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Comment by poikroequ | Hacker News Reader

IKEA furniture quality has dropped severely in recent years. Even their solid wood pine furniture has dropped in quality. You can find better quality furniture at Walmart these days.

IKEA was never top quality, but used to be good enough for the price. But prices have gone up and quality down to the point it's no longer worth it.

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The problem with most IKEA furniture is that it's just not meant to last or be disassembled and reassembled for resale, otherwise it just falls apart. It fits with the disposable lifestyle of young urbanites who move in the big cities rentals and want to buy modern looking furniture on the cheap.

> It fits with the disposable lifestyle of young urbanites who move in the big cities rentals and need modern looking furniture on the cheap.

Ive heard it described as furniture for college kids and divorced men.

Note that disassembly for resale doesn't have to be complete and sometimes is not necessary at all. E.g. a lamp, a chair, or a free-standing cabinet may need little to no disassembly.

IKEA sells a lot of furniture that is not modern looking at all, even reviving some retro lines recently. I'd describe it as a healthy mix.

I moved around ten times with a lot of IKEA furniture, changing countries even and the IKEA furniture definitely did not fall aparart. There are specific products, like the back of a wardrobe, that never fit properly - a move won't help there, but also isn't the deciding factor.

That is also why a second hand market for IKEA furniture is such a good idea. That stuff is sold second hand repeatedly anyway, can't hurt to add a bit of structure to that.

Most of it is not meant to be disassembled at all, e.g. bookshelves with those circular cams and screws into particle board. Flat pack assembly is just a cheaper way of getting the furniture to you, if you move or sell it, keep it whole. I bought some fancier Crate & Barrel bookshelves recently that were being discontinued and the things arrived whole in wood reinforced heavy duty cardboard. They wanted C$300 or something for shipping and 2 bookshelves filled a 6.5' truck bed.

My problem is it's overpriced for what you get. I do own an IKEA dresser, was good enough for the price I paid a few years ago, but it's more than doubled in price since then. I have a little $25 bookshelf from Walmart that's sturdier than 80% of the crap at IKEA.

It would be one thing if their furniture was actually cheap (inexpensive), which it used to be, but it's not anymore. Now most of their stuff is way overpriced.

Something I wasn't aware of until I went shopping there for furniture last year...everything is 3/4 sized.

Maybe everyone just knew this and I was out of the loop, but at least for me as soon as I noticed this, I saw it in everything. In the store it's kind of hard to tell because everything is scaled that 75%, but it's kinda funny when you notice it. Even things like mixing spoons or tea pots are 75% size or 25% less material.

In my experience it's been very hit and miss with their furniture. As an example my parents bought me a Markus chair and a desk when I was in middle school. The desk broke when I slammed my math book on it one time and as for the chair, I'm still using it to this day (I'm 30)

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