heh. Kids. Do you have kids?
I moved on for a while, and found the alternatives worse than IKEA. I’ve gone back to the mothership.
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Six hours? Yikes. Obviously this is a very personal matter of how one values one’s own time, but you’ll never catch me spending that long assembling a piece of furniture, no matter how inexpensive the box of parts or how nice the result. (And no matter where the parts came from; this isn’t just another anti-Ikea screed.)
On the other hand, I’ll gladly put the six hours or more into finding the right piece for a great price at thrift shops, flea markets, estate sales, etc. (I assume “estate sales” are not known by the same name in the UK; I mean the liquidation of a deceased person’s belongings, typically held in the deceased’s living quarters.)
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I’m with you on the furniture hunt principle, however I needed a large wardrobe that could not possibly be transported to the room it’s in in my little house. Only by taking bits up could I do it.
plus hunting down stuff with the kids and their timetables (party party party!) is a little much of an endeavour!
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I’ll give it that much for sure. Once I went to a hardware store and asked where they kept wooden dowels. The store assistant looked at me blankly till I said, “They’re the short wooden things that you use when you put together Ikea furniture.” Instant recognition. The only problem is that there isn’t really a good solution for the particleboard itself wearing out. Once a screw wears a hole that’s a little too big, or something gets pulled out on accident, it’s over.
I just built an entire kitchen from Ikea, so I’m getting a kick out of this thread.
I grew up with Ikea - Pittsburgh has one not too far away - so I know what I’m getting myself into when I go there. This stuff works for me, looks modern, and usually doesn’t fall apart.
Mom moved onto a sailboat, so I got all of her old furniture - from Ikea also. Lots of it is still just fine. We’ll throw the crappy stuff away once we’re done with the home construction, but even the old Ikea stuff is better than nothing. Now if they’d only do something more sense-making with their plumbing parts…
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Well, some of us don’t get the love. I think it’s pretty good if you’re on a tight budget, want new furniture and are willing to spend the time on assembly (sometimes dead easy, sometimes infuriating). If you don’t insist on new furniture, you can usually find something of the same or better quality, already assembled, for pennies on the dollar.
IMO by the time most people can afford the higher-end Ikea products, many will have numerous options available to them – often more convenient (depending on lifestyle), for a similar cost. In that case, choosing Ikea seems to me to be purely a question of taste. And when it comes to taste… well, unfortunately I’ve become a snob in my old age, so most Ikea wares look to me like an imitation of better Scandinavian furniture (made, not only designed there) that rarely if ever comes close to replicating the real deal in terms of quality of materials, design, workmanship or fit & finish.
In other words, now that I can afford better furniture than I could 10 or 20 years ago, I can see no justification for spending time or money at Ikea, and the layout of the store has nothing to do with it.
Going to IKEA for just one thing is fun, it’s a game!
I once did the whole thing in 9m 43s…
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It can get a bit cultish, but I think it’s down to the fact that it’s a pretty fun place to visit (compared to other furniture stores, at least). It invites you to imagine what your home will be like and gives people on a limited budget access to Swedish style (true, it’s not as good as the real thing, but it’s the closest many people can get). People complain about having to put the furniture together, but the sense of achievement from assembling it actually increases the value of the item for many people. Its style is bland for some people, but fresh and distinctive for others, especially when IKEA is pretty new in their area. I think the reputation for being stylish, functional and good value (even when it isn’t really those things in some cases) also helps to create brand loyalty.
While I can see how the concept is designed to make it that way, and 20-year-old me would have agreed with everything else you said, for some of us the magic wore off at some point and turned into a dark curse.
Maybe it was yet another misadventure with an ill-fitting drawer or door, maybe it was making a trip for something that was supposed to be in stock but wasn’t, maybe it was that great bargain of a sofa that turned out to be really quite uncomfortable (given away, barely used, after five years of taking up space), maybe it was just that once the style started to seem boring and stale all the rest of the magic was bound to fail. Maybe it was the realization that very little of it was built to last. Maybe it was the discovery that if you have a little patience, you can get vastly better deals on furniture, making Ikea seem like poor value for money.
