How long do you expect your family room (daily used) furniture to hold up? And has it?

[mom@shiloh]

Find a knowledgeable and honest sales person.  When we were shopping for new furniture, we went several places.  All of them were small-town, locally owned stores.  You can start to tell which places just want to sell you something and which places want you to be satisfied in the long run.  One woman knew all the furniture brands and could tell us exactly how long each one would hold up given their placement in a house.

 

Every day use with small children?  X Brand is going to be the best for you.  Occasional use?  This brand will work well for you.

 

She was a gem.  We bought exactly what she recommended.  Fifteen years later, our couches still look great and we have ten children and lots of visitors.  

 

Bottom line  -- find a store that's in it for the long run who wants to maintain a reputation of quality.  

[MysteryJen]

We have mostly used hand me downs from my mom for couches. She bought well and those couches definitely had 25-30 years wear. The current hand me down couch and loveseat were new when I was a baby, recovered when I was in high school and are only now starting to creak a little. I will say, that couches didn't get much use in my parents house. Not a lot of lounging around together, and we rarely brought friends home.

 

In our house, lots of lounging, eating, teens, and only one place to do it. I will have to replace these couches in the next few years, but I don't know at what price point.

 

I believe pretty strongly that you get what you pay for in couches. That said, I am getting close to 50. It would be too depressing to contemplate only one more couch for the rest of my life. 

[Rachel]

I expect my wood furniture to last forever. Our living room furniture was inexpensive and was given to us very slightly used, it lasted about 12 years. I moved the love seat to the playroom about 3 years ago when we bought our couches. the cushions are a little lumpy but it's still usable.

 

My grandparents have the same bedroom and dining furniture they've had for years, probably not their entire 63 years of marriage but close. I think it is difficult to find affordable furniture of similar quality these days.

[Rachel]

As far as a sofa I think it depends on what I pay. If I buy a high end sofa, I'd expect it to last at least 20-30 years. If it had to be recovered I think that would be reasonable. With recovering I think it could last longer. My parents have a 25 year old leather couch in good condition.

 

The bargain couches I have now, I bought them hoping they would last 10 years. That was 4 years ago and they still seem new so I think they will last longer than 10 years, but if they don't I still feel like I got my money's worth.

[Wabi Sabi]

All of our wooden furniture was purchased second hand (mostly at thrift shops!) and I expect to last indefinitely. 

Couches, on the other hand, are another story. We seem to replace ours every 2-3 years. Sometimes we buy used, sometimes we buy new, but it doesn't matter: with our dogs and kids they just get gross before too long. We've had our current living room armchairs for about 3 years. We purchased them used but in excellent condition (1950s/60s era mid century stuff that had been in some older person's living room and never used) about 3 years ago. Structurally they're still great, but they are disgustingly dirty at this point and have multiple rips in the upholstery. We've looked into having them reupholstered but the cost is prohibitively expensive. 

We have a newer couch purchased brand new only a year ago. I don't know how long we'll keep it because I just find it super uncomfortable and it already has a big water stain on it, plus the fabric has pilled badly. 

[Pam in CT]

I don't even know how to answer.  We've been married for 26 years, lived together for two years before that, consolidated stuff from our separate apartments before that; and I can't remember *ever* wearing *any* furniture out.  I mean, I've replaced slipcovers, had a few upholstered things re-upholstered, re-surfaced the kitchen table and re-painted the kitchen chairs a few times.   And we've outgrown things... the graduate school IKEA look, the starter-house flea market side tables, the cribs and toddler beds etc, and given them away.  But "wear out"?

 

Perhaps my standards are really really low...

 

 

 

[AMJ]

When DH and I first set up a household together we accepted my grandmother's 1970s vintage Ethan Allen sofa, with avocado-green Hurculon fabric.  That stuff never wore out!  The frame of the sofa quit before that (horribly uncomfortable) fabric did.  It lasted at least 3 decades.

 

When we had the money we bought ourselves a Lazy Boy reclining sofa.  The sofa construction itself was still working (though it was always clunky) when we replaced it after 15 years or so, but the fabric was wearing through.  The first of the wear started in a stress point that never should have existed--the edge of the cushions had a rolled edge, with a tube of plastic inside to hold the round shape.  They were sloppy during the upholstering, and the supportive tube didn't extend across the entire front of the cushion.  The fabric wore through starting where the sharp plastic edge of the thin tubing inside was rubbed against the fabric.

 

Back in college a roommate had an old armless sofa that needed reupholstering.  She covered it in a cow-print fabric with some new foam underneath to augment the cushioning.

 

My Mom used to reupholster and refinish furniture.

