The Worst Things We Bought in 2023
From a pretty coffeemaker that is essentially useless to a mosquito racket that did nothing but frustrate, here’s what the Dwell staff spent money on that we wish we hadn’t.
There’s no shortage of things to buy and an occupational hazard of working at a place like Dwell means that the temptation to do so is very real. Reviews from faceless strangers on the internet and trusted friends alike don’t always steer us down the right path, though, and sometimes, buying something to fix a very specific problem isn’t always the solution. Consider these purchases below a collection of cautionary tales. Let our mistakes guide you towards the light.
A piano from Craigslist
At the beginning of the year, I bought a second-hand digital piano off of Craigslist for $30 so that I can re-learn how to play. But the keyboard I bought only has 61 keys, which I’m now regretting. It’s also quite ugly with all these built-in speakers and buttons with pre-programmed ’90s Muzak. I even had to buy a separate stand and bench off Amazon. I now wish I had splurged on a full 88-key upright digital piano—there are so many styles that are sleekly designed, with pedals, like this one from Donner that’s less than $1000. Or even this one that’s $300. While I don’t think having a real upright piano in my small apartment is feasible, there are a ton of full-size keyboard options that are lovely, and are relatively lightweight and manageable. I wish I took the time to get something nice instead of going straight to Craigslist. –Jinnie Lee
A Public Goods ceramic pour-over coffeemaker
This porcelain pour over coffeemaker scores high on looks with its simple pared down design, but it gets a near zero on function. It’s surprisingly heavy and prone to slipping off the counter and breaking (which happened). The drip hole is so small that by the time the coffee is brewed, it’s cold. It’s a design pet peeve when products get form but not function. It reminds me of kitchen sinks with hardware so large water splashes outward, or bathroom sinks with bases so small the water pools all over the counter. It’s not a cost problem, it’s just bad design. –Suzanne LaGasa
Bonus: The best thing I got this year!
My most stylish friend got me into this classic light by sculptor and designer Achille Castiglioni from Flos. The set up is key: making sure the wire has enough tension with the base hovering just off the ground. (I discovered this the hard way when the bulb mechanism came crashing down on my kiddo’s head.) But a handy friend corrected the installation and now we love it. The quality of the light is inviting and warm. It’s fun to move it up or down to shift the mood. And the engineering of the whole thing is truly clever and charming—not something you can say very often. –Suzanne LaGasa
A mortar and pestle
The worst thing I bought in 2023 was an old-fashioned mortar and pestle. We had grown so many herbs, tomatoes, peppers, etc. in our garden that we were determined to turn as many of them as possible into pestos and salsas and sauces, and I had heard (who am I kidding, I read online) that a mortar and pestle yielded better results than you could ever get from a blender or food processor. This did not turn out to be the case.
I took my heavy stone pestle and ground those vegetables as hard as I could, but they never formed anything remotely like a pesto or a salsa or a sauce. Instead, I got a drippy tomato mess interspersed with pepper chunks, with the cilantro leaves and tomato skins clinging to the sides of the mortar bowl as if they were afraid of what I had created. We made everything else in the Cuisinart after that, and ended up with multiple batches of delicious pesto, hummus, salsa and tomato sauce. –Nicole Dieker
A disappointing switch plate for my living room
Officially, this Wiggle Switch Plate. I bought it for my favorite child, the living room, which is moody and lush and gets all the good attention. I regretted the "wiggle" theme almost before I bought it, as a trend plateauing into an apex, but then when it arrives it says "MAY CONTAIN LEAD"!!!!! It’s at eye level for the dumbest, most loved creature in the home (the dog), and also any adorable child that might enter the premises. The lead threat was honestly a blessing and an excuse to march myself to the Anthropologie to return it. –Maggie Lange
Many, many pairs of dish gloves
One of my many toxic traits (ha ha) is buying crap I don’t need but very much want at the time. I’m the problem, but I’m also the solution, which is something I’m working on, I swear. Pressing right along, the worst thing I bought this year are the many, many pairs of dishwashing gloves that have ripped after a month or so—a hole so teensy that I assumed the reason my hands were clammy inside the gloves was due to user error and not the inferior quality of the gloves themselves! I know how to wear gloves; it’s the gloves that are the problem and not me. To hopefully prevent this from happening ever again, I will spend at least one month researching and then testing dishwashing gloves to find ones that will last more than one financial quarter. (And maybe, if you’re lucky, you’ll read about it on Dwell.com) –Megan Reynolds
Yet another coffee contraption
I can’t let my mind linger on my bad financial decisions for too long without spiraling, but when I allow myself to think about it for a single delicious minute, the first thing that comes to mind is this adorable, Marseille-colored Le Creuset enameled stoneware French press. What was I thinking? I am not the sort of person who has $85 to spend on an adorable French press. I’m not even the sort of person who has the time in her daily life to use an affordable French press. I have used this one—and I’m telling you the truth here—a single time. I purchased it in February. Its plunger didn’t work that well. It was annoying to clean out. (More annoying than a regular French press; I used to have a normal one that I used somewhat regularly before I had a coffee machine.)