I recently spent $350 on an approx. 80-year-old barrister bookcase. It’s no handcrafted antique: it’s modular, and I’m sure they were factory-made in some quantity. But it’s well-made of solid wood, from a time when a furniture factory turned out a finished piece; the only assembly required is stacking and locking the sections. It’ll still be beautiful and functional for as many years as someone is around to keep it safe from the elements. There’s no reason it won’t be enjoyed 100 years from now, and I will be able to sell it for a nice profit anytime I’m ready.
Some quick online window-shopping at Ikea.ca says I can get a Hemnes cabinet for $395. Similar capacity but in a different shape, also has glass doors. It’s not bad-looking, but I question the value. Would anyone expect that item ever to appreciate in value, or to have a useful life of more than 20-30 years? How will I like it when the “printed fibreboard” back panel starts to warp in a few years, as they usually do? Will the fit of the doors be just a little bit off right away, or in a few years? By the standards of good furniture, this is a disposable item.
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I was always drawn to the cheap eats (e.g. $2 fish and chips). But after a recent visit to the doctor, I’ve learned that there’s really nothing in that place that I’m supposed to be eating. (Maybe the side salads, but those look like more of an afterthought. From last week.)
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I neither love nor hate Ikea. I swore off particle board after undergrad, and still found much of Ikea’s actual wood furniture worth the price. When you have to furnish your entire first apartment at once, time is less valuable than money, and some of their stuff is plenty good enough to last 5-10 years (it’s pretty easy to sort out the crap by eye in 5 seconds in the store). More importantly, it all matches, which is useful when you know you’ll be reconfiguring for a new place every couple of years for a while. Ikea is a cheap way to buy yourself a few years to be smart about shopping for good deals on good pieces you’ll want to keep.
Lastly - it is surprisingly hard to find furniture sized for apartment-sized rooms, at least in the U.S. Ikea has that. Most of what I find in other stores is 2-10 times more expensive, not much better quality, often uncomfortable, and designed for people 10-40 years older than me living in single family homes.
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'Tis reminiscent of this McSweeney’s piece:
I am not too proud to admit that I get a great deal of my furniture from the stuff people moving out leave by the dumpsters of my apartment building. After all, it’s there, and it’s already pre-assembled. Of course, I give it a good scrubbing-down once it gets back into my apartment, and I’d never bring up sofa cushions or anything that might carry disease.
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I live in a college town, the incredible wastefulness of most students ensures it’s practically a tradition here.
If actually believed that furniture could increase its value over time, I might agree. As it is, I can buy antiques for roughly the same prices as new, most of he time.
If I believed that my only options were to use what was sold the way it was presented, then yeah - I probably wouldn’t love it.
If I complained about particle board, but said nothing of thousands of people who will put $10,000 worth of granite countertops on top of cheap kitchen cabs, or even more who will pay far more for pre-assembled furniture without bothering to turn it over and see all the crap plywood/chipboard it’s built out of and the third-rate Chinese hardware screwed onto it, I’d feel downright hypocritical. You can take any piece of particle board or MDF, hit it with Thomspon’s Water Seal, and it’ll last about as long as you could want.
If I couldn’t slam through IKEA snagging high-quality steel and aluminum parts for pennies, I might feel bad about it.
But as is, I still have a blast there. It’s not a furniture store - it’s a hacker’s toy store! I get to make anything I want. And all my steel, aluminum, and glass will be there long after that high price/low quality factory-assembled crap is long gone. The rest? You never know. I may paint, upholster, chop, grind, or deep-fry it into almost anything.
Bottom line, if you’re not having fun, you’re doing it wrong! For Ethan Allen prices? I can (and have had) first- quality custom stuff built to my own specs, employ a local cabinet maker, and still come out ahead.
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As for putting $10K counters on cheap IKEA cabinets, how else do you afford those counters? Besides, that’s all people see anyway.
Using IKEA cabinets but getting more expensive hardware and customizing them means a nicer kitchen than you’d get otherwise. Besides, have you looked closely at the expensive kitchen cabinets? They use exactly the same hinges and finishes.
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If it beats or matches other purveyors of new furniture on quality, price or both, then great. I can understand anyone choosing Ikea for that reason.
But maybe there’s a problem with the quality of today’s furniture in general, not just from Ikea?
Even much mass-produced furniture from the 50s and 60s is still going strong – and in many cases it has at least some resale value. The 70s and 80s, not so much. And I’m only talking about mass-produced items, nothing handcrafted or from a “name” designer that anyone thought would become an antique.
