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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

> but when I was studying, I bought used IKEA furniture, moved it around several times to different apartments, and then sold it again when I moved from that city.

I think this is kind of like how some people complain that Apple USB cables are pieces of crap that are always fraying and breaking after 6 months, while other people use them for years with zero issue.

It really depends on how you use it, how you assemble it, how you disassemble it, is it constantly swaying/weakening a little or is it securely mounted to a wall, do you constantly slam the cubby door or drawer shut or are you gentle? I think the assumption should be that it won't last a move, but that you can get lucky through a combination of chance and care.

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I'm not that careful with my stuff, but I have some 15-year old Ikea desks that my wife and I have moved from the West Coast USA to the East Coast USA, then to an island in the Pacific, then back to the West Coast, then back to the island again. They are as solid as ever, and I don't foresee ever replacing them, honestly. I have no idea how people are so careless with their things, I have too many old cables so I have a problem where I never have the newest spec cable due to never having to buy new ones!

There is a vaaaast difference in quality across the Ikea range. I too had a bulletproof Ikea desk that lasted me over a decade and was still in excellent structural condition when I got rid of it. It was a single large slab of wood (not particle board) with steel legs that screwed into a steel frame with large steel screws. It cost $200 at the time but what with inflation and everything else would probably cost over $300 now.

I just looked it up and it was the Galant desk with T-frame legs, sadly discontinued in 2014.

This is correct. Some of the apparently crappiest particle board Ikea shit I've bought still runs strong decades later (glue can help!), and some of the "solid wood" stuff is so flimsily connected that it died instantly. HEJNE? Great. Love it. Wooden rack mount, strong and wonderful. IVAN? Absolute shit, falls apart, cannot be made to work.

> IVAN

I suppose you mean IVAR, but then I'm surprised as I have practically the whole IVAR assortment, coming mostly from when we had a move at work and renewed furniture there. The wooden racks, wooden cupboards, metal cupboards, I have them all and I love them. They have followed me through multiple house moves as well. They replaced basic pine racks that I got from some hardware store, that were not much cheaper and much less sturdy even though... well I still use them anyway, so I guess they're not so bad.

At one time I turned one IVAR metal cupboard into a growbox for tropical plants (the hollow space at the bottom and the mobile rack inside were pretty handy for running wires, pipes and placing the equipment) and it held very well the humidity, that was about ten years ago, I turned it back into a normal cupboard now and it's still as new. I now use a MILSBO cabinet as my indoor greenhouse.

IVAR is the one where the shelves clip on to little pegs? that used to be metal but now everything is plastic? For me they never clipped strong enough, so a slight bump caused shelves to fly off the pegs, even with the backing straps to keep the whole thing from accordianing down.

Your mention of cubboards might be the thing - you need to build it out around the cupboard instead of trying to just use it for shelves.

Ha! They don't even sell 937.636.09 anymore, so maybe the problem was those damn corners. I ended up using https://www.uline.com/Product/Detail/H-2455/Chrome-Wire-Shel... instead, and the thing was cheaper than the IVAR.

More power to you, wish I could have sent all the pieces to someone; as it was I burned them in rage.

Maybe it depends on the country? The shelves in metal IVAR cupboards still use metal clips here in France and Belgium. The shelves for the wooden racks are held by metal brackets and metal bars (I don't use the cupboards mounted to the wooden racks, they are just standing on the ground. I haven't used corner pieces either).

I would expect wire metal shelving to be much cheaper than what you can find at Ikea of course, but also quite flimsy.

Now I'm no Ikea salesman but I always fail to understand what I read on HN (or other US-centric social media sites, as far as I can tell?) when the topic of Ikea comes around.

It largely depends on when you bought them. Like this article portrays, they're figuring out ways to make the "same" product cheaper and cheaper.

The wire shelving linked is "kitchen/factory" grade and rated for 650 lbs a shelf, I'd have no issues climbing to the top and jumping up and down on it. I'd be scared to death to do that on a 83" piece of Ikea furniture.

There was a period of time when IVAR's peg-holding bits were made of gray plastic.

Prior to that, and now again, they are metal.

I still have my JERKER desk that is now around 25 years old. There is a clear degradation in quality (structural and cosmetic) over time for IKEA furniture and for me personally I am no longer buying many different furniture types from there. The better beds used to be good value for money, but it looks like that’s also about to end.

I have 3 Gerton desks that will probably last my whole life. Solid beech.

They have also discontinued it. Probably related to this article since they were made with solid wood.

Yeah, one of the better things they've ever had, but ultimately it's just edge joined 2x2s, so depending on where you live you're likely to get some cupping/warping over time.

They probably still have similar wood countertops you can buy and use for the same purpose, though.

Nope. At least in the US, all the countertops are particleboard, laminate or quartz. There's a butcher block themed particleboard but that's the closest you'll get now.

To be clear it’s a top layer of solid on top of particleboard.

Not just particleboard.

I'm still finishing up an IKEA kitchen, but the last I checked there were no solid wood options any longer. Used to be for SEKTION (and the Euro equivalent) they even carried solid ash doors and drawer fronts, those were discontinued a couple years ago. There are solid bamboo fronts (but no doors).

The closest you'll get now are particleboard tops with "thick" veneer. VRENA and MÖLLEKULLA use "thick" oak veneer; KARLBY, BARKABODA, and PINNARP use a "thick" walnut veneer. Veneer being IKEA's choice of words, not mine. These have traditional laminate on the underside.

SKOGSÅ uses "thick" veneer on all sides but is still a particleboard core.

SÄLJAN and EKBACKEN are laminate.

TOLKEN is solid bamboo (this must be new).

Bamboo as a countertop material would have me more anxious than granite.

Why?

I had this too. Quality piece of furniture.

In general I've had good experiences with the office furniture from IKEA. My current desk is a custom oiled wood butcher block slab with (adjustable) IKEA legs, and the legs are perfect - easy to install, don't slip, stable etc.

I've had my current Ikea Jerker desk for >15 years. Nice metal frame, and large, durable work surface. Also discontinued a long time ago.

Still have my Galant T-frame since 2011, survived a cross country move and several in-house relocations, and I use it every day. Still perfectly solid.

Currently leaning on my scuffed up Galant desk, this thing is like 20 years old at this point

The fact that IKEA furniture is self-assembled is a big factor here. Lots of room for human error that has nothing to do with the design or materials.

Yep, in my experience I’ve had the biggest problems when I overtighten their bolts. You really need to be careful not to tighten past the point where it starts chewing up the wood. But under tightening can have issues too if it makes the structure wobbly, which will also chew up the wood.

I purchased an Ikea Pax cupboard and joined it to its twin (same model) which Id been given by a neighbor. The old one was solid wood whereas the new one was not.

> I think this is kind of like how some people complain that Apple USB cables are pieces of crap that are always fraying and breaking after 6 months, while other people use them for years with zero issue.

Then they're very inconsistent, because I've had multiple Apple USB and power cables that were secured to a desk in cable runs and connectors, and sat on a desk with a cable organizer, and still managed to fray while being moved no more than a few inches to plug/unplug in their life.

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