Surviving old furniture and inflation

Posted Jul 26, 2024 12:54 UTC (Fri) by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
In reply to: Consider the web in 1994 by paulj
Parent article: Imitation, not artificial, intelligence

There's also the matter of pricing and inflation. Inflation-adjusting prices suggests (assuming your great-grandfather is comparable to mine in working era) that £1 in your great-grandfather's day is equivalent to £100 today. If he charged £20 for a cabinet, then the equivalent day item should be expected to cost £2,000 - and yet you're probably comparing to mass-market items from places like Ikea that cost 1/10th of that.

And if you look into history, what you find is that the market for furniture back then was limited to the people who today are happy to pay a tonne of money for furniture - it was sufficiently expensive to buy anything that most people got by with far less than we have today.

Surviving old furniture and inflation

Posted Jul 26, 2024 13:16 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> And if you look into history, what you find is that the market for furniture back then was limited to the people who today are happy to pay a tonne of money for furniture - it was sufficiently expensive to buy anything that most people got by with far less than we have today.

Look no further than the word "cupboard". Today it refers to an enclosed cabinet with a door, but its origin is literally a "cup board", ie a flat piece of wood you store your cups on.

Surviving old furniture and inflation

Posted Jul 26, 2024 14:01 UTC (Fri) by paulj (subscriber, #341) [Link] (1 responses)

Good points, though I would make 1 counter point: The labour available to make quality furniture today is tiny, compared to 100 years ago.

The supply of expert labour has diminished to near 0, along with the demand for their well made furniture having been destroyed by cheap, hastily bolted together, (mostly fibreboard, a minority in pine, smaller amount again in better wood) stuff.

Surviving old furniture and inflation

Posted Jul 26, 2024 20:07 UTC (Fri) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523) [Link]

> Good points, though I would make 1 counter point: The labour available to make quality furniture today is tiny, compared to 100 years ago.

But is it? Carpenters can be much more productive today with modern power tools, and even computer-controlled tools. Look at CNC routers, they are downright magic.

I commissioned several custom wooden products (fireplace holder and custom cabinets), I fully expect them to outlast the house. And the amount of money I paid for them is probably still less than 100 years ago.

On the other hand, there's another dimension: practicality. I grew up in a house where we had an actual solid oak wooden table and chairs. They got left behind when this house got demolished because they were completely impractical. It took several people to move the table, and the chairs were uncomfortable and also heavy. I _can_ buy solid oak wood chairs, but I much prefer IKEA chairs made of lightweight pine and birch tree. They won't last, but then they are so cheap, I can replace them without even thinking about it.

It's always about trade-offs.