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Anecdotally, I have moved multiple times (2-4 times) with IKEA furniture, including one of those classic IKEA swinging chairs (20 years old), a Billy (13 years old), an Expedit (8 years old), a desk (13 years old) and a bed (7 years old). Everything was completely disassembled each time, and is still looking great. You just have to be careful. I sold the bed for 50 EUR a year ago, which required yet another disassembly.

> fasteners simply pull themselves out of the soft particle board, because the board itself is weaker than the fastener

This is true for most furniture. High-quality solid wood is also weaker than a metal fastener.

Whoa, you disassembled it between moves and it survived? I've never been able to do that without the particleboard getting too messed up to accept the screws.

Some IKEA items have a metal insert + machine screws and slots for the back rather than nailing, so those can be easily disassembled and reassembled without issue. IMO, if IKEA was serious about sustainability they would make them all like that. I think they are more looking for PR and know that the same reasons that keep people from moving the items will keep them from returning them as well.

I do have a couple of short shelves that I got used and moved 3-4 times that look to be screwed into the material (my memory isn't that great :/) and I'm guessing at one point had a nailed on back. I'm fairly sure it just worked for me to disassemble and reassemble without change and they are somehow stable without any cross bracing. The previous owner might have changed the screws.

I also have a pair of IKEA chairs that were quite unstable when I got them used and the issue turned out to be that the order of tightening screws made a huge difference. Luckily it was new enough that it was easy to find the manual on IKEA's site or I would never have figured it out. I think a number of items have tricks like that where you need to exactly follow the instructions or it doesn't work.

Assembling a Billy involves nailing a MDF backboard to the fiberboard panels. I'm rather skeptical about the possibility of reassembling anything from the Billy line with any success.

You don't reuse the nail holes ;) Just offset by a few inches/cm.

The Billy I have has slots at the back where you can slide in the fiberboard panels. Only one nail is necessary to hold it in place. If that isn't the case, you can offset the nail positions by 2 cm. If the nail is broken, they can cheaply be replaced. Nailed MDF backboards are completely standard even for very expensive furniture. Removing the nails is trivial given the right tool, but can also very easily be done with a kitchen knife.

How do you remove them?? I have a Pax where I nailed the backplane inside out (the veneered side faces the wall, the raw face is what you see when opening the door)

I tried removing the nails and it’s impossible. They’re very very very snug. Even punching the backplane out just breaks it and leaves the nails in place with a little piece of board around them. There isn’t enough space between the nail head and the board to slide a kitchen knife and when there is, is breaks the knive’s edge rather than moving the nail.

Very curious indeed to know what your method is.

There are many different lines of products from IKEA. Even if they serve the same purpose (kallax and eket for example), the price is a pretty good indicator of the durability of the furniture and your ability to disassemble and reassemble it down the line.

What I guess I'm trying to say is that it's not IKEA problem, it's budget lines of IKEA products problem. At the lower price range it's hard to expect great durability.

A lot of wooden IKEA furniture sold in Europe is produced in Poland and there are many local knock-offs of IKEA products from other manufacturers. These are either cheaper and even less durable or more expensive but barely match IKEA's ease of assembly and quality of the components. I really don't think that durability is IKEA's greatest problem. ;)

> There are many different lines of products from IKEA.

Came here to say just that. Some products are virtually bullet-proof, while others start to show their age after a few months of regular use. For example, cheap melltorp tables can withstand a nuclear blast and even a few cross-country relocations, but anything from their Billy line is already half-way to a trash heap after unboxing. IMMV.

Ikea furniture and any flat pack furniture can usually be taken apart just fine. Just reverse the instructions. I've done it multiple times, especially when I had to fit a desk with a hutch in the back seat of my sedan. I guess for most people, it's just not worth the time to take apart all their furniture at once

I guess your experience is different from mine.

A lot of IKEA stuff I've bought involves one-way assembly -- pounding things together with a mallet. See the EKET cabinets for example. If you reverse it by naively prying them apart, it'll strip the wood.

Or take the backing to any BILLY bookshelf -- it's held in place with ~30 tiny nails. It's virtually impossible to pry the backing and nails off without destroying the backing in the process.

Etc. etc. Yes, some of the pieces can be disassembled, if the assembly consists entirely of cam locks, dowels and screws. But it's certainly not designed for it.

In my experience, the problem isn't just reverse the instructions, but rather the furniture ins't as sturdy as it was the first time I built it.

Anecdotally, I just moved apparently. The the last two years my Malm bed was fantastic. Never made a noise no matter what I did on the bed. I could lay, kneel, have my dog run zoomies on it, and it was great. Then I took it apart to move apartments and you would have thought a banshee lived in the joints. Sitting, touching, it didnt matter that thing howled. We tried a few online solutions before doing the ultimate solution: buying a new frame.

>A Billy bookshelf or Kallax shelving unit will hopefully survive a single move, especially if you can tighten/glue things further after it's been moved. But once you're talking 2-3 moves, forget it.

Anecdotal but we have several (Expedit, the old Kallax) and they have survived 4 moves, one quite a distance and they are used daily to hold media and in a living room, one was part of my desk for 4 years. They are still in great condition. I expected 2 years out of them and am coming up on 10.

I moved with my Ikea furniture ~10 times in the last 12 years, including 3 interstate moves and a couple stints in storage, and almost all of it is ~good as new; we have both the cheapest $10 coffee tables and chairs, and the "high end" (for Ikea) stuff.

The only exception was one poorly designed under-the-bed drawer (the front gradually falls off due to the impacts if you kick it closed).

I disagree about the Kallax units specifically - I've moved mine several times and it holds up well.

This matches my experience. Some of the moving companies I've used have refused to insure Ikea furniture as well, since they have such a high probability of coming apart during the move.

it just needs to be glued. most joints are fine in Ikea if everything is solidly glued and the fasteners they give you are just built-in clamps. Then it can be moved and used for years.