So cheap that nothing good is left

[FinanceDude]

You can never go wrong with solid wood!

Freebird, no comments from the peanut gallery.......

 

[ERD50]

You can never go wrong with solid wood!

Actually, you can (never say never!).

While veneer is associated with cheap furniture, it is used in very high end pieces too. Well done veneer over a substrate can be more stable and long lasting than solid wood. Solid wood can crack from expansion/contraction, while a thin veneer can stretch to accommodate movement, and a substrate like high quality plywood moves less, as the plies are in different directions. And you can do things you can't do with solid wood.

If it was good enough for the Pharaohs and Thomas Chippendale ...

HPVA :: Hardwood Plywood and Veneer Association

But I agree with the general theme - if you can find lightly used furniture in a style you like that was made in an age of cheaper labor, you can get some great values and great quality. Most of our house is more modern style, but we do have a few pieces like that that we bought, and a few hand-me downs in the kid's rooms. They are kind of "special".

-ERD50

 

[FinanceDude]

Actually, you can (never say never!).

While veneer is associated with cheap furniture, it is used in very high end pieces too. Well done veneer over a substrate can be more stable and long lasting than solid wood. Solid wood can crack from expansion/contraction, while a thin veneer can stretch to accommodate movement, and a substrate like high quality plywood moves less, as the plies are in different directions. And you can do things you can't do with solid wood.

If it was good enough for the Pharaohs and Thomas Chippendale ...

HPVA :: Hardwood Plywood and Veneer Association

But I agree with the general theme - if you can find lightly used furniture in a style you like that was made in an age of cheaper labor, you can get some great values and great quality. Most of our house is more modern style, but we do have a few pieces like that that we bought, and a few hand-me downs in the kid's rooms. They are kind of "special".

-ERD50

Ya had to get all technical, didn't ya?

All I know is the big buck stuff I see on Antiques Roadshow that the Keino brothers drool over is solid wood...........

 

[Bestwifeever]

If we bought things only for functionality we probably would always buy the cheapest available--those board and cinder block shelves, or Ikea laminate bookcases, hold books as well as Ethan Allen bookcases.

 

[Nords]

If we bought things only for functionality we probably would always buy the cheapest available--those board and cinder block shelves, or Ikea laminate bookcases, hold books as well as Ethan Allen bookcases.

I guess it depends on the type of function.

I spend much of my day sitting at a computer desk-- let's call it six hours. A cheap computer chair (or a stool or an egg crate) gets the job done, but I've never been able sit in any desk chair for as long a time as I've been able to sit in a Herman Miller Aeron. With free warranty service on our front lanai.

The concept of "décor" is pretty much lost on me, but there are times when it pays to buy quality. Especially when some cash-strapped Craigslist seller is trying to ditch it in a hurry...

 

[Bestwifeever]

Nice chair, Nords--I just looked at the Herman Miller website and I can see it's very supportive.

I did get a chuckle out of the comment at that site that this chair is "94% recyclable"--they cost a pretty penny and I wonder how many will ever get sent to the recycling center.

 

[Martha]

But I agree with the general theme - if you can find lightly used furniture in a style you like that was made in an age of cheaper labor, you can get some great values and great quality.

-ERD50

I think we are living in an age of cheap labor, but instead of getting very high quality we are getting very high volume. Lots of stuff for everyone.

I think there is too much stuff. Go to Goodwill and see how many plastic kids toys and stuffed animals there are. Tons. Not only can every kid have toys they can have way too many toys.

 

[Khan]

If we bought things only for functionality we probably would always buy the cheapest available--those board and cinder block shelves, or Ikea laminate bookcases, hold books as well as Ethan Allen bookcases.

I still have those.

 

[Bestwifeever]

I still have those.

Somehow I knew that (you're my RE hero )-- and that's why you're now able to be RE'd on less than you have coming in and can also afford to give some $ away.

 

[ERD50]

I think we are living in an age of cheap labor, but instead of getting very high quality we are getting very high volume. Lots of stuff for everyone.

