The credit crunch has switched everyone’s focus to the value OF money as opposed to value FOR money. The old adage of ‘taking care of the pennies so that the pounds take care of themselves’ has collided with the mentality of our recent throw-away society and resulted in people purchasing furniture that will do the job for the time being until they find something better. Whatever happened to finding furniture that you loved and that helped create a home as an expression of yourself? Whatever happened to heirloom pieces?
Durable, high quality children’s furniture is our specialty and we often get asked about the difference in prices between independent furniture companies like us and the big retailers. The gist of my answer is that if you want a quality item, you will generally find that it has a higher price tag attached. Retailers of mass produced furniture have done a lot to skew the public’s perception of furniture prices as well as their perception of quality. Cheap furniture is available everywhere! You know the sort, relatively stylish, inexpensive, quite cookie cutter-like and mass produced; the type of things that wobble after a year of “tough love” in a family home.
The best way to tackle making a furniture purchase, especially for children’s furniture, is to spend your money consciously and look at the purchase as an investment, not as a temporary solution that can be chucked away on a whim. Remember that overtime, replacing cheap furniture that you only sort of liked in the first place will cost you at least the same amount as the quality item that you loved, but was just out of your price range when you first went shopping.
It’s fair to say that people are starting to realise that the world’s resources are not inexhaustible – we’re told about it nearly every day - and slowly attitudes are beginning to change about the purchase decisions we make. Now, it seems that more and more people are looking to restore and care for things they may have previously decided to throw away, or as we have heard from our customers, are considering spending wisely on things they know will last.
It seems clear that there’s a growing number of people who understand the logic of paying a bit more for craftsmanship, design and sustainability of quality furniture. These people look for furniture, such as the pieces we sell at The Children’s Furniture Company, that you can build a room (and ultimately a home) around – furniture that will last through childhood and beyond. No matter what design elements you want to change over time, beautiful quality pieces of furniture provide a foundation from which you can explore with soft furnishings and décor. A good piece of furniture will always be in style!
Durable, high quality children’s furniture is our specialty and we often get asked about the difference in prices between independent furniture companies like us and the big retailers. The gist of my answer is that if you want a quality item, you will generally find that it has a higher price tag attached. Retailers of mass produced furniture have done a lot to skew the public’s perception of furniture prices as well as their perception of quality. Cheap furniture is available everywhere! You know the sort, relatively stylish, inexpensive, quite cookie cutter-like and mass produced; the type of things that wobble after a year of “tough love” in a family home.
The best way to tackle making a furniture purchase, especially for children’s furniture, is to spend your money consciously and look at the purchase as an investment, not as a temporary solution that can be chucked away on a whim. Remember that overtime, replacing cheap furniture that you only sort of liked in the first place will cost you at least the same amount as the quality item that you loved, but was just out of your price range when you first went shopping.
It’s fair to say that people are starting to realise that the world’s resources are not inexhaustible – we’re told about it nearly every day - and slowly attitudes are beginning to change about the purchase decisions we make. Now, it seems that more and more people are looking to restore and care for things they may have previously decided to throw away, or as we have heard from our customers, are considering spending wisely on things they know will last.
It seems clear that there’s a growing number of people who understand the logic of paying a bit more for craftsmanship, design and sustainability of quality furniture. These people look for furniture, such as the pieces we sell at The Children’s Furniture Company, that you can build a room (and ultimately a home) around – furniture that will last through childhood and beyond. No matter what design elements you want to change over time, beautiful quality pieces of furniture provide a foundation from which you can explore with soft furnishings and décor. A good piece of furniture will always be in style!
