Vent. Bought a piece of furniture on Wayfair and spent $$ having it put together and it is cheap cheap crap. Bummed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That sucks. I bought a couch from wayfair that I really like. But I spent a lot of time reading all the reviews, I ordered swatches, I compared other stuff, I did a reverse google search, etc. It probably took me 3 weeks to push the button and actually place the order. For me it was worth the time and research; I couldnt afford an expensive couch but I didnt want anything that felt or looked cheap either.

Could you share which one you got? I am looking for a couch

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have to be smart with Wayfair; you can't buy just anything off of it because a lot of it is crap.

We have a toddler so for us it's been a good place to supplement our nicer furniture with stuff that looks good but we don't have to obsess over. And as other PPs have noted, always always read the reviews carefully (the more the better), confirm the materials, and if possible, only buy name brands you recognize.

I don’t totally disagree but even the ‘good’ furniture on there isn’t really that well made. Its life cycle is maybe 10 years which somehow most people think of as durable. I see people posting that they’ve managed to keep a couch for 2 or 3 years and they think that’s great. Sad for our environment

This is honestly kind of reality for lots of goods today. Many appliances only last 7-10 years. Same with electronics. It’s all pretty frustrating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have to be smart with Wayfair; you can't buy just anything off of it because a lot of it is crap.

We have a toddler so for us it's been a good place to supplement our nicer furniture with stuff that looks good but we don't have to obsess over. And as other PPs have noted, always always read the reviews carefully (the more the better), confirm the materials, and if possible, only buy name brands you recognize.

I don’t totally disagree but even the ‘good’ furniture on there isn’t really that well made. Its life cycle is maybe 10 years which somehow most people think of as durable. I see people posting that they’ve managed to keep a couch for 2 or 3 years and they think that’s great. Sad for our environment

This is honestly kind of reality for lots of goods today. Many appliances only last 7-10 years. Same with electronics. It’s all pretty frustrating.

Yes, agree, and don’t get me started on towels…

[Anonymous]

We have had two very negative experiences with Wayfair. An expensive couch that literally fell apart after a year. And bunk beds where the wood split. Never again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have purchased 2 vanities from wayfair an have been happy with both. One is several years old. They both had very good reviews,

I have also purchased wooden bar stools (very pleased), a set of parsons chairs (pleased), an accent chair (looks nice, gets very minimal use so fits the purpose of looking pretty and feeling comfortable the few times we sit in it), 3 different solid wood pieces purchased years apart (very pleased with all of them, 1 accent table, one sofa table and a bookshelf), and one ottoman that looked pretty but got destroyed very quickly due to most of it being particle board.

Reading the reviews is key, along with doing a reverse image search.

DP - yes to all this. I had to furnish an entire house and bought accent tables, a TV stand, a couch for the office, leather accent chair for bedroom, and dining table and chairs from Wayfair. All were well-reviewed and pieces advertised as solid wood were indeed solid wood. A couple pieces came defective and I was able to return them.
In addition to reverse image search, the same item may be sold by a different Wayfair vendor for a different price.
Only the TV stand and leather chair came in one piece. Even pricier items (from Wayfair, Amazon, HD, Costco) required assembly. We DIY'd most of them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have purchased 2 vanities from wayfair an have been happy with both. One is several years old. They both had very good reviews,

I have also purchased wooden bar stools (very pleased), a set of parsons chairs (pleased), an accent chair (looks nice, gets very minimal use so fits the purpose of looking pretty and feeling comfortable the few times we sit in it), 3 different solid wood pieces purchased years apart (very pleased with all of them, 1 accent table, one sofa table and a bookshelf), and one ottoman that looked pretty but got destroyed very quickly due to most of it being particle board.

Reading the reviews is key, along with doing a reverse image search.

DP - yes to all this. I had to furnish an entire house and bought accent tables, a TV stand, a couch for the office, leather accent chair for bedroom, and dining table and chairs from Wayfair. All were well-reviewed and pieces advertised as solid wood were indeed solid wood. A couple pieces came defective and I was able to return them.
In addition to reverse image search, the same item may be sold by a different Wayfair vendor for a different price.
Only the TV stand and leather chair came in one piece. Even pricier items (from Wayfair, Amazon, HD, Costco) required assembly. We DIY'd most of them.

Lets hear how this furniture looks in 5 years

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know about wayfair but I’ll just say we have bought furniture from west elm, pottery barn, crate and barrel and it’s all absolute garbage despite being a lot more expensive than wayfair. I think majority of furniture these days is just crap and meant to basically be replaced every few years despite the high price tags.

I have been looking for new bedroom furniture for months. DH wants to get things that we've seen in person because of a lot of the issues mentioned in this thread. But even relatively expensive things in the section for real wood furniture at, say, Belfort, feel like a major step down in quality from the used Basset bedroom set that we got from a thrift store more than 15 years ago. Things we've consistently noticed across brands, even "Amish made": The drawer slides are lower quality and the drawer motion is wobbly, the exterior finish feels cheaper, the wood of the drawers feels thinner but the drawers are also smaller and not as deep, on a piece of furniture that takes up as much space or more than our current pieces. If we went with a new set, the reality is that we would have noticeably less storage space as well as lower quality furniture.

I would really like to update the style of our set, and I've looked at everything from Arhaus to Ethan Allen to Stickley to Hooker, Tommy Bahama, Williams Sonoma Home, etc. Obviously not all in person. But the sets I've seen that would likely meet our standards for quality and the color of finish we want, all look very similar to the traditional set we have.

At some point, we basically gave up and decided that we'd rather update our old set than buy a new set that we wouldn't like as well. So we're working with a local guy to refinish the set we have and change the hardware, and that will have to be enough of an update. By the time we pay for transportation of the pieces, the new hardware + the labor involved, it will probably cost as much as a "high quality" new set -- but not as much as something like a new Stickley or Basset set.

Re: the "Wayfair mindset," I remember trying to buy quality, non-Ikea furniture when DH and I first got married and had a much smaller budget. We needed a full bedroom set, we went to Stickley not knowing anything about the brand and the saleslady tried to convince us that we should "invest" in what we could afford there because it would last. That would've meant buying one small dresser ... when we needed two + night stands + a bedframe. It was such a turnoff, like, it would have been less out of touch for her to just tell us honestly that we should look elsewhere and aspire to Stickley someday. We ended up at a thrift store and found the Basset set that we've used ever since. Expensive furniture is not in the cards for most people, and even if you WANT to buy better quality you don't always get it just by paying more.