Dr. Do carry on old chap, loving the thread, bravo.

Posts like this make me thankful that the furniture came with my caravan.

I’ve just checked the JL website – theres a Homeware section, a Furniture section, a Clothing section – but sadly no caravan section.

Sorry – you’ll have to continue being un stylish.

Sorry – you’ll have to continue being un stylish

Fine by me, sorry Sir but you’ve got issues.

Not gonne get hooked in to the whole anti Ikea vs Habitat thing (we have both). IIRC i read a press release saying that folowing the demise of Habitat as a national chain, JL are now positioning themselves so start shifting furniture of a similar style to what has previously been available from Habitat. Not that i’be bought anything from JL as of yet.

But whilst we on furniture, what we make of Bo Concept stuff?

Ikea is truly excellent at what it aims to do. That is, cheap or very cheap furniture that looks good and can make a nice house. Without Ikea we’d be having MFI or orange varnished pine stuff (puke)

It’s not as good as John Lewis, but then it’s a fraction the price.

I go in JL and look at bookcases, the ones I like are £400, versus £30 for my Ikea ones. Different markets, clearly. I would love to fill my house with beautiful quality or bespoke furniture, but I just can’t afford it. So Ikea it is.

Alan Clark’s view on furniture buying is pure class.

‘While he dismissed Michael Heseltine as the kind of person “who bought his own furniture”. ‘

I based my post on this, although the BBC article is wrong, he reported (approvingly) Julian Critchley Michael Jopling (I misremembered) saying this, rather than saying it himself.

You gets what you pays for

Thanks for the free advice.

I don’t see my JL stuff as expensive – it’s an investment

You may want to look up the word investment, I doubt JL office furniture is going to make you much money in the future.

Also, if you really loved furniture, and wanted to buy quality pieces, you wouldn’t be buying it from John bloody Lewis!

* Captain Flashheart to the Forum please *

Well, I’ve definitely failed cos I have both DFS and Ikea and very happy I am with them too. 8)

Ikea bookcase 235 pounds
http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/00116595/

John Lewis bookcase 59 pounds
http://www.johnlewis.com/231057112/Product.aspx

Its like comparing Halfords to your LBS. Both do sell decent stuff, but John Lewis just don’t sell the cheap tat. And call your Sir.

Ikea is truly excellent at what it aims to do. That is, cheap or very cheap furniture that looks good and can make a nice house. Without Ikea we’d be having MFI or orange varnished pine stuff (puke)

But Molgrips – you’ve fallen into the trap.

Ikea make awful furniture. But they market the Ikea experience well, so we buy it. It doesn’t make houses look nice – it makes them look cheap and gawdy.

People that shop in Ikea also decorate their houses with massive patterned wall paper on ‘feature’ walls. What’s happening is you’re all confusing STYLE with the nonsense you see on day time telly where they makeover some nasty hovel for 50p.

obviously this is a comedy / troll thread but… Ikea do quite a range of qualities – from cheap and flimsy to their ‘habitat end’ decent stuff – we’ve just bought sliding wardrobes – about a £1000 all in, there were MUCH cheaper options.

You may want to look up the word investment, I doubt JL office furniture is going to make you much money in the future.

Don’t play with words you don’t understand yourself……

If I choose, just for example, to pay £200 for a bookshelf from JL instead of £50 from Ikea, knowing that my JL bookcase will be solidly made, last longer, still look good in ten years, and have been designed with enough thought to ensure it won’t go out of style, then I may long term save money – by not constantly changing my furniture to either suit my mood, fashion, or simply becuase its now broken.

The latter part of that is the Ikea model. Sell cheap knowing you’ll be back for more in a few years.

In the end you may as well have ponied up the money and brought something nicer to begin with.

I’ve got an idea – if I bring my collection of plastic and Ti bikes inside my home, you know to sit amongst my DFS sofas, does it make it ‘tasteful’ ?

we’ve just bought sliding wardrobes – about a £1000 all in, there were MUCH cheaper options.

The ones with all the special drawers and stuff that you pick? there’s 800 quid we’ll never see again. Sorry, but god they were crap 😈 Had to get an Ikea ‘engineer’ out a few times to sort them, and that isn’t easy to do. lasted a year before going to the tip, tried in vain to get some money back of Ikea.

Haha poddy my parents have those chairs in front of the fire in the dining room

Very un comfortable !

you must some weird shape – the reason those chairs have stayed on sale for so long is that they are comfortable!

Wait, someone is getting all high horsey because they bought something from John Lewis? Isn’t that a bit like being smug because your Mondeo is a Ghia?

I’ve got an idea – if I bring my collection of plastic and Ti bikes inside my home, you know to sit amongst my DFS sofas, does it make it ‘tasteful’ ?

Oh my word, No.

Bikes belong in the man cave – not the house. Although I wouldn’t put it past Carol Smiley to suggest such a thing on Changing Rooms.

But you do make a fair point.

People are, increasingly, prone to making design statements in their houses – things like feature walls. Ikea love this thinking as it allows them to sell utterly tasteless rubbish.

