Every so often I read a comment, or comments, on a woodworking forum that are so stupid that I have to bring it up on this blog. Before I go any further, let me state that I have nothing against your everyday stupid comment. But there are levels of stupid comment, and at the top of the list (or bottom depending on how you look at it) are the stupid comments that think they are really smart. So what is a “stupid comment that thinks it is smart”? Broadly speaking, it is any definitive statement made without one shred of evidence or real facts to back it up. Often, these stupid comments have been made before, and like many lies, if they are told enough people eventually begin to believe them.
The origin of the stupid comments I read just yesterday was the origin of many a stupid comment made on a woodworking forum: IKEA. For the record, I do not shop at IKEA nor do I own furniture from the store. I may likely never enter an IKEA. I have no strong feelings either for or against the place. But it does bother me when I read about the professed “hatred” of a store. Why? Because that so-called hatred leads to comments like “IKEA drives down the prices of real craftsman and makes it harder for them to earn a living!” What?
Let me tell you a story. It was a crisp, lovely Autumn morning roughly 12 years ago. My wife and I had just purchased our house and we were looking to furnish it. I thought it would be nice to go a furniture shop and have a nice bedroom set made. I had in mind a dresser, two side tables, and an armoire; oak was my wood of choice. The shop I went to had a book where I could choose a style I liked, or if I was ambitious enough I could bring in my own photos or even my own concept drawings. We picked from the book because there was a set my wife liked, and it was close enough to what we had originally had in mind. The person at the shop said they would work up a quote and mail it to us. Less than a week later the quote showed up. While I can’t remember the exact number, I do remember that it was more than the car I was driving at the time. Even more to the point, I could have gone to a place like IKEA, or Raymour and Flanigan, and furnished my entire house for what that guy wanted to charge us for a small bedroom set. So my question to the geniuses on the woodworking forum is: What the hell would have been my quote had IKEA not been around to “drive down the costs”?
For the sake of full disclosure, I have priced out custom furniture since then, I even purchased some of it. There wasn’t one instance where I thought to myself “That was less expensive than I thought it would be!” There also wasn’t one instance where I couldn’t have gone to a furniture chain store and gotten something comparable, or something that would have done the same job, for less money. Would the custom furniture have been made better? Probably. Would it have looked nicer? Probably. Could I afford it? For the most part, no.
I am not using this post to knock the costs of custom furniture, I am only saying that many people cannot afford to own it. IKEA has not affected the cost of custom furniture one way or the other; custom furniture was expensive, is expensive, and always will be expensive. “But IKEA contributes to the ‘throw-away society’ mentality!” Here is another story. I have a computer desk and chair I purchased at Staples at least 15 years ago. I paid $99 and change for the set. That desk, made of plywood, particle board, and veneer, would be considered a throw-away item to certain people on a woodworking forum. Well, it probably is a throw-away item in the sense that when I die it won’t be willed to anybody, nor will relatives fight over it. But, considering that at this point in my life it has cost me less than $7 per year to own, and it still works just fine, I would hardly consider it a piece of junk. A similarly sized custom-made desk, built from maple, oak, or cherry would likely cost in the neighborhood of $6000 if I know anything about furniture. That is 60 times the cost of the very serviceable desk that I own. Of course the custom-made desk would look far nicer and would definitely be of better construction; I just don’t know if those features are worth 60 times more to me. But that is just my opinion.
In conclusion, this amounts to nothing more than me ranting. But when people make stupid statements it makes me want to rant. Places like IKEA exist because they fill a need. Mass-produced furniture exists because it fills a need. At the end of World War 2 when entire continents were displaced, people needed mass produced furniture that was affordable; people still need it to this day. Today, maybe one person in one hundred can actually afford to purchase high end piece of custom furniture. Maybe one in ten thousand can afford to furnish their house that way. Now, I will freely admit that I have no real facts or figures to back up that claim, I am only using my knowledge of the cost of custom furniture and my knowledge of what the average person earns. Or to put it another way, nobody I’m friends with could afford to purchase more than one custom piece of furniture, let alone furnish their entire homes with the same. Yet I am supposed to believe that private furniture makers would be thriving if IKEA didn’t exist?
