@datarama

Yes IKEA copies western designer items because they are a western furniture mass producer. And the stuff in the the Bronx imports shop is also mass produced copies but of … something where I have not encountered the “real” version —

@futurebird Right, then I just misunderstood what you meant.

(A while ago, I pondered that "Nordic cyberpunk dystopia" would probably visually look like "The entire world was designed by IKEA".)

@datarama
Do not utter such horrors …for by describing them, by naming them, we may speak them into being.

@MisuseCase real linoleum is plastic-free https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linoleum @futurebird

@NatureMC @MisuseCase @futurebird
Marmoleum...

@futurebird One of the weirdest things about IKEA is that they have exactly two modes of product quality:

- Complete and utter rubbish that will disintegrate if you look at it from a wrong angle.
- Functionally indestructible and will be used as the favoured perching spot of a post-apocalyptic nuclear cockroach in 800 years.

And also these are completely decoupled from price.

@datarama @futurebird Yes! I have some old (maybe 25 years old) Billy bookshelves that are so strong I could knock out a rhino with them. And I bought a Kallax the other day that an ant could lift up and carry off.

There is a furniture shop in the Bronx that has always baffled me.

But, recently? I had a revelation.

I was baffled because the stuff in their window is so showy and colorful. It’s just not what I’ve been taught to think of as “good design.”

But, then, I stepped back and considered their prices, the build quality of the furniture— and in that light it’s not that different than IKEA.

In terms of price or functionality or materials.

It just has a very different design agenda.

@futurebird
This looks like what rooms often looked like in San Francisco in my 20s (30 yrs ago). Furniture and decoration then was the best stuff my friends could find on street corners and in Goodwill stores.
And painting our apartments interesting colors was a relatively cheap way to make spaces our own.

@lapis

It's like in "Never Ending Story" when "The Nothing" came for the world of fairy tales an imagination.

Gray fake wood floor.
Gray boxes.
Maybe a dark brown accent as a tiny "treat" ... it's supposed to be sophisticated I suppose.

And if you make no dangerous choices no one can have an opinion about those choices, right?

(well I can)

@futurebird @lapis Seems a lot of "new car colors" for a number of years have been variations on gray: light gray, gray with a tinge of green, purplish dark gray, ... (I don't think those are the official names, I'm just naming what I see).

This set of observations was triggered by an interior designer who suggested replacing 30 year old linoleum flooring with those fake (but realistic) plastic wood planks you see in new construction today.

Linoleum sold on the roll has always been a cheap substitute for tiles. No one uses it anymore. But if you have linoleum and it's easy to clean and STILL in good shape after years?

Why would you rip it out for what is just the new version linoleum?

That's a downgrade.

@futurebird I had to do a double take when I saw that, 'cause for a second I could've sworn that was the same as my parents' kitchen floor. It's a different pattern, but the color scheme is almost identical!