Used dining room set or cheap new one.

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amother

Maroon

Mon, Oct 09 2017, 9:27 pm

We are in the market for a new dining room set. I am not ready to spend over 5k on a good quality new one. I dont take such good care of my furniture. I have little kids and they climb and play etc. My husband is not handy at all and I would have to hire movers to do the job from start to finish for me. Buying cheap new from macys or bob discount is definitely easier than looking for used. Will the good quality used hold up much better than the new? What would recommend and why.

amother

Jetblack

Mon, Oct 09 2017, 10:00 pm

I cannot compare your options for you but will just share my experience with a bob's dining room set. We got a set of table and 6 chairs when we got married for about $600. 2 years later, (we don't have kids climbing on them yet), and the chairs are already wearing away together with the screws from the table becoming loose, and we cannot tighten them because the holes for them have gotten bigger.
Had I had to make the decision again, I would not go with bob's.

watergirl

Mon, Oct 09 2017, 10:04 pm

amother wrote:

We have Bobs everything - beds, bunk bed, dressers, and dining room table/chairs. Weve had the bunk beds for over 6 years and they still look new, with some show of wear from moving a few times but otherwise, look great. Table/chairs, weve had for 4 years and are very pleased. Get their goof proof warrenty and they will back it all up.

JoyInTheMorning

Mon, Oct 09 2017, 10:24 pm

I got a solid wood table from IKEA that seats 10-12. With chairs and assembly, it was under $1000. I am satisfied but not thrilled. It seats 8 comfortably, and is okay for 10, if you seat 2 at each end, but because of the way it extends, it is not suitable for 12. We wind up using an extra table at the end if we have more than 10.

But I was thrilled with the price, and it is holding up well. The chairs do need to have screws tightened periodically, but that is easy to do. And I also love the way it looks. Its design is simple and elegant.

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/cata.....4945/

Amarante

Mon, Oct 09 2017, 10:44 pm

If you can find a store that sells used furniture, it's going to be better quality than current stuff. In general used furniture can be bought very inexpensively. I am getting rid of my mother's dining room table in a few months and I would be thrilled to get a few hundred for it - a comparable quality new table would be $2000 or so. In Los Angeles, where I live there are stores that sell just that - used furniture and the wood pieces are inexpensive unless they are in a highly desired style like Mid Century Modern. But plain bourgeois wood furniture can be had for a song because no one really covets it.

I am currently redecorating and still like the style of my sofas so I was thinking of having them reupholstered instead of looking for new sofas. The decorator told me that residential furniture is supposed to last five or six years. I was shocked because my living room sofas are much older than that - the upholstery is now worn but I am 99% sure that the wood frame is still in great shape. I have a carved Art Deco arm chair from the 1920's - needs new upholstery again but it's in wonderful shape - I bought that one used and had it reupholstered because I liked the style.

It appears that the inexpensive furniture now is meant to be disposable just like clothing is meant to be disposable.

amother

Aqua

Mon, Oct 09 2017, 11:07 pm

Love my baker table I got on. Craigslist for $500 dollars. It retails for $6000.

Seller had it taken apart. Loaded in back of my minivan.

Strong, quality! Win!

Amelia Bedelia

Mon, Oct 09 2017, 11:24 pm

Try Costco

lucky14

Tue, Oct 10 2017, 12:10 am

Craigslist! We waited a bit and kept checking back on the site until we found something. We got a used dining room set for VERY cheap and it is in the same condition now as when we got it a few years ago (basically it's held up extremely well). Our Ikea coffee table got trashed after only a couple of years (other Ikea furniture has lasted us only a short time as well). I would certainly recommended decent quality used over a cheap new set.

amother

Seagreen

Tue, Oct 10 2017, 12:22 am

We bought a cheap new dining set on sale a few years ago. It's OK but not great. Chairs are not strong. New furniture today is usually made of chip wood - basically junk. I think it's better to buy used solid wood.

Bnei Berak 10

Tue, Oct 10 2017, 5:27 am

OP, buy second hand! New and inexpensive things are usually junk. Better to go for second hand things, they last much longer, are more sturdy and they age better than new things. If you need a handyman to take it apart then do it. What is inexpensive now will probably turn out to be a very expensive thing in a few years when it breaks and you will have to do that investment once again.

watergirl

Tue, Oct 10 2017, 6:43 am

Bnei Berak 10 wrote:

Except that things which come from a store carry a warrenty, and you can purchase extended warrenty for very little money. So if need be, they will fix it/exchange it. Used furniture doesnt come with that.

watergirl

Tue, Oct 10 2017, 6:46 am

I just wanted to add - I’m amused that you consider Bobs and Macys to be cheap. Macys is for sure not cheap. Bob’s will still cost 2k for a table. Thats not cheap. Its less expensive than what you will find in Brooklyn, with their all Italian stuff or what have you, but its not in the realm of Ikea or Target.