It brought me none of the joy the image of it brought me on the Williams Sonoma website. Someday I hope to be able to bring it out at some sort of chic brunch event that an entirely different version of myself might host in the future, but until then? Useless. –Kelly Conaboy
A bad lamp
Best I can figure, I bought the IKEA SOLKLINT (I can’t type it without yelling it) because I was hoping to achieve a cozy glow in a dim corner on a budget. (Also, there was maybe some mild Ikea-showroom induced dehydration at work.) My eyes are bad so I need increasing amounts of light as I age, but I hate the overhead light. The SOLKLINT was there, and it spoke to the corner of my personality that loves a 19th century industrial design moment and spends too much time browsing Schoolhouse.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t match anything else I own and it doesn’t look even remotely like high-quality brass in person and one day that top part is going to go flying and shatter all over my floor. In hindsight, I should have gotten a more amber-toned bulb for the overhead light and bought something from Target (or been patient and found something at an estate sale). This little creep now lives on top of a bookshelf, pushed to the very back, where it casts weird shadows and annoys me but does at least add a little bit of extra light. You live, you learn. –Kelly Faircloth
A viral mug
Like many other women who are too online, I spent a large chunk of this year wondering if, like so many people on my Instagram Explore page, I too would benefit from the (seemingly) life-changing acquisition of a Stanley Cup. "It holds a lot of water," I explained to my husband, "and it keeps the water REALLY cold." (He’s been drinking water out of a glass he got as a wedding favor for the entire length of our relationship, so I didn’t expect him to understand).
Finally, my cup—I went with a forest-y green—arrived, and after I took the first sip of (really very cold) water, I realized I had made a terrible mistake. The cup does what it says, in that it keeps water cold and is leak-proof even when I sort of prop it up on a throw pillow as I watch TV from a horizontal position on the couch. It just feels like I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about and tending to the cup: filling it, washing it, washing the straw (a whole other ordeal), making sure it’s not set on the edge of a table, trying not to knock it over, trying to remember where I put it. I thought the cup would be the start of a healthier, happier me, but really it is like having a pet I didn’t even want in the first place.
(Also, I tried to put Diet Coke in it one day and it was a disaster.) –Angela Serratore
A bug killer that flopped
Flies and mosquitoes love taking up residence in my kitchen during the summer. This year, I thought I’d really found a solution for their pervasive, unwelcome presence when I bought this electric fly swatter on Amazon. I envisioned myself spiking those little suckers with the full force of my backhand and eradicating them forever. But this thing was totally useless, just a hunk of plastic that didn’t even charge properly and was incapable of zapping even one mosquito. It didn’t do shit! Thank you, Amazon, for selling 300 versions of the same garbage products that are all equally useless. –Leslie Horn Peterson
Top image by Getty Images/Rafael Ben-Ari/Annick Vanderschelen/Greg Kuchik
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