Why is furniture so expensive?

[Parm]

Moving into a new apartment around September time (first place of my own, yay!) and the missus and I have started hunting around for furnishings.

The cost of the apartment is one thing, but furniture, sheeesh! We've got our eyes on this sofa:



Sale price: £1395!? As far as I'm aware, these things are wood and fabrics. Did they start using Gold at some point?

So, fair enough. We figure we're gonna use the couch a lot, so we'll get our money's worth. Then we start looking at entertainment units. I'm after something low to go in the corner. Struggled to find anything for the corner, but I really like this one from Furniture Village:



It's the Quba small low entertainment unit, and you'd think it's just a few planks of wood. Nope, this has to have diamonds in it or something...it's £662!...or £845 for the larger one.

/rant.

In other furniture discussion, anyone know where I might find a low entertainment unit of this shape:



...any excuse to have a doodle in MS Paint.

[Stewart]

Doood. Go to Ikea, or if you are really flash, Argos.

Only place I can think of is www.heals.co.uk

[No.72]

She seems nice, good catch.

[ezri]

Heh, only today I went out with £200 to redecorate my old room into a media room. This room is 10' x 9', so reasonably small compared to some rooms. Got everything - paint (emulsion and gloss), wallpaper, carpet, curtains, rug, curtain rail, poly coving, polyfiller, lampshade, 3x cushions, silver dimmer switch. Still had some change left over. None of the items are tacky either.

I guess it depends where you go - but it's like everything. TV's for example, you can pay £5k for some very well known branded plasma, or go buy something else for 1/10th the price and get something just as good. Aftershave/deoderant is another - you can go to WHSmith's and get some mega expensive aftershave in the smallest glass container known to exist for £60, or just go get a pack of 3 Lynx from the pound shop across the road

[TiG]

Parm, you've got expensive tastes.....

TiG

[shadowmaster]

Sale price: £1395!? As far as I'm aware, these things are wood and fabrics. Did they start using Gold at some point?

I'm assuming its priced at £1395, because the women in the photo comes with the couch, if not its a RIP OFF!!!

Seriously I think its expensive, because its one of those corner units. (Its a nice one btw). The normal sofas tend to be quite a bit cheaper.

[stevie lee]

when you pop into IKEA, have a look in the 'damaged stock/discount/spare bit lying around on the floor' section.. managed to get 3 or 4 nearly complete bookcases, 1/2 TV unit, and 200 1metre long shelf things - all for £50..

this was 5 years ago though - prices might have gone up a bit..

[staffsMike]

200 1metre long shelf things - all for £50..

To build a stairway to heaven?

think I'll be taking myself off to argos when the time comes. Pretty good quality and not badly priced. The Ikea sofa's look like junk to me.

[Funkstar]

Furniture in general isn't expensive, certainally it's a lot more affordable than it ever used to be.

The furniture you are looking at on the other hand.....

[AdamAnubis]

Just look for second hand stuff. Theres a place down by us that sells all this really old furniture, like 1940's style clothes aswell. Is very well priced IMO. Big polished shiny table and 6 chairs for £500. Looked very nice.

I know its the whole second hand thing n all, but you'd be surprised at what some people throw out! It's not all crap No harm in looking.

But I am a cheapskate so can't really comment

[2Cold Scorpio]

"Why is furniture so expensive?"

Because they know you'll pay that much for it.

[Theo]

The wife and I were shopping for furniture last year. We had a look in Habitat, for a giggle and came across a "damaged" two-seater sofa bed that had been marked down by 60% to around £450. Apart from the fact that it was ridiculously comfortable, we couldn't actually see what was wrong with it until the staff pointed it out. A little tear in the suede on the inside of one of the arms (around 3 centimetres in length). It wasn't even torn all the way through!

So despite having to hire a Berlingo to bring it to Bolton (all the way from Leeds), I think that was possibly the best furniture buy we've ever made.


There is a moral to the story, but apart from advocating bargain hunting, I can't really think of one.

[2Cold Scorpio]

The wife and I were shopping for furniture last year. We had a look in Habitat, for a giggle and came across a "damaged" two-seater sofa bed that had been marked down by 60% to around £450. Apart from the fact that it was ridiculously comfortable, we couldn't actually see what was wrong with it until the staff pointed it out. A little tear in the suede on the inside of one of the arms (around 3 centimetres in length). It wasn't even torn all the way through!

So despite having to hire a Berlingo to bring it to Bolton (all the way from Leeds), I think that was possibly the best furniture buy we've ever made.


There is a moral to the story, but apart from advocating bargain hunting, I can't really think of one.

Man, that *is* a good buy, from the sound of it. Best buy I ever made was when my neighbors who lived in the apartment below me were about to toss out a rather nice computer desk. I said I liked it, they said "Twenty dollars and its yours", so I bought it. It's heavier than a bloody ox, but is sturdy as heck and its what I'm using right now for my computer desk (I used it to sit my 32" TV on for about two years before I built my rig). It's huge; gives me plenty of room for my rig. The desk is pretty banged up in places, and I tossed out the upper part (I didn't need it, and it just took up extra room), but it still works great.

[TheAnimus]

The problem is if you want nice furniture it costs... even the not so nice stuff costs a small fortune.


The 'TV unit' in the lounge (tv itself been wall mounted) after 9 months of searching cost £895, becuase i wanted oak to match the room. That was a very good price from a small department store on the outside of london.

IKEA is good, but only for the cheap stuff. The not-so-cheap stuff has all the quality of the piss poor cheap stuff, but often costs a small fortune.

ILVA is useful too, but best of all are small local furntiture places, i got a massive mirror, beviled glass, oak framed, £130. It had been hanging at the back of the shop for hte better part of a year because it was so big no one wanted it. Absolute bargin, and great quality.

Be patient, either buy the really cheap ikea/ilva/argos/tesco stuff, or wait. I'm really pissed off i wasted the better part of 4k on doing out my bedroom, should of saved up double the amount and done it properly.

[stevie lee]

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Produc...%7C9554450.htm
Minsk Large Plasma TV Bench £99.99..

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Produc...%7C9554450.htm
Jazz Storage Entertainment Unit. £62.69 was £94.99
_____________
as for..


buy an 'L shaped desk' and saw the legs off..
__
just need to find something like this..


pretty much everyone I've seen though have deeper drawers for files and stuff.. but who says you have to assemble those onto the table from the flat-pack?


cant help with the sofa.. don't like cheapo ones - much prefer my mums hand-made italian leather one.. £6000 money well spent..

[Lucio]

When we moved into our place, we were lucky as it was January, thus all the furniture stores were doing their sales!

That said, Argos do have some nice stuff, if you look at their pre-assembled range, (usually the top two or three most expensive items), it's really solid quality for the price.