Housewares

January 29, 2004

There is a scene in the movie Fight Club where Edward Norton's character browses through an IKEA catalog trying to pick the home furnishings that best define him as a person. The funny thing is, while I was watching the movie, I happened to be sitting in my own living room and after a quick look around it was quite obvious that my wife and I had gone IKEA crazy.

Unlike in Fight Club, I wont go on trying to fulfill my primal needs and reconnect with my own humanity through a fighting rampage. Instead, my wife and I are simply redefining our home with better furniture.

An IKEA habit is not an easy thing to kick because reasonably good-looking furniture at incredibly low prices is almost too hard to resist. Granted the furniture is pretty much disposable and starts falling apart after a year, but the stuff is so cheap that if it breaks you can simply go back and pick up something else.

So far the main obstacle we've encountered is that well designed and well built furniture is not cheap. Indeed, there is no shortage of big furniture stores around us, yet having a not so large budget makes it almost impossible to find something that is not bland in its design. There is also the DWR option (which stands for Design Within Reach) yet after a quick peek at their online catalog and finding a couch at prices from $3500 and up it becomes obvious that they should be called DNQWR instead, which would stand for Design Not Quite Within Reach.

One avenue we recently started exploring is the used vintage furniture stores in San Francisco. I must say things are starting to look promising. Good vintage is definitely not cheap but if you spend some time looking you might find something that looks great, is well built and has some history to it which for me its the coolest part.

Linkage

Stunning imagery on the portfolio of Danish Director Klaus Thymann.

Victory League, the Graphic Design portfolio of Ryan Waller.