by Grant

Created on: July 08, 2010

When shopping for furniture, most of us are drawn to the low priced options.  Many of us buy those cheap furniture pieces only to discover at a later date they were not such a bargain.   Cheap furniture just doesn't last.   It often will not survive getting moved from one place to another and in general is easily damaged.   On top of the fact cheap furniture is easily damaged, it is also near impossible to repair.    If you scratch a high quality solid wood piece of furniture, all you have to do is buy the appropriate scratch repair kit for the color of the item.  If you scratch a cheap vinyl coated particle board furniture item, there is nothing you can do to repair a scratch.    If the finish on a high quality item is ruined, it can be refinished for less than replacing the item.  Cheap furniture pieces are put together with fasteners which are often stronger than the particle board material used to construct them, hence these fasteners will often tear through the particle board if too much stress is put on a joint.   High quality hard wood furniture is put together with woods which have an enormous amount of strength.  Many joints are made out of the material, such as dovetail joints or mortise and tenon joints.

Fabric covered furniture such as couches and living room chairs also have important differences between the cheap version and the higher quality expensive version.   These differences present themselves in the quality of the fabric, padding, and structure underneath the fabric.   I had a cheap couch which my kids managed to break apart the support structure inside within a few years.   It is very expensive to get couches reupholstered.   Animals can destroy even a high quality couch, so if you have destructive animals and/or children you might have to take precautions to prevent its destruction.   Higher quality fabric cover pieces are more durable, but they are not as easy to repair or refinish as hardwood furniture.

I have a high quality bedroom set which is 25 years old and still in good shape.  I have bought many other cheaper items over the years, but few of them survive and many of them are in poor condition.    Cheap furniture items are not really cheap at all due to the fact that they will need to be replaced.   A high quality piece of furniture can easily last 50 years. Cheap low quality furniture will last 5 to 10 years if you’re lucky, so when you are comparing the low cost low quality furniture vs. high quality high cost furniture you should consider the fact the low cost furniture will need to be replaced more often.   If you multiply the cost of the low quality furniture by the five items you will need to buy in order to cover the same time period the high quality item will last, the high quality item will likely be less expensive over the long run.

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