Sticking a bike to your wall – or just standing it next to your lovely DFS sofa (I do hope it’s a leatherette reclining, corner unit, with a lifespan one year less than the credit agreement you’ve not started paying off yet?) is a similar statement.

The people of this land are becoming more and more obsessed with style statements – its just a terrible shame that so few have real style. We are slowly turning into a mobile home park in the states……

(well, when I say we – I mean you lot really).

Wait, someone is getting all high horsey because they bought something from John Lewis? Isn’t that a bit like being smug because your Mondeo is a Ghia?

My Mondeo is a Ghia!

You mean he has a Mondeo Ghia as well?

Damn! He must be David Cameron or Prince Charles or Prince

its just a terrible shame that so few have real style

This is true. It is as if they don’t realise that it can just be bought ‘off the shelf’ from John Lewis’s

Wait, someone is getting all high horsey because they bought something from John Lewis? Isn’t that a bit like being smug because your Mondeo is a Ghia?

yes – it is a bit wrong.

Some of their stuff is of good quality, some is run of the mill stuff.

The best things about shopping at John Lewis are

1). their guarantees are pretty good (used to be domestic and general),

2) they price match on some stuff,

3) they treat their staff decently and consequently the service you get is normally better than other stores.

John Lewis – ideally suited to snobbish people who THINK they have taste, just love rocking up there on my motorbike at xmas cutting a swathe through the queues of BMWs & Audis, parking right at the entrance & barging through in my leathers – just about makes the shopping experience bearable IMO

😆

This thread is so funny, thanks. 😆

Of course it could be argued that my … (is it vulgar to name drop here?) … Litespeed is a work of art – tubing has gorgeous shaping and such precise welds.

Did I mention at one point I had a lounge with concrete floor, DFS sofas and Ti bike and … a skip on the driveway. How cool does that make me? 8)

DRSWANK please don’t brag because you buy your funiture from a chain store. It makes you look frankly poor like those people who have to use silver napkin rings because they don’t have enough linnen and staff.

Our furniture has been in the family for three generations.

barging through in my leathers

You gent, I bet the little old ladies love you as they stagger across the foyer trying not break their hips when they fall over.

It is as if they don’t realise that it can just be bought ‘off the shelf’ from John Lewis’s

But at least it would be a nice shelf……..

This thread makes me glad i inherited most of my furniture.

Did I mention at one point I had a lounge with concrete floor, DFS sofas and Ti bike and … a skip on the driveway. How cool does that make me

Do you live in Bracknell? The most DFSish of all the towns in England?

Our furniture has been in the family for three generations.

Did they buy it from JL?

Crankboy, yesterday

The people of this land are becoming more and more obsessed with style statements

…and you are one of them by buying into the John Lewis [life]style.

Our furniture has been in the family for three generations

So poor you have to rely on hand-me-downs?

So poor you have to rely on hand-me-downs?

How sad, the only hand-me-down we have is a can of beans. I can’t even remember where that came from

it doesn’t smell nice,

actually (traditional)Scandinavian furniture shouldn’t smell at all – due to being snow bound for long periods of the year until realatively recently – swedes were waay ahead of the curve in non odorous materials/ adhesives etc.

HTH

I think [Waitrose is] … full of middle class snobs either going ‘look at me, look at me I’m rich’

I’m not going that. I’m more likely to be going ‘here we are in bloody Waitrose again, this is why I’m not rich’.

“Our furniture has been in the family for three generations.

Did they buy it from JL? “

No my grandad made it with mahogany and other wood he nicked from the shipyard where he was a fitter . One of the doors on the sideboard is branded with “door 3 deck c” my stool used to be a door on the RMS Aquitania.

Samcooke so close it made me laugh

…and you are one of them by buying into the John Lewis [life]style

Style and Style Statements are two different things……

My house is painted in Farrow and Ball, Estate finish paints. That is style.

My neighbours house is painted in B&Q cheap slop and has nasty, huge patterned wall-paper on one wall in each room. That is a style statement.

Total cost would be about the same – but mine will still look good in five years when this trend for statements dies out.

Imagine being as ugly as Eamon Holmes (and I’m sure some of you can) and deciding to sew testicles to your forehead just so you’d be noticed. This is what you’re doing to your homes when you put tat in them.

No my grandad made it with mahogany and other wood he nicked from the shipyard where he was a fitter . One of the doors on the sideboard is branded with “door 3 deck c” my stool used to be a door on the RMS Aquitania.

You’re celebrating his theiving ways!

My word – you don’t deserve Ikea………

Interesting discussion and it’s good to see that people are still judging others based on material goods 🙄

FWIW, other than their really basic ranges, Ikea furniture is generally far better made and designed than any of the other posher brands mentioned in this thread. In fact, I’d suggest that the more designer furniture I have is considerably less well made (though it looks nicer – more of a style statement maybe 😀 ) and probably won’t last as well.

My neighbours house is painted in B&Q cheap slop and has nasty, huge patterned wall-paper on one wall in each room. That is a style statement.

I hope you wee in his letterbox.