Spending a fortune on furniture you'll treasure?
An article in the San Francisco Chronicle's home section today addresses the issue of disposable-but-affordable versus pricey-but-built-to-last furniture:
Let me be clear about two things: one, handcrafted furniture like that made by Berkeley Mills (see profile) is not cheap. A standard dining room chair costs about $1,100. Two, I know what it takes to make a chair like that. While my own skills don't measure up to the high level needed to fabricate such a chair from rough planks of hardwood, I have friends who are among that elite, and I have learned from them...Who can afford six grand for six chairs? A good question. Yet who questions Americans' ability to buy a big-screen TV and a home entertainment center -- a hodgepodge of electronics and particleboard shelving that will be broken or obsolete in a few years -- for the same $6,000? Who questions those same Americans spending $1,100 on "garbage" furniture six times in their lives?
It's a good point... but a moot point for those who don't have $6,000 sitting around waiting to be spent. When recently faced with the dining chair dilemma, we ended up taking ourselves off to Crate and Barrel Outlet in Berkeley, where we found six solid-wood chairs — in a cheery blue color — for $63 each.
We will eschew the big-screen TV and particleboard shelving, though.