I agree, we have cheap labor available to us (from other countries) - maybe the difference is that "back in the day" in the US, the labor was cheap relative to the price of the materials. I know my FIL (an "old school" carpenter-contractor) is very much of the mindset that you put in some extra labor if that allows you to save on materials. I was often doing the opposite in my line of work. Well, whichever made economic sense actually, but materials are more predictable than labor, so my bosses steered me towards reducing labor costs.

I think there is too much stuff. Go to Goodwill and see how many plastic kids toys and stuffed animals there are. Tons. Not only can every kid have toys they can have way too many toys.

Maybe that's a combination of cheap foreign labor, and cheap materials? It is so much cheaper to blow-mold something out of plastic, and glue/snap together a few different colored parts than it is to manually carve that out of a selected piece of hardwood, paint each part, wait for it to dry, etc.

It would be interesting to compare the prices of some basic toys of equivalent quality (that's subjective though) - dolls, Lincoln logs, pull toys, stuffed animals (not fancy electronic ones) with prices in the 50 or 60's. If my theory holds water, those should be cheaper now (adjusted for inflation) than back then. Now that I flashback to my youth, playing with toys with my cousins - most of those toys were pretty cheap stuff. Tin-plate, poorly fit together, plastic and rubber parts, those green army men with the molding lines in them, and those plastics were terrible compared to today's stuff (which is why plastic is associated with "cheap" - but it's often the opposite today - ever see a wood motorcycle helmet?).

And if you want a hand-carved, hand painted pull toy today - they are available. You may need to search them out, and some places will price them very high trying to cash in on the nostalgia factor, but I'm pretty sure you can find some at decent prices if you look.

It's sort of like "labor saving" devices - many people still work
over 40 hours a week. We didn't "save" the time, we spent/invested it in different ways. So today, so many things are relatively cheaper, we just have more of everything (more toys, more TVs, computers, GPSs, iPods, stuff that didn't even exist 20 years ago).

I gotta stop thinking about this - I keep writing..... But another analogy - beer. We are awash in cheap, low quality mega-swill. It's everywhere, people buy tons of it. But there is also no better time to be alive than right now if you want to enjoy the highest variety of fantastic quality beers from around the world and around your own locality (or home for that matter, home brewers have access to quality ingredients that they never had before). So it is really about choice, IMO. You can shake your head at all the crap out there, or you can decide to appreciate the greatness of what we do have, and bring quality into your life.

OK, I'm finally reigning myself in... for now


-ERD50

 

[FUEGO]

Go to Goodwill and see how many plastic kids toys and stuffed animals there are. Tons. Not only can every kid have toys they can have way too many toys.

Why go to Goodwill when I can just look in every room in my house and find these toys and stuffed animals lying around everywhere? We keep throwing these things away but I believe some of the prince and princess dolls are making whoopee at night when we aren't looking and reproducing because there always seems to be baby dolls lying around in the morning.

I really do wish I would have kept track of toy inflow and outflow so I could graph it over time. Then take the area under the curve (the integral of the junk function with respect to time) as a measure of "childhood junk factor" or something. I think we may slowly be winning the toy war of attrition.

 

[FUEGO]

It would be interesting to compare the prices of some basic toys of equivalent quality (that's subjective though) - dolls, Lincoln logs, pull toys, stuffed animals (not fancy electronic ones) with prices in the 50 or 60's. If my theory holds water, those should be cheaper now (adjusted for inflation) than back then. Now that I flashback to my youth, playing with toys with my cousins - most of those toys were pretty cheap stuff. Tin-plate, poorly fit together, plastic and rubber parts, those green army men with the molding lines in them, and those plastics were terrible compared to today's stuff (which is why plastic is associated with "cheap" - but it's often the opposite today - ever see a wood motorcycle helmet?).

As a reluctant consumer of fine children's toys, I'll have to admit that the price per unit for toys has slowly decreased over time. The Dollar Store, for example, now has a huge range of really nice toys for $1. Some things there are not the best quality, but in general it is at least as good as stuff you would pay a dollar or more for back in the 80's when I was a kid and Kmart was about the cheapest place you could get "quality" cheap toys.

And this completely ignores all children's toys that are electronic. Ipod/mp3 player vs. walkman or discman or boombox, cheap sub-200 netbooks for every member of the household or $300 laptops vs. multi thousand dollar desktop computers with the green monochrome 13" screens. Video games - Nintendo video games were the same price back in the 80's as the latest xbox 360 and PS3 games are today. Most of the comparable items in this category are around the same price today in nominal dollars. Needless to say, features of 2009 electronics are 1000x better than that of the 1980's.

