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Comment by cdchn | Hacker News Reader

IKEA products seem to vary wildly between "partical board disposable" to "made from actual wood and somewhat decent."

IKEA sells many products in a couple tiers. E.g. if you get the cheapest billy bookcase it'll just about barely hold up if it's full of books and you don't nudge it. If you get one of the more expensive models it'll be surprisingly sturdy instead.

Same sort of thing applies to nearly all their products. Yes they sell cheap crap -- that still serves its purpose mind you -- but they also sell slightly more upscale furniture that'll actually survive a couple decades.

And it's not like going for a "normal" furniture store is any guarantee either. My previous couch was from a regular furniture store and it broke right in half at around the 5 year mark. Upon inspection one of the cross members was significantly tapered, still had bark on it and everything. On one end it was a solid 2x4, on the other it was barely a 0.2x0.4.

And even the cheapest crap you can get from IKEA doesn't seem that bad to me. I've had one of those 5-euro LACK coffee tables for around six years and it really only has some minor surface damage on the top. Far away from throwing out.

Although at the same time, I think I'm on my third MARKUS chair because of the gas spring leaking. Thankfully they do have long warranties, so you can exchange them if it doesn't last for 10 years.

FYI you don't necessarily have to throw away an otherwise good office chair if the gas spring is leaking. You can replace just the gas spring.

Repair skills in the west have all but disappeared

I was able to fix quite a few items of furniture and electronics recently, but if you add cost of parts and labour of a professional, it’s just cheaper to replace

Oh man… need to check my chair :(

How did you discover this?

There was a black puddle under my chair.

You could even hang some servers underneath your LACK, aka the LackRack [0]

[0] https://wiki.eth0.nl/index.php/LackRack

This is hilarious, but I can't imagine relying on 4 screws into the cheapest wood known to man, all at the one end, holding up a heavier rackmount server without it sagging dangerously. On the other hand, I can imagine two LACKs stacked, with the servers on top of the bottom table, their weight being borne by all 4 legs evenly, and just mounted to the legs of the top table just to hold them securely in place. Anyway, thanks for sharing that awesome link!

The legs on lack tables used to be solid wood. IKEA is on an ongoing quest to make the production cheaper though and these days the legs are hollow.

It depends how well you treat it. Someone fidgety putting their feet on a €5 Lack table is enough to ruin it, as the connection between the legs and the tabletop is just double-ended screws.

> IKEA sells many products in a couple tiers. E.g. if you get the cheapest billy bookcase it'll just about barely hold up if it's full of books and you don't nudge it.

Agree, but still I just replaced a Billy bookcase that was over 15 years old and moved in 5 different places with me. It was really ugly looking in the end, and due a replacement. But even Ikea in more recent Billy they replaced metal parts for plastic ones and the "wood" seems even worse.

BILLY bookcases are very sturdy, have you seen problems with them? I do recommend the thinner ones over the wider ones because the wider ones tend to sag in the middle if you have a lot of weight on them.

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