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Comment by michaelvoz | Hacker News Reader

I dislike IKEA furniture - It never seems to go well, and always in a different, hard-to-plan-for kind of way. Either the bed frame slats will crack at an odd place, or the bookshelf will bend under the weight of too many books, or perhaps a layer of plastic-ish(?) faux-wood will peel off revealing the flimsy glue pressed wood-ish material inside.

I understand the appeal of well designed, flatpacked, self assembled furniture - but why does the quality have to be so terrible? Is it so they can produce and sell at volume? It would be nice to see an intersection of medium/high quality end furniture that I can buy and assemble like IKEA products.

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I have had exactly the opposite experience as yours. You describe every flat pack furniture brand except Ikea.

The only thing Ikea doesn't do superbly (for the price) is padded furniture. Their chairs and couches are terrible, in my opinion. Their cabinets, though? Their desks? Great look, and reliable for years. I am proud of my Billy bookshelf and the books on it in the living room.

Are there other flat pack furniture brands? I did not know this. I had all IKEA up until I started replacing IKEA with already-built pieces from garage sales/ furniture stores/ family.

Maybe I have just gotten unlucky, and fallen in the tail end of their defects.

I've also never encountered those issues mentioned with Ikea furniture and have had them with others. I'm not sure if they were technically "flat-pack," but many years prior to seeing or knowing what an Ikea is, I've assembled things like computer desks and TV stands. They all had the issues described: lament peels off, too flimsy.

As a counter point, ikea furniture works well enough for most loads but I have a chest of drawers and the bottom of the drawers is made from something similar to a less stiff version of masonite. for clothes it would be fine but for anything else the bottom of the drawers bends and scrapes the next drawer when opening. I need to retrofit the bottom to something worthwhile.

Something like this is a quick fix: https://www.amazon.co.uk/FIX-A-DRAWER-Repair-Buckled-Drawers... .

> the bottom of the drawers is made from something

In British, we call this "hardboard". I've always assumed it's "hard" in comparison to cardboard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardboard

Visit your local office supply store sometime. Tons of crapola, both imported (mostly from China) and Made in the USA.

Sauder is the only other one I know of. Their stuff seems to be pretty well designed and of good quality, though I wish they were more unapologetic about being fiberboard, as I'm not a huge fan of fake wood textures.

Target and Walmart have their own brands that are noticeably less refined and sturdy.

In the UK and Ireland, Argos do it. Similar pricing to IKEA, dramatically worse quality.

Oh, Argos go way cheaper than Ikea. For example, the £28 metal and polycotton wardrobe: http://www.argos.co.uk/product/6219826

There are (from searching) several supplies of cheap, flatpack furniture for landlords, which probably explains why half the properties I rented as a student had the same furniture, made of 5mm thick hardboard and bits of plastic. That stuff didn't even hold together properly when it was new, let alone a couple of years old.

Habitat should be decent quality. MFI used to be a major retailer of flat-pack stuff, but they went bankrupt in 2015. My parents bought almost everything for the kids' rooms from MFI. None of it is broken, 15-25 years later.

That wardrobe's not really a flatpack, though. Last time I looked, Argos's flatpacks were similarly priced to IKEA's, though I haven't really looked in a while.

Actually, this IKEA Kramfors sofa which cost something like $650 was superior in every way to a $2500 sofa I bought to replace it (we moved and replaced big pieces of furniture): http://www.englishforum.ch/attachments/items-sale/59921d1364...

They discontinued it in the US or I would buy it again and take a loss on the resale of my fancier couch.

I think you're both a little bit correct. Ikea probably sells the best quality flat-pack furniture out there, but I think it's pretty fair to expect their stuff to fail in some way within 5 years of normal use. Keep in mind the failure may or may not be catastrophic, and the item may still be usable for some time. They're definitely a good value, but only if you're OK with eventually needing to buy replacements.

Some personal anecdotes:

Lack coffee tables: utter trash, fell apart quickly (in a way reminiscent of what the grandparent post described)

Galant desk: still going strong after 12 years and 3 moves.

Aneboda dresser(s): Got three, 100% track failure after a few years and no longer suitable for daily use.

Billy bookcase: re-shelving books pushed the backing loose, and the thing looked like the Leaning Tower of Pisa until emergency repairs were undertaken. Will be junked in the next move.

> Lack coffee tables: utter trash, fall apart quickly

But perfect width between the legs to mount 19" rack gear.

From what I saw, they're made out of a tiny amount of laminated cardboard. I personally wouldn't trust it, but maybe it would work if all lateral stress was avoided.

That's why many people add extra wood when using a lack table as a rack :)

> Lack coffee tables: utter trash, fall apart quickly

If you want something to last you aren't going to get it for $8 no matter where you buy it.

Six years ago I bought one of those longer Lacks for ~15EUR and heavily use it close to every day. The black top varnish seems to get pretty thin at the most used locations which is the only wear marks I can spot.

I use it for eating, writing, etc. Maybe others have other plans to use a coffee table in a way that requires tougher structures.

I think lateral stresses (from people's feet, etc) did mine in. The seams failed, and things quickly deteriorated after that. A lot of Ikea stuff is designed with zero redundancy or design margin, so if any part fails or weakens the whole structure is compromised.

I consider the Lack tables to have a functional service life of two years - if its lightly used, much longer - but under daily use, just buy a new one every two years - even with that - after 10 years, money wise I'm still ahead of more durable furniture.

I will never buy IKEA ever again. Nothing but bad experiences for me in NZ, Aus, and Singapore. Maybe they send the crap down under.

The electric standing desks in Sweden are far superior quality to any IKEA futurnature I've ever seen down here.