I really can't think of anything toy-related that costs more today vs. 20 years ago (the time of my childhood). Gas for cars is the one thing that is different since it was under a buck when I was in high school and a 2 hr trip to the beach splitting gas between friends cost about what a McD's combo meal cost.

To be a kid with a nice allowance today...

 

[ziggy29]

I think we are living in an age of cheap labor, but instead of getting very high quality we are getting very high volume. Lots of stuff for everyone.

The worst thing about it is that we get cheap third-world labor when the goods are manufactured, but the labor to FIX these gadgets is very rarely cheap.

This leads to a perfect storm of encouraging "disposable" appliances, electronics and other stuff. It often costs less to buy a new one built in China than to get it fixed by someone in your local economy. So when it breaks, throw it away.

 

[FUEGO]

This leads to a perfect storm of encouraging "disposable" appliances, electronics and other stuff. It often costs less to buy a new one than to get it fixed. So when it breaks, throw it away.

And the best strategy IMHO when buying these disposable appliances is to buy the cheapest item that fits your minimum requirements, knowing that all such appliances have some failure rate, and that you would not pay to have it fixed. Focus on lifecycle costs (ignoring externalities of course).

 

[eridanus]

Construction is another cheap service. Don't bring a level out to a subdivision going up. What you find will scare you.

 

[youbet]

And if you want a hand-carved, hand painted pull toy today - they are available. You may need to search them out, and some places will price them very high trying to cash in on the nostalgia factor, but I'm pretty sure you can find some at decent prices if you look.

"Old Time" quality is indeed very available today. High quality, hand crafted hardwood furniture - available. Hand carved wooden toys - available. Custom homes built by true craftsman that pay attention to details and follow plans done by superb architects - available. Etc, etc. It's all there.

The problem is the American consumer. We get what we ask for. Is it a surprise that suppliers provide what we empty the shelves of and don't carry what we left on the shelves gathering dust?

 

[ERD50]

Construction is another cheap service. Don't bring a level out to a subdivision going up. What you find will scare you.

My FIL would joke that every carpenter on a job had their framing square and 4 foot level... all safely tucked away in their toolbox

It does seem like construction quality has slipped, but as youbet points out, it is available if you are willing to pay. And I wonder if that 'slip' isn't more revisionist history on our part? Was a middle-of-the-run home really built all that well back in the day? Maybe, just due to the nature of the materials and training and such. But when we see some old museum-tour home, we are seeing the high end, not middle-of-the-run. That might distort our view.

Even among the high class homes with fancy fitted woodwork and masonry etc, you would still have a 50% eff furnace, rather than an 80 plus today, poor insulation, etc. So there is some give and take in all that.

I guess I'll go back and draw on my litmus test - anyone *really* want to go back in time and exchange today's quality options and price for those of yesteryear? No thanks.

-ERD50

 

[UncleHoney]

As the owner of a middle of the run 79 year old home I cringe every time I hear someone say, "they sure don't build them like they used too".

If those people only knew. Even the nice old ones had their share of flaws and problems. Nothing is plumb or square and most things were not engineered, they were just built. A lot depended on the carpenters and how creative they were.

I'm just waiting for the day I catch up with the old masons that did our foundation.....You don't substitute common block for corner block unless you want leaks, BIG LEAKS.

I'm also looking for the carpenter that installed the door frames to the coal bin and storage room in the basement before the floor was poured. Just bury the ends in the dirt so the termites have easy access.

Oh and don't put a footer under a wood post holding up a two story stairwell. Just put it on a flat stone and the concrete guys can hide it.

The guys I really want to meet up with are the plasterer and finish carpenter that cut off a major support in a load bearing wall and moved it over about a foot because someone screwed up measuring for the finish staircase.

The list goes on and on and after 34 years most of the little indiscretions have been corrected.

This past weekend DW and I hosted about 40 of my woodworking friends to an open shop and house. As they drooled over the solid walnut wainscot and teak flooring in the dining room, the solid cherry frame and paneled wall in the living room with cherry, walnut and mahogany furniture one of them said to me. You know, you are absolutely NUTS. Best compliment I had in a long time.