And yes, a lot of that stuff will carry a similar price to a comparable new item. If you shop in a high-street retro or antique store. And even so that item will probably outlast the new one, even with several decades’ head start on aging.
If you’re a hacker and consider Ikea a toy store, good for you. But please understand you’re in a tiny minority. That’s one way of “doing it right” – in my case I followed the main intended way of doing it right and eventually found it badly lacking. For the most part, it’s just another example of the consumer culture that’s all around us, built on disposability, offshoring, planned obsolescence, etc. After all, if they built things to last, people wouldn’t need to buy as much new stuff, would they?
Exactly! - There’s more than one way to ‘do it right’. Sometimes, I might favor any of those - I only disagree that any one of them is THE right way.
IKEARS/IKEAISTS/IKEAlogists may be a minority, but not maybe so tiny on a scale of Chinese population-to-bronies? Small, not tiny.
Any time there’s a major sale on? People will literally be lined up outside, just waiting to get in. And as they wait, perfect strangers will fall into enthusiastic chatter about their planned projects/favorite items. Newbs get the ideas explained to them. It’s…different. Surprised me hugely, first time I went. But it was cool and I was hooked.
Like - the very large prints they sell. I cannot buy either the aluminm frame OR the canvas for the $90 IKEA asks. I love Klimt, but not so much the giant nekkid girl on my wall. However - I can either paint over her, or cover her with a custom Wall-E of my own. I still win.
Or, the kitchen plumbing - I can (and will) get a new double-sided sink with new tap and a hose and a cover for the disposal side that is also a cutting board, and a custom-fit dish drainer for less than half Home Depot, Lowes, or even Walmart - all good Swedish Steel. I just shaved $400 off my kitchen remodel, AND get better stuff. I’m gonna say no to that? I could pay $1500 to get my cabs refaced with fake steel fronts from large box DIY store…or, buy real steel or aluminum doors and steel shelving that will last forever for about 1/3. What’s to hate there?
Klimt or giant nekkid girl?What’s the difference;p Klimt is the bling bling version of his Vienna colleague Schiele.
LOL - Klimt did a few straight pieces, and they are excellent. I have a large one on another wall. Just don’t want the bright floral nekkid girl. I have a thing for de Lempicka and ‘Metropolis’ lobby posters that won’t quit, and that piece doesn’t work with it very well. Schiele’s good, too - just not as much fun.
Cool thing is, you can grab a file of anything you like or do an original painting or photo and have it made into a canvas print or a Wall-E you can stick on an existing canvas, so there’s really no limit beyond active copyright. Heck - do a photo of your sofa and hang it over your sofa just for kicks. Whatever grabs ya. Anything decent that size from any other store can easily run several hundred just for a framed print of poor quality.
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Most of my furniture is second hand (quite a bit from my grandparents’ house, some from my parents, other stuff from second hand shops, someone’s old kitchen cabinets repurposed as units for the shed) or made myself (shelves mostly, although I’d like to get more ambitious). My dad has a big garage full of tools and bits of anything we used to have (furniture, bikes, fittings etc.), so there’s usually quite a bit of tinkering involved in any work on the house. If I still need something after trying those methods, I’ll usually go to a professional shop for things like kitchenware or anything that needs to be functional rather than beautiful. IKEA is another useful place to look as functionality, cost and space efficiency are important.
WRT the atmosphere among IKEA fans, I suppose it’s a little like Apple fans. You have the same clean lines in the design and presentation of the items so that you can try them out and imagine how they would fit your lifestyle. Obviously IKEA fans understand furniture on a deeper level than other people who just buy the finished product, and are maximising their living space to a greater extent than most other people. In the shop itself at least, everything just works and you can see the amount of thought that went into making things a little more functional than a normal item (if you can’t, its pointed out to you often enough). Most people are excited about moving anyway, so IKEA does a good job of preserving those good feelings of excitement and anticipation throughout your visit (and making sure you don’t get sidetracked by distractions such as your budget, needing food, seeing the passage of time through the windows or wanting to get one item and leave). Similarly to childbirth, the next time you think about getting furniture you only remember those good feelings of taking your furniture home to an admiring circle of friends and family, and the feeling of pride from viewing your own creation.