I’m going to say this for the tenth (and hopefully last) time on this blog: the golden age of heirloom furniture is a myth; it’s pie in the sky. I’m not sure where this notion of every home containing masterpieces came from, but it needs to stay off the woodworking forums. If almost nobody can afford custom furniture today, why would it have been any different in 1750? As I said, maybe one percent of the population will ever be able to afford to own a piece of custom furniture. Now, even half of one percent is still a lot of high end furniture, but what about the rest? Should furniture businesses stop manufacturing inexpensive furniture for the masses so as not to upset the sensibilities of a few people on a woodworking forum? Is that what the forum geniuses want? Or maybe, just maybe, should these people develop some sort of an informed opinion, shut up, and get back to woodworking?
The Slightly Confused Woodworker 
my oldest of four and the most $ capable was given a long leaf yellow pine bed and two bedside tables. Remodeled her house, bought a truckload of Ikea and painted the two end tables with paint ,moved into another room.I would not say a word if she painted a dining room table of live edge china berry w/two live edge benches. I gave it to her. like the two older men in the bacon business said. “she`ll never learn”.
As long as there are women , there will be color.
Ive been trying to get my wife to paint the bedroom I spent a month remodeling. The deal was, I do tge work, she paints it. Well, I did the work…
Thanks
Bill
IKEA has a pack of six cinnamon buns for $4.00. I buy a pack and shove them in my face in the morning.
IKEA is not a bad store. Some of their home decor items are nice. Their furniture is “you get what you pay for”. I personally think they help custom furniture makers. People will buy their crap first, then look for something of better quality when it falls apart. My wife and I are doing the exact same thing with a sofa today. We bought our first one at Haverty’s and after five years it’s turned into a piece of junk. Now we want quality.
Ive honestly never been in an Ikea. All of my furniture is either made by me, inherited, or purchased locally, and I say that without an ounce of self-righteousness. There is nothing wrong with Ikea or any other furniture store. If people want it, it’s affordable, and it works they will buy it. If a private furniture maker thinks hes going to sell a $7500 armoire every 2 weeks and thats all people should be purchasing then he chose the wrong line of work. Like you said, the people who like high-end furniture arent going to be swayed by places like Ikea one way or the other.
Thanks
Bill
Well stated Bill! There are segments of the market that are addressed by Ikea, midline furniture stores (I don’t know any US examples) and high end stores. Then there are the custom builders. There is a requirement for each in the marketplace.
If you are a builder, focus on the market you want to sell to. Ikea’s marketing department is not interfering with your sales, your looking at Ikea is.
As for myself, I love Ikea. I have bought product from them to set up an apartment on a limited budget for a short term stay (2 years), the product served me well. There are also some GREAT design concepts in their products that rival anything I have seen; they have brought these to the mass market by using cheap materials that don’t last. Change the materials, you have great furniture. Builders: go shop designs!
I buy the chocolate bars and tour for ideas, great place to visit.
Back to your point after my small rant. Go back to the shop guys and focus on your own customers and marketing.
Like you said, places such as Ikea fill a market niche. If high-end furniture makers think that the absence of stores like Ikea will increase their business they are sadly misinformed. Thats like a Rolls Royce dealer trying to close down the local Subaru lot. People who go to Ikea are not in the market for high-end furniture and likely never will be. Hoping that the business shuts down and insulting it on the internet is quite frankly pathetic.
Thanks
Bill
I find their cinnamon buns to be dry, but the lingonberry juice is the best I can find. Other swedish delicacies are good too – I always eat there when I go and bring home something that isn’t cinnamon rolls.
Last time I was there I was sitting in front of one of the rare pieces of solid wood furniture – a small coffee table. Thinking of all the IKEA bashing and looking at the table I realized that the table was made out of boards finger jointed from 4″ long scraps. IKEA keeps a lot of wood out of the waste stream and in some cases makes nice stuff.
I do agree with MV in that anyone who relies on their IKEA furniture for hard use will likely be disappointed and will probably be more open minded about what constitutes value.
My wife and I bought some repro pieces years ago when we were both working. Yup, we thought they were exhorbitant but by today’s standards they are reasonable. They still look new and I never get tired of looking at them.
I have NEVER considered IKEA vs. small builder as options in the same purchase. I would consider either but not as alternates to each other.
