Ikea, Truth of Fiction?

[beachmouse]

Our dining table is made of leash-walked American and Canadian walnut hand-crafted by people in Vermont. Our bed is leash-walked North American cherry made by a small company in Minnesota. We paid what we considered to be a very good price for them, given the materials and craftsmanship, but it took us a good 10 years of adult life to get to the point where we felt like we could justify buying the good stuff.

And we're doing better than most people.

Not everyone can afford heirloom quality furniture, especially in their 20s, and not everyone has my Mom's magic furniture basement to borrow from. And sometimes you just don't want to spend a lot of money for furniture that's not going to get used heavily in a home. IKEA and the like have their place in the world.

 

[Geo]

Hi Minnie. Any opinions on the article you posted???

 

[Minnie]

Hi Minnie. Any opinions on the article you posted???

I gave my opinion when I posted it. Others have shared theirs.

 

[scooterbug44]

Our dining table is made of leash-walked American and Canadian walnut hand-crafted by people in Vermont. Our bed is leash-walked North American cherry made by a small company in Minnesota. We paid what we considered to be a very good price for them, given the materials and craftsmanship, but it took us a good 10 years of adult life to get to the point where we felt like we could justify buying the good stuff.

And we're doing better than most people.

Not everyone can afford heirloom quality furniture, especially in their 20s, and not everyone has my Mom's magic furniture basement to borrow from. And sometimes you just don't want to spend a lot of money for furniture that's not going to get used heavily in a home. IKEA and the like have their place in the world.

I am not talking about spending thousands on a piece of furniture, just saying that it costs less than one would think to buy "real" furniture made by Americans that will take abuse and last for years.

It's all priorities - compare the price of that furniture to a tv, ipod, cell phones...........

 

[beachmouse]

In our case, it was the $50K in student loan repayments and pretty average salaries that made it a bit hard to afford nice furniture right off the start of adult life. If we'd been living near an IKEA when I was 25, we would have been so all over it like white on rice because we could only really afford Walmart/Target prices at that age.

 

[Winnie]

Our dining table is made of leash-walked American and Canadian walnut hand-crafted by people in Vermont. Our bed is leash-walked North American cherry made by a small company in Minnesota. We paid what we considered to be a very good price for them, given the materials and craftsmanship, but it took us a good 10 years of adult life to get to the point where we felt like we could justify buying the good stuff.

And we're doing better than most people.

Not everyone can afford heirloom quality furniture, especially in their 20s, and not everyone has my Mom's magic furniture basement to borrow from. And sometimes you just don't want to spend a lot of money for furniture that's not going to get used heavily in a home. IKEA and the like have their place in the world.

I'm unfamiliar with this terminology - what is leash-walked hardwood?

 

[scooterbug44]

That's what garage sales etc. are for - I actually find the "furniture" prices at Target etc. to be $$$ considering what you get.

I'd rather get good stuff secondhand or save for a decent piece than have cheap stuff that will just break. The love of cheap disposable items is part of our economic problems.

Totally understand not having unlimited furniture funds - that's why I am sleeping on Punzy's old guest room mattress, watching tv on my boss's old chair, typing on the laptop on some Sowallers old futon, stuffing more items in the bookcase that used to belong to my mother's student............

 

[beachmouse]

I'm unfamiliar with this terminology - what is leash-walked hardwood?

Leash-walked- a phrase bleed over from another message board involving a discussion on heirloom Thanksgiving turkeys and how some people in Portland, OR seemed to be taking it a little obsessively in demanding a bird that had been 'leash-walked, massaged daily, fed only the finest grain....' before it went to slaughter.

In other words, taking the desire for sustainable or humane a little too far at the expense of reasonableness or reality, usually ending up being self-referential or tongue in cheek.

 

[scooterbug44]

How do you leash walk a tree?