Why I Stopped Buying Cheap Furniture

I have a formal apology to make to a desk in Thessaloniki. Not for any ill will on my part, but simply because I put it in motion. I shifted it from one side of the room to the other, some two metres or so, and it chose that moment to come undone in my hands. It was not a dramatic affair, nor did it give up all at once; rather it had a kind of dignity as it fell apart into its pieces, as though to say it was never truly a desk to begin with. More like a desk-shaped idea put together with compressed sawdust and optimism.

At the time I bought it, the logic was sound enough: I required a desk and this one was cheap.

Then there was the dresser. In some respects it was the worse of the two for the sheer amount of time I put in before it let me down. We put it together and for three months it was fine, until the drawers began to stick. After that they would no longer close properly. One drawer’s front screws started to come loose, I put them right. Another followed suit and I fixed that too. It was only then I came to the conclusion that I was devoting an inordinate amount of time to the upkeep of something meant for clothes and nothing more.

So I gave the thing away. I hope whoever has it now doesn’t expect too much from it.

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What I Thought I Was Saving

You could put the desk down at €60 and the dresser at some €90. All in, a €150 outlay for two items of furniture seemed like good value to me then.

I failed to factor in the time, however. With cheap flat-pack you can be sure it will take longer than the manual would have you believe; the instructions are over-optimistic and the fittings are never quite right. You end up putting in twenty minutes second-guessing yourself only to realise the fault is with the piece and not your handiwork. Tasos and I were at the desk for the better part of a Saturday afternoon. The dresser ate up another three hours on Sunday.

And that was before the upkeep. Twenty minutes to put one drawer to rights, twenty more for the next. We had to make a run to the hardware store for new screws since the ones supplied with the dresser were too short and stripped right off.

In the end we had to do without them. We put in a new desk and a new dresser, both of which ran us well in excess of what the old ones had been. When you add up the time and the aggravation and the fact you have to buy the proper thing anyway, the so-called cheap furniture has a way of costing you more. It is a calculation I had not made before; I was looking at the price tag but not the whole picture.

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What Cheap Furniture Actually Costs You

I have no quarrel with the fact that some cheap furniture is perfectly adequate. I am talking about the sort of thing you put in a first apartment or a spare room you see twice a year, or a child’s bedroom where you know you will be making changes down the road in three years time. It is temporary by design and you buy it with that in mind. That is a sensible way to use an inexpensive item.

But you cannot buy something on the cheap and then expect it to put in the work of real furniture.

The truth is, these pieces are made to a price. The materials are what they are: particleboard that has no grip on a screw, hinges that don’t last, drawer runners that give out when they feel like it. You can tell by the finish and the fittings and the heft of the thing. Put your hand on a drawer with proper metal runners and one without and you will feel the distinction, though an appealing price tag makes you overlook it.

When the screws came loose in my dresser it was no act of misfortune. Thin particleboard under the strain of everyday use simply won’t hold a metal fitting for long. It was only a matter of time.

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What I Do Differently Now

My approach is to put more money into each item and buy less of them. You would think that is self-evident, but for me it wasn’t, not for a long time anyway. It takes a bit of a change in mindset to come to terms with the fact that a room with three fine pieces of furniture is superior to one cluttered with cheap stuff, and I mean that in every sense, looks included. In short: properly chosen, better furniture in smaller quantities.

Before I part with my cash these days I run through a few questions.

First, does it have heft? Weight doesn’t make something good on its own, but it is a fair enough tell. If a piece feels substantial you can usually count on it; if it is light for what it is, probably not.

Then I want to inspect the joints. There is only so much life in a piece of particleboard held together with screws. But give me proper joinery, like dowels or a dovetail drawer, and you have something that will stand the test of time and be worth repairing down the line.

And I’ll ask myself if there is a used version out there. We have some of our finest pieces from second-hand shops and markets. Go back thirty years to before flat-pack became the norm and you will find solid wood at a moderate price that puts most new things to shame. Put a 1980 chest of drawers with real wood and decent runners up against its modern counterpart and it will see off five of them.

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The Piece That Changed How I Think About This

There is a wooden dining table in our home that has been in Tasos’s family for as long as I have known him. You wouldn’t call it beautiful; it is plain and solid, with its share of scratches and marks and a leg that has seen some repairs over the years. But it has put in its time hosting plenty of people and their meals.

I used to be apt to notice the blemishes on it. Lately I find myself looking at the table for what it is: unyielding and with no intention of being anything but a table for the next few decades. The original price tag means nothing now, worn down by more years of service than I could work out.

Take the dresser that gave up after three months. That set me back €90 or so. When you break it down, you are paying €30 a month for something that irked you every time you went to open a drawer. Simple arithmetic, really. I only hadn’t bothered to do the sums before.

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What This Actually Means in Practice

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying you ought to put furniture on the credit card if you can’t afford it. That is neither here nor there and for most people not an option anyway.

What I mean is that the numbers don’t add up the way they seem when you are at the till. You could say a thing is cheaper if it runs you three times the price but will see you out for ten times as long. Conversely, one that is half the cost but has to be done with in two years is really costing you more. The sticker price is not the whole story.

Take the desk I had. It was €60, but once I went to move it it was all over. Between the hassle of that afternoon and having to get another one, it was a costly exercise. The one I have now set me back more, yet it hasn’t budged from where I put it or come undone in any way; I haven’t even had to put a screwdriver to it. I don’t give it a second thought these days, which is as it should be with good furniture.

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That’s all I have for today. If you have a cheap furniture story, the specific piece, the specific way it let you down, I’d love to hear it in the comments!

This seems to be a universal experience and I find that oddly comforting. Hehe!

Until next time,

Stay safe…and cozy!