JoyInTheMorning

Tue, Oct 10 2017, 7:12 am

A lot of IKEA furniture is actually very good quality. My mother bought expensive couches and bookcases from Boro Park that have not held up nearly as well as IKEA furniture that I have bought. You can get bookcases from Frankel's that are also made of compressed chips. The advantage of the bookcases from Frankel's is that they are deeper and better for holding full-size versions of Shas, Shulchan Aruch, etc., but you can get reasonably deep bookcases from IKEA -- the Hemnes series -- as well.

The trick to shopping in IKEA is to go for the solid wood furniture. The Hemnes series (for beds, bookcases, storage, and more) are solid wood, as are the Stornas tables and several types of chairs. I also use the Billy bookcases, which are made of compressed wood, due to their versatility. They are so inexpensive that even if they would only last a few years, they'd be worth it. But they have lasted me many years and a few moves.

It is not always true that you get what you pay for. Stores in Boro Park have higher markup than stores like IKEA. Transportation for IKEA items is much, much cheaper as well.

I'm also perfectly happy with IKEA mattresses, which are a tiny fraction of what people say they pay for mattresses. I don't pay more than $100 for a twin mattress or $200 for a queen. They don't last more than seven or so years, but with spills and worse, no mattress in my house would last more than seven years.

Bnei Berak 10

Tue, Oct 10 2017, 7:43 am

JoyInTheMorning wrote:

Totally agree with you!
By the way, I bought cutlery from IKEA in 1988 and still using it! It was love at first sight so to say. Quality was still far better than today (like most things)[b]

Amarante

Tue, Oct 10 2017, 8:53 am

As another poster wrote, you can do well with IKEA depending on what you want.

I have bookcases from IKEA and they have lasted more than 20 years but what kind of stress do bookcases have? The actual shelves are sturdy.

On the other hand, some furniture from IKEA has not stood the test of time because the parts holding the drawers together are plastic instead of the wood dowels that are used for high quality drawers. It's not real wood so strange bubbles and pitting appears through normal use.

There are people who swear by IKEA kitchen cabinets but again, that is probably just comparing them to more expensive cabinets that are made with particle board as well and not cabinets made from wood. For example, the recommendation is NOT to use particle boards on lower cabinets for the most part - especially for the sink cabinet - since any leak will cause the cabinet to essentially disintegrate.

One can of course buy IKEA knowing that it's in essence disposable but that wasn't the question posed by the OP.

An older solid wood table is going to last longer - as well as probably be more attractive - than any table for the comparable price - or close to the comparable price.

My mother bought her table used from an estate sale and had the top refinished with what is known as a bar finish - it's the kind of finish that is used for wood floors so that the top is essentially impervious to damage from spills. It was relatively inexpensive because a table top is a relatively easy piece to refinish in this manner.

At one time places like Macy's, Bloomingdales - or that real old standby for balabustas in New York City - W.J Sloane :-) sold furniture that was expected to last a lifetime. I would imagine those kinds of places are still selling quality pieces with commensurate prices. The solid walnut dining room table at Bloomingdales on line is $6500 and the matching arm chair is $1065 and the side chair is $930. I picked that because it was the closest style I could get to the standard bourgeois solid wood dining table - nothing fancy but not something resembling a picnic table - with all due respect :-)

While I shudder to think of bringing back the plastic covered sofas in the formal living rooms of my youth, they existed because the sofas were expected to last a life time and weren't thrown out and replaced if the upholstery became soiled because the wood frame was still in perfect shape. And people actually bought slip covers to avoid the expense of reupholstering for awhile because the sofas lasted - the fabric not so long. In the newspaper I see furniture stores advertising sofas for $600 - at that price they are disposable and no one would bother to reupholster or use a slip cover.

amother

Maroon

Tue, Oct 10 2017, 2:00 pm

watergirl wrote:

I am talking about a dining room set. If I bought one crazy cheap from say target it would last a day with my kids and besides they dont have what im looking for. Bobs or macys has nice sets for 2 3k and I imagine u can find used jewish sets for that range too.

watergirl

Tue, Oct 10 2017, 2:03 pm

amother wrote:

I’m also talking about a dining room set. And my point was that I thought it was funny to see you call Bobs or Macys cheap. 2-3k isnt cheap!

amother

Maroon

Tue, Oct 10 2017, 4:46 pm

watergirl wrote:

I’m also talking about a dining room set. And my point was that I thought it was funny to see you call Bobs or Macys cheap. 2-3k isnt cheap!

You would consider bobs or macys decent furniture that should last 10 20 yrs?

Maryann

Tue, Oct 10 2017, 6:20 pm

JoyInTheMorning wrote:

I love this table, can u also post a link to the chairs?

JoyInTheMorning

Tue, Oct 10 2017, 8:19 pm

Maryann wrote:

I love this table, can u also post a link to the chairs?

I think the chairs were Kaustby, which you can see here: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/cata.....838/. But they were different somehow; you could attach a chair pad to the chairs to make them a bit more formal. That's what I did, and I think it looks nice; but I can't find the chair pads in the online catalog. The wood by itself without the chair pads is actually a nicer look -- I have light chair pads and they have gotten stained over the years -- but the chair pads make the chairs more comfortable during long meals.

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