bed set up as a daybed. It wasn't perfect, and the niggling of it probably made me work harder at getting the couch done. But the want-everything-perfect-now, for me, seems like a symptom of the dysfunction of our time, and the argument that poor people can't afford to shop elsewhere seems like making excuses to me. We were poor growing up and my dad really instilled in me the benefits of thrifting and making do.

(Just as an aside, I put up the bed for free on a local forum and it was claimed within hours - the girl was going into her first flat and seemed amazed I was just giving it away for free. Hey, it's student karma. I got it secondhand and cheap, used it for the purpose and time I needed it, and then passed it on to someone else who needs it.)

hahaha @ manys. I don't know about anyone else's salvation armies, but mine have cheap crap furniture for way more than I'm willing to pay, even if I liked it at all (which I usually don't). Goodwill's furniture is Target cast-offs, and those are usually rip-offs, too. Basics at Ikea are great, such as bookshelves, platform beds, paper lanterns, and white dishes. I find their lamps to be crap, as well as a LOT of their stuff. I've never bought an Ikea couch, they're uncomfortable as hell. To me it's like this: as a person with an average income, I don't buy EVERYthing organic and locally-grown, but I pick and choose what's important and best that way. Same with housewares and furniture. Some things come from Ikea, some things come from yard sales, some things are handed down, some things come from thrift stores, and SOME things I just don't buy because I don't feel the need to have unlimited amounts of crap. THAT is the issue here, I believe.

I decided a few years ago, when I started buying furniture (rather than the stuff I "inherited"), that if I bought anything I would have to be able to sell it if I wanted rid of it. I figured that way it wouldn't end up in a landfill.

In Ireland (where I'm from), there's been a huge problem with illegal dumping. We're such a small a country that everywhere is near where someone lives, so we have to be sooo mindfull of what we're getting rid of (Black bin-land fill, green bin- re-cycle, Brown bin- compost. We pay, per weight for everything we dump and the "black bin"s contents which are for landfill, is the most expensive to dispose of.

Anyway, I freecycle the rest, and that really helps keep the bills down. Also, if you want a plastic bag from a shop here... you have to pay 15c tax on it, so that makes everyone re-use their bags for groceries etc.

Actually, antoinetta, you *can* move Ikea furniture a lot. Our dining table and chairs has moved countries twice, travelled 7000km within a country, and then gone through at least five moves within a single city. it's still fine. A bit more bashed up after 15 years of use, but not because of the moves. If it's packed properly, it's fine.

Come on people. There are amazing things at Ikea - well designed and built, and - yes - for a great price. What´s wrong with that? I´m not saying everyone should furnish their entire homes with Ikea, but for some things you just can´t beat it. And it´s not always the price - even if I had the budget to shop elsewhere, I´d certainly go back to Ikea every now an then.

Also, I´m getting a bit tired of this discussion here on AT. Seriously.

I can't believe I was bored enough to read through all this... onto the next post... hopefully something more exiting!

We do have this discussion on AT a lot---yes consumerism is fueled by readily available, cheap merchandise, but how many apartment postings have comments related to where can we find that cool sofa/art print/coffee table/ chair? What are the adverts on AT for? Target? Crate and Barrel? Restoration Hardware? We're all shoppers and we all contribute to the materialism that drives the discount culture...

I have grown up with everything matching, (boring) My first marriage was cement bricks and borads for shelves. Then a NEW couch wow/// Now after 2 hubbys 27 years later. I am taking my time and buy what really makes me smile. ...Maj

I agree with the points of several posters who disagree with the premise presented in this book.

I feel that there is a segment of society that waxes philosophic of the days gone by... and poo poo's the convenience and benefits of the 'big box' stores.

Yeah, IKEA stinks! How dare they permit graduate students eat off of a new and clean coffee table instead of a large wooden spool from the local electric company or some table discarded by the side of the road. The gaul of target and pottery barn to inspire people to have things that match instead of everything being a quirky mess that we put up with and ultimately is inherited by our kids.

This is similar to the group that detests starbucks. It's a hatred of corporations. Ikea and target are good deals. The furniture is even not terrible quality. Starbucks coffee isn't that bad either. If you don't like it, don't buy it. Vote with your $. But also be consistent about the hatred of materialism and things matching. Don't post about a bargain deal on a nursery rocker (40% off, so it's only $700!)

I also wish to not be lectured on why I should have suffered out of principle and instead eaten off of a spool for a decade while getting my degrees. I consider target and IKEA to be the great equalizers. They offer style at a price that the masses can afford. It's no longer restricted to people in the top 1% income bracket.

Hm. Like Blandwagon, Tara77, and wc_canuck mentioned, this attitude is pretty easy to have if you live in an area where stuff is available, but as I've said on this kind of thread before, not everyone does. If you live in a smaller city, or one which has never been particularly rich, people either don't get rid of their "nicer stuff" or they can never afford it to begin with -- and WalMart is probably a much greater culprit in this regard than IKEA (whose saturation in the US is still quite low) and Target (a store that sticks up as a target because it emphasizes style more than WalMart historically has).

