Terrbile Quality of commercial furniture

Seriously folks.

Freedom Furniture:

Tallboy. 4 bits of 40mm fake beech laminexed MDF butt jointed and screwed together with cam fittings. There's your carcass. Drawers? 4 bits of 19mm fake beech laminexed MDF butt jointed and scew nailed together with a melamine bottom. Plastic metal look handles and 70mm legs.

I could almost hear the Better Homes and Gardens tune in the background

All yours, after YOU put it together for $1299.
To put that into perspective, thats 61m of 100X38mm euro beech.

Terrible

I have to confess to having three items (two entertainment units and an office credenza) from the Freedom Furniture line in my house. All were flat packed and we took them home in our car. We probably paid no more than $1200 for the lot. I bought these at a time when we were renting a house prior to leaving Sydney - we needed furniture and I didn't have a workshop or the time to make it.

I also have four items that we had made for us (a dining setting, a kitchen dresser, a buffet and a 6' book shelf) by a furniture maker in Sydney. We bought these when we were both working, had plenty of money but very little leisure time.

Now I refuse to buy furniture and prefer to make it myself.

The point is that the Freedom stuff serves a need. It's (relatively) cheap and easy. It's also rubbish and wont last for long. There's nothing timeless about it, so it's never likely to reach the status of antique, it'll just get tossed out one day during a council cleanup.

You're right, that price is over the top. I bet they sell a heap of 'em though...

Its not really that cheap. Theres a lot of cheap (1/2 freedoms price) furniture in shops like Fusions, Archipelago and tony Sadlers thats all hand made in Indonesia from meranti and mango.

And yes, sign me up for some shares in Freedom.

Even worse than the tallboy was a lump of wood with four stainless steel poles supporting. Apparently caleld a console table - $499. Very similar in fact to our friend the Sydney exotic timber merchants masterpiece that recieved such plaudits. ;).

the worst ever piece of flat pack furniture that I ever bought had cardboard drawer bottoms ... i kid you not ... cardboard ... it went straight back to where I bought it from. I bought a well made second hand set of drawers for less money.

I own a couple of ikea bookcases because I wanted a bookcase "now" and they make no secret about the fact that they are selling melamine coated chipboard. I expect that I may have to get the drill out and redrill some holes to get everything to line up. This stuff does meet a need. In general though I agree that the quality of ready made furniture is abysmal. You'd think they'd at least make an effort with the articles on the shop floor but you find drawers that won't open or won't close, cupboard doors that won't open or won't close etc etc.

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You'd think they'd at least make an effort with the articles on the shop floor ...

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The thing about that is they probably do but the stuff just doesn't hold up to constant use. I don't know how many times I've adjusted the doors on one of the entertainment units but they just keep going out of alignment. Having a 4 and a 2 year old in the house doesn't help :(

Well, everytime someone buys this sort of crap they perpetuate the life of shoddy stuff. But most of the customers say they want better quality but expect handbuilt stuff at similar prices.

Do they? I thought people only shopped at Freedom because they were after something inexpensive. Wouldn't most people expect handmade furniture to cost a lot more?

Wasnt the guy who owns Ikea just named as the richest man on the face of the planet, he even overtook Bill Microsoft Gates.
And he, Ikea Man, travels everywhere second class, WHY?

Al :confused:

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I thought people only shopped at Freedom because they were after something inexpensive.

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Spot on!

Although I must admit to once owning a coffee table which lasted 12 years made from a piece of 15mm ply (top) sitting on a cardboard box wrapped in black plastic. Yes the bookshelves were bricks/planks, and the el-cheapo directors chairs are still in use at one of the kid's houses 30 years later.

Purchasing furniture is an evolution, and while building it is always a noble intention, in our house anyway the reality is that time will not allow that for many years, and I define my woodworking as a hobby. I build stuff that I don't HAVE to build! (models, boats, paddles, musical instruments, dust extraction systems, workbenches......)

Places like IKEA and Freedom have at least given those with little money (us!!) access to reasonable design, if not longevity.

We have just purchased a hand-built recycled hardwood wall unit, with probably $500 worth of materials for over $2,000...because we appreciate what it is, we could afford it (sort of), and we prefer to keep local craftspeople alive if possible.

In the current "Warehouse" catalogue "similar" pieces range in price from $24.99 to $99.00, and one of my kids or their friends will find a way of keeping some stuff off the floor for not much more than the cardboard box we once had, albeit less creatively and probably with a smaller life expectancy.

We have a wall of Ikea bookshelf, solid timber (white pine), painted by me to match the wall colour, tidy and cheaper than buying the raw material. (Now 15 years old and no sag)

If one exercises discretion, one can buy reasonable (if not high quality) timber pieces for less than the cost of the material...they are just rare!

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Originally Posted by bitingmidge

We have a wall of Ikea bookshelf, solid timber (white pine), painted by me to match the wall colour

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Oh biting, I hope you are hanging your head in shame while you are telling us this horrendous story of (sob, sob) unadulterated pandering (sniff, sniff) to modern ways. ie "That'll do, It only has to last a few years.:eek:

:D :D :D :D :D

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(Now 15 years old and no sag)

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:D :D :D :D :D :D

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Wasnt the guy who owns Ikea just named as the richest man on the face of the planet, he even overtook Bill Microsoft Gates.

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No, little Oz, he was named the man on the planet with the most money...Doesn't make hime the richest by a long shot.....It's a very sad custom we have in this country, judging a person's wealth by the amount of money they have/stuff they own.

Unless Billy G or IkeaMan turn up on this forum, they will never know the true meaning of warmth, love or affection. Who needs stinking money....once you have a complete set of power tools at any rate (I've spent mine on a wall unit anyway ;) )

Cheers,
The Richest Man in Babble On.

Echnidna has hit the nail right on the head. People want quality furniture and expect to pay crap prices.
I used to work in a small furniture retail shop, now in a factory making the stuff, funnily [some might think] some under contract for Freedom. The tallboy is a large peice of CR.. to get ready for transport.
The furniture trade in Australia commercially will probobly be out of production in about 15 years due to imported furniture.In our workplace we have a 800mm high 1800long entertainment unit sold on the domestic market and imported from Malaysia. Made supposedly from forest plantation regrowth timbers [ahem!!!] Its definately hardwood and retails cheaper than we could buy equivilent timber let alone making it.
So the bad news is look for mass produced furniture all imported in the future and there will be a lot of local manufactureres going bust the good news some great equipment will be slowly comming up for sale but only us guys to buy it.
Tonto

Isn't it wonderful, a piece of melamine MDF bookcase worth $25 at The Warehouse suddenly becomes $100 worth when called a SKOL or whatever at Ikea, and you can buy overpriced coffee and croissants in the cafeteria, sorry, Bistro.
My daughter bought a solid teak dining setting that was made in Indonesia, she thinks it's wonderful but the damned planks that form the top are not even level and if you have a plate on a join it wobbles everywhere.
Now that is quality, after all it's solid timber.
I won't go into the rest of the furniture.

Tony Salders have 1mx2m Teak dinign tables (stained too look like fake jarrah?!?!) for about $300. It's worth buyign the damn thing just for the timber. Similarly, "Allusions" in cannington had teak park benches for $179.

Sure, it was "solid hardwoord" but the workmanship was terrible,