I could see them hurting refinishers and upholsterers though…
Steve
I’ve never been to an IKEA, but now everybody is convincing me to give it a shot. I can’t defend IKEA’s furniture one way or the other to be honest. It has its place. I only know that they, or any furniture chain, are not direct competition to small furniture makers. I would bet there have been instances when a small maker lost business to a chain, like in my case, but that wasn’t because I flipped a coin, but because the price was so far out of my league that I had no choice.
The problem for small makers is easy to see; it is simply the fact that wealthy people no longer purchase large amounts of high-end furniture, like they did two centuries ago. Back then, furniture was something of a status symbol. Today, it just isn’t the same. Writing a blog post or magazine article, or going on a woodworking forum to chastise middle class and working class people for shopping at a furniture chain is just a ridiculous and misinformed way to go about things.
Thanks.
Bill
I have more of a problem with pretentious overpriced furniture than with IKEA. IKEA is honest about what it is and is a fun place to go. The designs are decent with nice proportions. Not great but decent.
I gag when I see expensive dining sets with spattered “antique pecan” finishes with odd proportions. Why do people have money to spend on poorly executed junk but nicely made is too expensive? The only guarantee that comes with this stuff is that in 5 years is will be out of favor and the buyer will be back at the store swiping the Visa card.
One thing I noticed when buying from a small builder like Dimes, Eldred Wheeler, or LeFort is that their product is not that much more than mass produced “name brand”. If you like their styles, those builders offer lifetime pieces that will end up being much better value for the dollar. I would expect to be able to sell a Dimes piece for more than an Ethan Allen after 25 years, if I had to.
If you like making furniture, the handmade piece is a reference library on construction. Pull a drawer and peek inside to see how a pro does it. You won’t get that from Ethan Allen.
I think that the most of the public has a very different sense of style from what high end builders produce. When we cut arts education in schools and kids grow up without ever being in a museum or their local historical society, this is what you get.
Don’t blame IKEA!
Steve
I just laughed, because the first thing I do when I see a piece of furniture is open the drawer and check it out (if it has drawers). I think most woodworkers, both amateur and pro, have something of a bias towards a lot of mass market furniture. I’m not exception to that. But even though I generally don’t care for it much, that doesn’t mean that I would tell others to boycott the place, as I have seen done many times.
The average person probably doesn’t know a great deal about what makes a piece of furniture “high-end”. I can’t blame them because to me that isn’t something that is necessarily common knowledge. As an electrician, I wouldn’t expect the average person to know how a transformer is constructed either, that they know what it does is enough for me.
I agree with you that visits to museums etc..are a must, even for the non furniture builder/collector. I for one try to take my daughter to a historical home every weekend during the spring and summer. I personally enjoy doing that more than going to a museum, though I have nothing against museums. Either way, we both know that comparing the decline of the small maker to the rise of IKEA is something that really cannot be done. Thanks.
Bill
Hi Bill,
Of all the “luxuries” and/or dubious expenses I have pursued, my nice furniture is completely without regret. If I could have seen the future, I would have bought more.
Also, an educated consumer is able to distinguish between “high end” and “high priced”.
That’s true, and most people equate high-priced with high-end, even though we all know that one doesn’t always equal the other.
I read somewhere that every 10th kid in Europe was conceived in an IKEA bed.
So it can’t be all bad 🙂
IKEA isn’t the problem these days. A bigger problem is that you can buy an old chest of drawers that’s well made, needs little work done to restore it to former glory, and all that for the price of materials that you’d need to build it. Compete with that if you can.
Custom furniture is just too expensive for the average person to own; that is just a fact. The problem is that the small makers were historically dependent on wealthy clientele. That market has dried up, and wealthy people in the market seem to be drawn to antique furniture rather than purchasing new, or new reproductions. That leaves the middle class, who like I said, is priced out from the get-go for the most part. I’m not placing blame or anybody, it is just the fact of the matter.
These people who somehow blame Ikea for this trend just don’t know what they are talking about. As I said a hundred times, these “experts” on furniture history always seem to forget who was originally purchasing that furniture. It wasn’t stable boys and printers apprentices, it was wealthy people, in many cases extremely wealthy people. That group just doesn’t purchase custom furniture anymore, at least not in the amounts they did previously. Unfortunately that is just the way it is.
Thanks.