The trouble that I have is that the whole thing smacks of classism. Criv277 and Slowdown went into this at least as well as I could, possibly better, so there's no reason for me to drum it in.

I'd love to buy secondhand bookshelves, but I can't find decent quality at a decent price in my area -- the thrift and secondhand shops are full of 20-year-old particleboard with chipped oak-print melamine veneer -- so Billy it is, for now. My nightstands are wheeled cubes bought at Target nine years ago; I take care of them as well as I can.

Oh, please...I'm still have the NIKLAS wall unit system (went through several televisions with it already from tubes to LCD), the solid pine DACKE beds (with original mattresses that were purchased with them) and a couple of other pieces of IKEA furniture purchased way back in 1991 when I got out of UCLA. Now that I can afford a bit more, I've since added Herman-Miller and Knoll pieces to the house.

I've always joked that IKEA pieces were, as Douglas Coupland described in Generation X, as "semi-desposible Swedish furniture," but they really last a long time. Actually a lot of "cheap" furniture are durable, it's just that owner tastes change so the need to disposed of them happen.

In 15 years everything you'll find in second hand stores is going to be ikea....

In response to the many, many inquiries from my earlier post here o AT, the table I used for the Dining by Design project (and the bowls I used to make the "cloches") are now linked on my post: http://chicprovence.blogspot.com/2009/01/elegant-sustainable-pragmatic.html

The table is amazingly great quality and sturdiness, especially for the $399 price point. It seats 8 comfortably. Very heavy and very chic shape. I wrapped the legs in rope from Home Depot, which gave a cool look. For the event, made a sheer overskirt out of inexpensive polyester.

The "cloches" were made by painting the bowls then gluing the same fabric onto them, then attaching a found "finial" top.

Ikea is a useful resource! Sure I would love the $19,000 Niermann Weeks bed but it just doesn't fit in this months budget.....When we furnished our beach house, I used Ikea window coverings(which come with the iron on tape to make them the right length-take notes Pottery Barn) I was going to buy an Ektorp sofa until I read how it was made-and sat on it. Instead, I bought a used Pottery Barn basic sofa and used the Ektorp slipcover($149 vs $700 ) It looks great and when I get tired of it, I can replace it. I wouldn't furnish my home with Ikea but I prefer an eclectic mix of second-hand & antiques-and besides I am just too cheap to pay "regular" furniture store prices.

This topic has been brewing off and on in my mind for several months now and have intended to post something on this in my online journal but have not yet.

I live in the big city where thrift stores and antique malls exist and a lot of them that don't emphasize the mid century modern esthetic, tend to sell more traditional, if not Queen Anne/Victorian style furnishings but good stuff CAN be had, if you know where to look, and often can get some decent deals too, that said, I see a lot of people who primarily rent, bunting stuff to the curb, and it's usually crappy, falling apart furniture. Sofas that have seen better days, bookcases or tables missing most of their parts, dressers with missing or broken drawers and not all of it is IKEA/Walmart stuff either and no matter the quality of the piece, it's been obviously not taken care of so it's now at the curb, awaiting disposal to a landfil - and I see this with electronics, especially TV's now that the digital transition has come and gone. When I replaced my aging 27" Mistubishi over a year ago, I took it to be RECYCLED, even though I had to pay for it's proper disposal.

The fact that people PERCEIVE IKEA or Target or Walmart stuff as CHEAP, it's treated as such and thus, gets the disposal treatment when as has been said here and elsewhere, IKEA and it's ilk furniture, while not FINE pieces can last a long time if you simply take care of it.

Anyway, I"m going to begin writing that post today.

I used to prefer buying my furniture second hand at thrift shops and garage sales but there has been a major bed bug problem in Toronto (where I live) and in other surrounding cities over the last two years that has made buying anything used a real gamble. You can SEE bedbugs and check for them. But in a bright busy store they tend to be hiding where you can't find them.

Blandwagon touched upon the key point that the availability of quality secondhand items will be scarce in several years. Most thrift stores I've gone to have had such crap. The whole time I'm wondering "Where are all these people on AT finding these treasures?"

While so many are turning to secondhand items they are also, much like the mass produced shoppers, depriving smaller mid range good of business. Those who would make items that could be found in thrift store years from now, never stay in business long enough. Or soon they realize that their business can't sustain itself without raising prices.

I've been at a stopping point in my home because I've spent a lot on a few quality pieces in my home, and I do have a few Ikea items. but it's that middle ground I'm looking for. Quality items that aren't thousands of dollars.

And while others would steer me towards vintage furniture, I just do not have patience to search though stores for something I'll have to rehab. I'm just not that patient. And some people aren't interested in or have the time for renovating items.