Search furnishings by size?
February 16, 2015 11:02 AM Subscribe
I often find myself looking for very specific furniture or home decor products. For example: right now I'm looking for a square basket (or open container) with a drawer in the base that measures no more than 11 inches wide and 22 inches long, and I was wondering if there was a way to search for home products by size, shape, and dimension in the same way you'd search for clothes by size?
I know exactly what you mean. I live in a condo, and furniture needs to be the right size or it's not going to work.
I tried to find a 30"diameter, 2 person tulip dining table for months.
The best luck I had, was when some scraping robot input the dimensions of the table into the title of the item on overstock.com, target.com, etc. Even people listing ikea or west elm stuff on ebay or amazon marketplace would do this on occasion, but it wasn't the best, or most human readable option.
I did strongly consider using etsy to find a local craftsperson to make a custom piece. Or DIYing a solution myself.
One thing, that might sound crazy, is to make a replica of the item you're considering purchasing out of cardboard and tape. That way you get to do a "dry run" of the item, in your space. You can live with it for a week and figure out "nope, totally going to stub my toe on it every morning" or "gee, I guess the $20 option would be fine, vs the $400 option that uses 5" of space more efficiently".
I taped together a few cardboard boxes and made a 40" circle, which I slapped on top of my existing dining table, lived with it for a week, and figured out that the 40" diameter would fit well, even though I was convinced only a 30" would.
So I guess my answer isn't so much an answer, but more of a method.
posted by fontophilic at 1:57 PM on February 16, 2015
I tried to find a 30"diameter, 2 person tulip dining table for months.
The best luck I had, was when some scraping robot input the dimensions of the table into the title of the item on overstock.com, target.com, etc. Even people listing ikea or west elm stuff on ebay or amazon marketplace would do this on occasion, but it wasn't the best, or most human readable option.
I did strongly consider using etsy to find a local craftsperson to make a custom piece. Or DIYing a solution myself.
One thing, that might sound crazy, is to make a replica of the item you're considering purchasing out of cardboard and tape. That way you get to do a "dry run" of the item, in your space. You can live with it for a week and figure out "nope, totally going to stub my toe on it every morning" or "gee, I guess the $20 option would be fine, vs the $400 option that uses 5" of space more efficiently".
I taped together a few cardboard boxes and made a 40" circle, which I slapped on top of my existing dining table, lived with it for a week, and figured out that the 40" diameter would fit well, even though I was convinced only a 30" would.
So I guess my answer isn't so much an answer, but more of a method.
posted by fontophilic at 1:57 PM on February 16, 2015
I went through something similar when shopping for my last car. It didn't exist and I thought it would be a great idea for someone to build a size-oriented shopping site.
posted by rhizome at 10:33 PM on February 16, 2015
posted by rhizome at 10:33 PM on February 16, 2015
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Sublimity at 11:39 AM on February 16, 2015