Let the rest of the world have all the plastic stuff they want, I'll take the good stuff any time.

 

[FUEGO]

And perfect plumb construction can all be worthless if you have an inch or two of differential settlement over the decades and a crack develops in the walls in the middle of your house. Happens all the time with foundations built on compacted clay (like we have in my local area). And clay settles sloooooowly, so you may not see much settlement for years.

But do you really want to pay an extra $30,000-100,000 for a geotech crew to engineer and build a foundation that keeps differential settlement to near zero levels? Nah - it's a house, not a 50 story skyscraper.

 

[Nords]

Nice chair, Nords--I just looked at the Herman Miller website and I can see it's very supportive.

The sellers, who of course were living in a very nice Hawaii Kai home, had decided to move to Shanghai and were selling for 10 cents on the dollar. Even with the nice home I was wondering if we were trafficking in stolen goods.

And perfect plumb construction can all be worthless if you have an inch or two of differential settlement over the decades and a crack develops in the walls in the middle of your house. Happens all the time with foundations built on compacted clay (like we have in my local area). And clay settles sloooooowly, so you may not see much settlement for years.
But do you really want to pay an extra $30,000-100,000 for a geotech crew to engineer and build a foundation that keeps differential settlement to near zero levels? Nah - it's a house, not a 50 story skyscraper.

And then the earthquake wreaks havoc on your perfect drywall joints...

 

[lets-retire]

One house the DW and I were looking to buy had crown molding. Overall the structure looked decent, until.... The thing with the crown molding was there were several places in the house where it had to just stop at the edge of a wall. Not one place did the crown on the left side end in the same place as the crown on the right side. They weren't off by fractions of inches they were off by inches. This was from a "custom house" builder. A co-worker had his house built. when he did the final walk through he noticed one of the doors wasn't square. The only reason he noticed it was because it was in a corner. The bottom was .5-1 inch off from the top.

My father had a house in Texas that was built on the clay they have there. As long as he kept the lawn watered the house remained level. When he started renting it out the renters quit watering the lawn and the way the water drained from around the house one side received more water than the other and the house became unlevel and the foundation cracked. Now my sister lives in the house and he told here the secret to keeping the house level so she waters regularly. My father also had the foundation fixed which I'm sure helps.

 

[HFWR]

As a woodworking hobbyist (from whence the term "ugly as a homemade fence"), one advantage of custom-built cabinetry and shelving is that what you want to store fits perfectly. That is, until what you want to store changes... But if you build it yourself, you can make it as modular as you want. Ever tried to move a big, honkin', hardwood bookshelf? Getting it around corners, through doorways, and into a truck is a task begging for Samantha- or Jeannie-like powers.

But I'm an expert at building stuff that looks like it came out of an old farmhouse...

 

[CuppaJoe]

....

But I'm an expert at building stuff that looks like it came out of an old farmhouse...

Hey, that stuff is collectible! There is a neat hutch in my family that was lined with Civil War newspapers. Dad bought it for a song but it's lost value because it's been stripped and re-painted a couple of times. Blame "Antiques Roadshow" for making it difficult to downsize.

 

[ziggy29]

Blame "Antiques Roadshow" for making it difficult to downsize.

I blame Antiques Roadshow because I lament the fact that my ancestors apparently didn't keep a lot of cool stuff in good condition passed down to many generations...

 

[UncleHoney]

My father had a house in Texas that was built on the clay they have there. As long as he kept the lawn watered the house remained level. When he started renting it out the renters quit watering the lawn and the way the water drained from around the house one side received more water than the other and the house became unlevel and the foundation cracked. Now my sister lives in the house and he told here the secret to keeping the house level so she waters regularly. My father also had the foundation fixed which I'm sure helps.

You must be talking about the infamous Yazoo Clay. Even Frank Lloyd Wright didn't understand about Yazoo Clay. There is a Wright house someplace in the south that has been plagued by the clay for years. Sections of the house have moved up and down several inches. I remember reading about restoration efforts in the early 80's. Not sure if they ever corrected all the problems but it was getting expensive at the time.