Bill
In the store?
He he, could be. The Scandinavians aren’t shackled by the usual bourgeois constraints of morality.
Yes, the price of custom made furniture, or hand made anything, at whatever level of construction hasn’t changed that much over the years. One thing that has changed is the amount of furniture, the amount of stuff, we buy. My shop is in a part of a barn that was a house, about 300 sq ft, one room. It would not have been at all unusual for a family of 4-8 to live there. A couple of beds, a table and stools, a chest, maybe a cupboard and a couple of chairs. Your average even lower-middle class kid’s bedroom today probably has 2-3 times the amount of stuff.
If you need a cupboard, need it to last your whole life and maybe one of your kid’s, too, and the only place to buy it is the carpenter down the road, the situation, in terms of the Ikea/custom price equation, has changed so far as to make a comparison impossible.
All of which is to say, anybody who has a problem with Ikea or similar stores doesn’t have a problem with Ikea. Ikea is great for what it is, and if you pick and choose there, you can find some incredibly well-designed, presentable solid-wood furniture for what it would cost you for the wood.
Also, like Garth pointed out, the designs can, unsurprisingly, be really really smart. I’ve also gotten good construction ideas from the flat-pack designs which themselves drew from traditional sources – especially today when a lot of people move around. Nothing preventing anybody who wants to from taking a concept and re-engineering it to be well built in solid wood, and in fact traditionally a lot of furniture was.
I’ve been in a fair number of old, or historic homes. The area of the country I live in has a decent amount of them, and usually on the weekends during the spring and summer you can tour them for free, or a small donation. Some of the houses were owned or lived in by historically famous people, and some are just old houses restored to show the average homes of the day. I always ask about the furniture, and I’ve found that in the houses of the wealthier people, they tended to own far more furniture than the average person. The middle-class of the day tended to purchase used furniture, even then, and they had far less of it. Like you were mentioning, the average person two centuries ago had far less material possessions than the person of today, in particular clothing, so they needed far less furniture to house it. Many houses did not have kitchen cabinets, at least not how we know them, and things like bedroom sets were extremely rare. Now, I am just repeating what I’ve been told by the curators of these sites, but I have to think it’s pretty accurate, if for no other reason than it is logical.
When America developed a middle class, most of those people purchased either pre-owned or massed produced furniture. Many people will tell you that the massed produced furniture of the 19th and early 20th century was made far better than the furniture of today, and that is probably true, but it was mass-produced nonetheless. I’m sure I’m not saying anything you don’t already know. My point is that the small maker historically was and is building for the wealthier portion of society. For the past 75 years, that portion of society seems to have gotten away from purchasing furniture from these makers, and they appear to be gravitating more towards antique furniture rather than new, or even reproductions. Of course this leads to the decline of their businesses.
When it comes down to it, I’m just tired of reading the same repeated nonsense on these woodworking forums. No matter the topic, somebody starts picking on mass produced furniture, IKEA mostly, and blaming them and it for destroying craftsmanship. Because most of these people are too stupid to have formed their own opinions, it is obviously coming from somewhere else. They can make the argument that mass produced furniture isn’t attractive, or poorly made, but to say that is hurting the small maker just isn’t accurate.
Thanks.
Bill
Not much to add that hasn’t already been said. I was in an IKEA once, and I will never ever go back. Nothing to do with “shoddy” furniture: I hate being in places where I’m corralled about among the teeming masses, and IKEA offered the worst experience of this I’ve ever been through.
The reasons the general public don’t buy custom furniture are myriad and complicated. Incomes have contracted a lot over the last 100 years. While there was a time when every piece of furniture owned was made by hand by craftsmen, I am sure that this furniture was not the sort of stuff being sold by custom furniture makers today. In 2000 B.C. there was “throwaway” furniture. Yet another angle, before the Model T the general public didn’t own automobiles. Before IKEA et al, I’d guess that the general public didn’t have “nice” furniture.
I’ve never been to an IKEA, but now my interest is piqued and I have to visit one. Like you said, up until very recently all furniture was handmade. There were levels from basic to “museum quality”. The Shakers may have been the first group to perfect high level “basic”. But even they for the most part had a higher end clientele. You hit the nail right on the head when you said that the general public usually didn’t have what most people would consider nice furniture. It wasn’t until manufacturers such as Stickley came along that the middle class started to furnish their home with collections, and once again those pieces were generally purchased by people who were a little more well off than average, but in general couldn’t afford the high end custom stuff.
