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Comment by t-writescode | Hacker News Reader

Okay, so everyone here seems to be complaining about the quality of Ikea furniture. I'm very confused. This has definitely not been my experience.

I have a television entertainment center setup that I've had for about 9 years and it's still a great piece of furniture. I have 2 kallax bookcases that are still working pretty great (though they are wobbly, but you're supposed to put supports on the back wall, anyway); and, I have a bed that I bought from them that has been working amazingly for probably 7ish years at this point. That's been the only real problem piece of equipment, one because a piece went missing during a move and the other because it has to be completely disassembled during a move and that tends to weaken it a bit.

Otherwise, my equipment from Ikea has been just fine over all. I'm even still using some of those junky $10 end tables for various things.

Has something more recently happened? Or have I just gotten lucky? Or?

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I finally got to the bottom of this, after moving in with my wife. I never owned IKEA furniture, but inherited some of hers. Her big chest of drawers wobbled, and some of the drawers were blowing out the bottom.

To her, and to anyone else, this is a shit piece of furniture. The truth is that it’s largely operator error. “High quality” furniture is almost impossible to fuck up. It’s preassembled and built like a tank.

IKEA furniture is what the owner makes it. If the owner builds it well, and keeps the screws tight, and doesn’t overstuff it — it’s brilliant stuff, and will last a long time.

If the owner does a half ass job putting it together, and lazily tightens the screws, and expects it to stay good forever with zero maintenance, it will devolve into crap.

You could find an analogy between Mac vs. Linux here somewhere — though, it’s not perfect.

Anyone who thinks IKEA is anything less than an industrial design marvel should go buy a few things there. Having done so recently, my perspective has completely shifted, and I actually love IKEA.

There are some Ikea products that are difficult to assemble in a lasting way. They are the exception though, and they're always the cheapest things.

The smallest Lack coffee table (€10 or so) is assembled with double-ended screws from the legs into the tabletop. There's no way it can take any sideways stress, e.g. by someone leaning or standing on it. A child falling onto the table can break it.

The larger Lack coffee table has the same legs, but adds a thin shelf for additional structure. If the shelf is loaded with a few books, it bows after a while. (I have this table.)

There are similar problems with the €10 metal furniture.

Anything that’s under $20 is probably going to be disposable and not structurally sound. I completely agree, and think that’s by design. At that price point they know y’all are both considering the piece disposable.

If you buy one of their $50-$200 coffee tables though, they’ll be just as solid as most other furniture — assuming proper assembly — and are still a fraction of the price.

I have had to tighten the screws on my IKEA couch every few months - to a significant fraction of my friends, that would be grounds for replacing it. But it's just a quick wrench away from being sturdy! And you can wash the (removable) cushions on my $200 IKEA couch, which is not true for my $1000 fancy single-piece couch.

wood glue during assembly ftw.

I would not recommend this if you think you might sell the piece or move within a few years. It's nice to be able to disassemble a couch and move it through doorways much easier than if you didn't take it apart

I've never owned an ikea couch, but the big stuff I purchased like beds had metal main fasteners and were designed to be assembled and disassembled. Those don't need glue.

But I also did a chest of drawers (where you nail the backing on) and bookshelves and you just wouldn't be disassembling them. Those would benefit - greatly - from glue.

> Anyone who thinks IKEA is anything less than an industrial design marvel should go buy a few things there.

...and then buy flatpack furniture from a competitor and compare...

I've done it a couple of times for different reasons, and it's always a shitshow. Everyone loves to joke about the IKEA instruction manuals, but they're much, much, better than anything from the competition. Quality and innovation is always better with the IKEA stuff, because they're driving the technology, not copying from someone else. And the price is always better with IKEA, because they have economies of scale unlike any other competitor.

And if you want solid wood furniture, you can get that at IKEA too, but it costs 10x as much as the particleboard items. (And if you go to the competition, it costs 20x as much...)

I love ikea furniture, I see it as lego, and who could hate lego?

That said, a lot of ikea furniture is made of a fiberboard/mdf type material which is a light-duty material. For most use cases it doesn't matter.

But take that minimalist-look bookshelf with a fern and 2 books and add a whole row of books and it will sag.

I had bookshelves made of actual wood, and they don't sag (along the grain). I guess because the wood was evolved to hold tons of tree in place vertically and horizontally.

But ikea also sells stronger stuff like metal shelves. Just buy the appropriate stuff for the task.

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