 

Due to all of these varied experiences (and more) I have no idea how long to expect furniture to last, though the more it cost the longer I expect to get good use out of it.

[73349]

We bought our couch in '99--a brown sleeper sofa. It wasn't very pretty, and it turned out to be too large not only for our first apartment, but everywhere we've ever lived.

It is just now (18 years in and on our 5th year of both year-round homeschooling and cat ownership, albeit with a blanket usually covering the kitty's spot) starting to look worn.

 

When will I be able to get rid of this thing???

 

We've done well with wood furniture--dressers & night stand almost 11 years old; DS's dresser handed down from when DH was a kid, so ~40 years old; dining room table & chairs bought secondhand 12 years ago and doing well; rocking chair handed down from my grandmother, so probably ~60 years old; bed frame ~5 years old. All are in great shape except one dresser with damage to the finish from a glow stick that came open :/ and no intent to replace any of it.

Edited September 18, 2017 by whitehawk

[Guest]

Find a knowledgeable and honest sales person. When we were shopping for new furniture, we went several places. All of them were small-town, locally owned stores. You can start to tell which places just want to sell you something and which places want you to be satisfied in the long run. One woman knew all the furniture brands and could tell us exactly how long each one would hold up given their placement in a house.

 

Every day use with small children? X Brand is going to be the best for you. Occasional use? This brand will work well for you.

 

She was a gem. We bought exactly what she recommended. Fifteen years later, our couches still look great and we have ten children and lots of visitors.

 

Bottom line -- find a store that's in it for the long run who wants to maintain a reputation of quality.

*Sigh* I used to have that. There was a "mom and pop" furniture store; in fact, the daughter was classmates with DH. We bought our kitchen dining table set, DS17's bed, his dresser and DD20's dresser from them. Oh, and the living room love seat, three chairs, and two end tables there, too. (I'm sitting on the love seat right this minute.) All that furniture has been outstanding. My kids are welcome to take their furniture into the future with them if they want to. And this love seat is still in outstanding condition, though it has been little-used for most of it's life.

 

But alas, "Pop" passed away and that furniture store has been sitting with "Store Closing" signs out front for the past 8 years or so. I have no idea where else I could go that is not a big franchise furniture provider. And I don't trust Joe-Furniture-Chain-Salesguy one jot.

 

I went into Ethan Allen last summer, mainly because our formal dining set is EA and was acquired second-hand when we first got married from a lady who was moving into assisted living. It needs new upholstering (outdated, faded), but otherwise in very good condition. Anyway, that was just a hot mess rigamaroll. I don't like the way they operate. I don't want a "designer" to redecorate my family room for $12K, even in "stages," as she suggested. I just want good furniture in a clean, classy style, with durable fabric and great, superb construction. I don't need new lamps or "artwork."

 

I'm not afraid to pay more for furniture that will last for decades, but I don't want to buy an expensive brand *just* because I think that expensive = good. It's clearly not always true. I asked at Lazy Boy once how long I could expect their couches to last and the salesperson said seven years. These were not cheap couches, either! I told him mine was 17 years old and I was looking for something that would manage at least 15 and he looked at me as if I were an alien life form, lol. Maybe I am.

[Guest]

I don't even know how to answer. We've been married for 26 years, lived together for two years before that, consolidated stuff from our separate apartments before that; and I can't remember *ever* wearing *any* furniture out. I mean, I've replaced slipcovers, had a few upholstered things re-upholstered, re-surfaced the kitchen table and re-painted the kitchen chairs a few times. And we've outgrown things... the graduate school IKEA look, the starter-house flea market side tables, the cribs and toddler beds etc, and given them away. But "wear out"?

 

Perhaps my standards are really really low...

I doubt your standards are low. :)

 

What I have seen for sofa's wearing out are two main features, one more serious than the other. Sometimes, the fabric wears out or starts looking shabby pretty quivkly. This can sometimes be fixed with slipcovering or reupholstering or a cleaning even. But the big deal is when the springs/interior construction is trashed. In really bad cases, you can tell this without anyone even sitting on the couch. It sags and looks deflated all by itself. My sofa's springs are shot but it's only noticeable once someone sits on it, especially if they are big. If they sit in the center part, their ass may as well be on the floor. 😆 Their knees are jacked up to their ears.

 

My biggest complaint about mine is that I despise the pillow back. The style is bad. The color is very outdated (forest green). The tables we bought with that are dilapidated, but they were not of good quality to begin with. They are those horrible pine "country" tables with a hand-distressed finished. (My children have hand-distressed it themselves.) My area rug also matches this set and is somewhat worn. I probably would not wish to replace the rug except that obviously I will get a different color scheme and style and the rug will no longer match.