The notion that the average person shopping at IKEA is destroying fine woodworking is just a completely stupid and misinformed opinion that unfortunately has been repeated so many times that it has become “fact” on just about every woodworking forum.
Thanks
Bill
I dislike most of their furniture (mostly because they fall apart) but they have some decent solid pine products that cost less than raw lumber; I use them for storage.
Also, their kitchen ware and metal products are of above average quality so it it worth checking out, just avoid the particle board furniture.
I’m going to have to visit an IKEA. The nearest to my house is about a 30 minute drive, but I’m near the area enough to where I wouldn’t be going out of the way to get to it.
I couldn’t tell you very much about their furniture because I’ve never been there. I’ve also never been in a Raymour and Flanigan. Either way, I know people who would and have purchased their furniture from places such as those, and not one of them has the money to order custom furniture from a small shop. Obviously they need furniture, so it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why they are at IKEA.
For my part, I just can’t figure out the backlash against these places; one has very little to do with the other.
Thanks.
Bill
Agree completely.
Bill
Do you think the case exposed in “The Anarchist Toolchest” is representative of many small woodworking business?
I am talking about Troy Sexton.
Tks
If I remember the book correctly, Troy Sexton had a one man shop where he kind of set up a furniture assembly line. It’s hard for me to say, but he is probably representative of the average one man operation.
Firstly, I hope this post doesn’t come off as a knocking of small cabinet shops. I honestly wish every small time woodworker all the success in the world. I’m only saying that the reason that the smaller shops are declining is not chain furniture stores.
I don’t know much about running a furniture shop, but I do know a little bit about running a small business. I would estimate that a one-man furniture shop probably needs to sell approximately $125,000-$150,000 per year worth of furniture for the business to remain solvent and the owner to make a profit. Let’s say that a good furniture maker can make four finished pieces of furniture per month, or roughly one per week. On average, he is going to have to sell that furniture for around $3000 per piece to keep the business going. Just for arguments sake, let’s say this guy is really good and he can produce double that amount of furniture. We are still looking at an average sell cost of $1500 per piece of furniture. I can only speak for myself and most of the people I know, but most of us cannot afford to spend that amount of money on a single piece of furniture, let alone furnish an entire room, let alone a house.
Even if the guy hires two or three workers and quadruples his shop’s output, his expenses and overhead will rise correspondent with his sales. It is a no win situation on a large scale because the product costs too much to produce and is expensive to sell. There just aren’t enough people around who can afford the furniture. In other words, rich people do not buy custom made furniture anymore, or at least not nearly as much as they used to. The bottom line is: the middle class can’t afford it, and the rich don’t want it. If IKEA went out of business tomorrow the situation would be no different.
Thanks.
Bill
Hi Bill,
I think your numbers illustrate that it is very difficult to make a comfortable living as a furniture maker. Given the cost of materials and finishes, I think 150k in sales would be a modest living. I have heard numbers around $100/hr to take care of your insurance, social security, retirement, overhead, etc. At 150k annual, that is about 70/hr and all your expenses come out of that.
If a builder can keep a helper busy at $20 or $30 per hour, and keep the sales per employee the same, they can do better. Sole proprietorship is probably the toughest
When you say you can’t afford a $3000 piece of furniture, is it a chair or a chest of drawers? There is a big difference. You will likely only need a chest or two per room. Setting up your dining room with 8 handmade windsors is another story.
Affordability is somewhat of an illusion once someones basics are covered. I can’t “afford” intermediate cable. I can’t “afford” a texting plan for my cell phone. I can’t “afford” a lot of vacations. I can’t “afford” sirius radio.
I have the money to do these things but choose not to. If you smoke, buy lunch at work every day, have leather seats in your car, drive a car that is much larger than you need, or a $150 cable bill then you spend way more on any of these things than handmade furniture will cost you. Unless you really are “rich” you have to allocate your resources.
If you get pulled along with the herd even a little you may end up short for what is really important to you.