I love IKEA furniture for their hackability -- I built pretty much all of my furniture out of Kallax bookshelves reconfigured in various ways. I also store about 95% of my possessions in Kallax baskets and drawers so it's super-easy to move to a new apartment. If I move to a new city I can sell the shelves, ship the baskets with the stuff in them (put into cubic cardboard boxes), and buy new IKEA shelves at the destination because there will be an IKEA there.

I had to reinforce the baskets though because they were falling apart :-/

There's a lot of quality variability within IKEAs range as well. They have a bookcase line cheaper than Billy and you can tell it's there just so they can advertise something at a particular price point - I wouldn't want to own one. They have have a more expensive line made out of solid wood that is really good quality for not too much more.

I find that you can get a good feel for the quality of the stuff at the showrooms, since they get so manhandled by customers

As a designer friend puts it, IKEA is all in the edit. You can get some good stuff there, but you have to be careful about the design, the surfaces, and the finish of the materials. And you can't have too high a concentration of IKEA stuff in a room, or it looks too bland.

My library lives in 10 IKEA plywood bookcase units, about 20 linear meters of shelves, that is a really excellent piece. Simple design, all in birch plywood, and just the right strength (enhanced by using wood glue during assembly). It's been in use for 15 years now and still looks great.

These blanket statements are silly. How can you dislike all IKEA furniture when you probably haven't even used 99.9% of it? I have an IKEA Galant desk and it's been the best desk I've ever owned. I've also had it for over 10 years and it still looks as good as the day I bought it.

We've had mixed results:

Bed - it was 200 or 300, lasted 10+ years. Veneer peeled off in 2 places (scraped it like crazy moving it 2x inc. up/down stairs, stored it for a year). Sold it in the end, crazy.

"Cubes" Bookcase - had it for 6+ years, moving it 1x was enough to make it too wobbly for us but still were able to sell it. Tip: leave 1-2 cubes empty and arrange books by color, looks awesome.

Med + small coffee tables - total garbage, putting your feet up on them like once is enough to make it way too wobbly. Small one is fine for a side table.

Malm dressers - had these 8+ years and still use them. Got a skinny tall one and a wide short one because I thought they matched the vibe of Hotel Nikko in SF.

Wood countertops - amazing and amazingly cheap compared to any other countertop options we found (by a big margin).

the confusingly named "Norden occasional table" (it's a sideboard, people!) is apparently discontinued, and I can't think why. in terms of quality and sheer utility at a low price it tops pretty much any piece of storage oriented furniture I've ever bought. completely transformed my kitchen, looks good, and has held up well.

you can see a picture here: https://www.decorist.com/finds/5895/norden-occasional-table/

I think the MALM drawers are just as iconic - I've had so many of them as I've moved around different homes (and subsequently donated to charity when I didn't have space). They're probably made of the same crap substrate and laminate as everything else, but they're quite heavy and feel substantial.

> Wood countertops - amazing and amazingly cheap compared to any other countertop options we found (by a big margin).

Lumber Liquidators has the same price for thicker oak butcher block countertops. Woodcraft has similarly priced thicker birch butcher block.

> ...and arrange books by color...

I am absolutely horrified. Herbert Putnam is spinning in his grave, you monster.~

If you stick to the items they sell made out of actual wood instead of particle board it's a good value and as durable as anything. Where it gets shoddy is the accessories and furniture made out of particle board / MDF etc. You have to be good at spotting the the real wood though because they use a lot of faux wood veneers over particle board that are hard to spot if you aren't looking closely.

Or you could just read the tags hanging on every piece in the IKEA store, the product description does say what materials they used to make it.

IKEA furniture is often bought with the understanding that it's relatively disposable. There's a lot of demand for that in cities where people move around more often.

Yes I have owned and suffered through plenty of it. The move part rings true - disassembly never ever leads to correct reassembly.

An excellent point, and, oddly, an underrated one: https://jakeseliger.com/2015/03/10/does-ikea-enable-mobility....

I do wonder if over time companies like Casper / Tuft & Needle, or even Campaign Living (http://www.campaignliving.com/) will cut into IKEA's turf.

Campaign living can't even deliver on a chair I ordered in November - I doubt they will even capture a significant portion of the market they originally set out to cut into.

There is a big difference in the quality of the solid wood items and the particle board ones.

I've never been disappointed with any of the solid wood articles.

Second this. While solid wood items are more expensive and heavy, they last significantly longer and don't flex as much.

I don't like any compressed wood (engineered wood) furniture, it's got too many fillers and (toxic) adhesives and they don't have the same rigidity of solid wood.

cough Argos cough

When I moved house, the removalists (in Australia) specifically pointed out the "our guarantee doesn't apply to IKEA" clause in the contract.

"It's basically compressed cardboard," they told me.

> "It's basically compressed cardboard," they told me.

Sometimes literally http://www.refinery29.com/2016/01/101948/ikea-lack-table

Make sure the back is positioned correctly (seated within the recess, and with all corners at right angles), and use twice the number of nails Ikea suggests. This will help maintain rigidity during a move.

If disassembly isn't a requirement, liberally apply wood glue along joints during construction.

Heh, I did that with a 5x5 Billy^W Expedit bookcase in a basement suite... And discovered, when moving out, that it would not fit up the stairs assembled. Hope the next tenant liked it!

> I understand the appeal of well designed, flatpacked, self assembled furniture - but why does the quality have to be so terrible?

Ikea stuff doesn't sell because it's flatpacked and self-assembled. It sells because it's really cheap. Flatpacking and self-assembly are different ways of cutting down on costs.

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