This year, my husband and I decided to finally shed the beat-up Ikea furniture we had acquired in our twenties. We’d just bought a house and it seemed like the right time to start investing in a proper, well-made sofa, dining set, and bed that would (hopefully) last until our toddler is off to college.
But as soon as we started browsing online and visiting stores, we quickly realized we didn’t have the expertise to know if we were making smart purchases. Unlike picking out high-quality food or clothes, it’s hard to tell what you’re really getting when in comes to furniture. On the West Elm, Crate & Barrel, or Wayfair websites, for instance, most of the furniture is described as “imported,” but we don’t know where it is from or how, exactly, it was made. Did it come off a massive factory line? Was it made by a skilled craftsman in a small studio? Would it fall apart in a year or last a decade?
Nidhi Kapur gets it. The 30-year-old, who launched a furniture startup called Maiden Home in March, had experienced the exact same paralysis when she was setting up her first home in New York. “My husband and I decided to adult for the first time,” she says. “But I expect to know what I am getting for my money now. I don’t know if my parents feel this way, but I feel more empowered as a consumer to ask questions when it came to buying furniture.”