I am not sure if what this guy is selling is “custom” but the list of showrooms has grown a lot over the years, all in high rent areas AND he sells books telling people how to make his product. How is this possible??
http://www-DOT-thosmoser-DOT-com/showroom.list.php
Too often, business failure is misunderstood and blame is misplaced. It’s a tough recipe to figure out but it can be done. But only if you are far from IKEA.
Steve
Firstly, you are spot on, and my 150k is what I consider the bare minimum number.
I would say that technically I could probably afford to purchase a piece of custom furniture, in fact, I have purchased two small tables, as well as my kitchen cabinets were purchased from a smaller, local maker. However, the items that I would have liked to purchase from a custom maker: a chest of drawers, an armoire, a dining table/chairs, and a desk, would have cost me upwards of $20,000. Now, both my wife and I have cars, we have a cable/internet/cell phone bundle plan etc. Neither of us smoke, drink, or gamble, so that is one for the plus column. So, theoretically, if I drove an old beater rather than financing a new car I could have afforded the pieces I wanted. But, to me, a reliable car is far more of a necessity, and those custom pieces of furniture are actually the luxuries that are unnecessary. I would think that many middle class people would likely say the same thing. The same could be said of my phone and internet plan, while on paper they are considered creature comforts, they are in actuality much more necessary to me than fancy, custom made furniture.
In my opinion, furniture makers fail for one simple reason: they only sell big ticket items. In my line of work, I could sell a $10,000 reel of wire and make very little profit on it, but on the accessories: lugs, connectors, switching gear, transformers, etc. I make a much higher profit, and those items are very necessary, as in the wire is no good without them. Even better, I can sell those items without selling the wire, which I do quite frequently. But when you are selling furniture, you are forced to make all of your profit on one or two big ticket items, and because those items are so expensive and timely to produce, your profit margin often has to be very high just to keep your business solvent. An item like a $10,000 reel of wire is a “loss-leader” in my business; furniture shops don’t have that luxury.
I hate to use words like “business model”, but in reality, a furniture shop is a poor business model.
Thanks.
Bill
Well said. I would love to hear the author of the original comment’s rebuttal to your logic. I can’t imagine what he/she could possibly be basing their comment on.
It was on the Wood Whisperers page. To be fair, he had nothing to do with it. It was some if the commenters that were making the statements.
Thanks
Bill
It think $20k for the pieces you are describing is probably a good deal. You don’t say what the furniture store pricing is for the same stuff. Also, we don’t know if 20k is for pine, tiger maple, cherry, or whatever.
I think we can all agree that (pre-assembled) furniture is expensive.
You could make an argument that you could buy one of those pieces every other year and use IKEA stuff as temporary furniture so you can get on with your lives in the meantime.
So I am concluding the opposite. IKEA HELPS SMALL BUILDERS by allowing their customers to temporarily furnish their homes while they set aside money for the small builder. You would never take this approach with stuff costing 3/4 as much but at 1/10 it can make more sense.
Used IKEA can be donated to charity when its obligations are met, and a tax deduction can be taken.
And I like their food.
Steve
I can tell you, the pieces of furniture I priced out when I originally purchased my house were beautiful, and if I had the money at the time I wouldn’t have thought twice. Unfortunately I just couldn’t afford it. To me it wasn’t that the furniture wasn’t worth it, it was, I just couldn’t pay for it. As I was saying, my Subaru cost $23,000, at the end of it’s life I may get a return of 35% on it, and that doesn’t take into account the fact that it needs yearly maintenance. Whereas the furniture, if reasonably cared for, would probably have held its value or possibly even increased. At the same time, my car gets me back and forth to work 6 days a week, and where I work and where I live there is no other alternative than to drive, so it certainly is an absolute necessity.
We haven’t purchased new furniture in 11 years, unless you count our sofa and new mattresses. Our bedroom furniture is inherited, and while not antique, it is more than 75 years old. Our dining table was inherited. Our kitchen cabinets were purchased new and my daughters dresser was a new purchase. My plan is to slowly but surely furnish our house with furniture I made myself. I’ve done the entire living room and some of the furniture in our dining room, family room, and bedroom. We had two very nice little side tables made when we first got married. In that sense, I agree with you completely that IKEA is a great place to get your place furnished at a budget, and possibly get you started on purchasing finer pieces, or in the case of guys like us, make it ourselves.
Thanks.
Bill