Hacker News Reader

Comment by nunez | Hacker News Reader

IKEA furniture can hold up very well if you follow the instructions precisely and don't disassemble them (in most cases).

We have furniture from IKEA that we bought at least five years ago that still functions great. A mattress we got from them is absolutely stellar with a memory foam topper; all of our guests love it. I think our coffee table is ten years old now.

However, everything goes to hell once you try to take it apart. This is why our mattresses are not on IKEA bed frames. Taking them apart has ALWAYS weakened them significantly. (We use Thuma Japanese joinery bed frames, which are AMAZING for moving and very high quality).

Which is kind of moot when you're talking about high-quality furniture, as they are usually single pieces as well.

View on HN

For what is worth, I had an IKEA kitchen for 12+ years, we disassembled it and gave it to some people that could reuse it, and it's still fine. OTOH my IKEA couch fell apart in half that time, but my wife fixed it up and it lasted until we renovated. We gave that away too.

IKEA has a wide range of products, some fall apart quickly, some last longer.

The finger jointed pine stuff is much more robust than the mdf or hardboard products.

IKEA does stuff not out of MDF and cardboard?

yes, the lingonberry drink they serve in the cafeteria. :)

actually they had some metal garage shelves that I thought would be ok.

They turned out to be SUPER flimsy and wobbly.

I think they optimize for shipping weight, which means 'solid' suffers.

Right, metal I know of, I just assumed they switched over to cheap materials in place of weed, so good to know.

In case you're not just being sarcastic, stuff like Ivar.

https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/ivar-cabinet-pine-40033763/

Was a genuine question, thanks.

Their dining tables are pretty much all solid pine.

generally for every thing (bed, chair, bookshelf, coffee table, etc) there's a solid wood version

I’ve heard their kitchens are far higher quality than the rest of their products. Why - not sure.

I've started wood-gluing together my IKEA and other flat-pack furniture to try and increase its usable life since - as you said - it's counterproductive to dis/re-assemble most of it anyways. I've not been at it long enough to claim effectiveness, but so far nothing has started to wobble.

I do the same. I don’t plan to take it apart but wood glue is part of any woodworking shop and I don’t see why assembling Ikea should be qualitatively different. I want my assemblies to stay together, not vibrate, to feel sound. Gluing joints is fundamental.

This is the way.

Even the cheapest cardboard-filled IKEA units hold together much better when glued, and makes moving the units less stressful (no more "it's creaking / skewed when I pick it up").

Nothing like picking up a rectangular dresser to put in the truck and watch it morph into a parallelogram.

Honestly...not mad at it lol

>However, everything goes to hell once you try to take it apart.

You are not supposed to do that, and if you do - use PVA and epoxy, +metal insert and machine bolts to reassemble

IKEA now publishes disassembly instructions for some of their products. https://www.ikea.com/ie/en/product-guides/sustainable-produc...

Five years is not much in terms of a furnitures lifespan, i own some pieces my grand grandmother already used that got passed down the generations.

I highly doubt this will happen with ikea furniture. But thats the tradeoff for cheaper and affordable stuff i guess.

Moved a pax twice and my kitchen once. You can disassemble them easily. Just reverse the instructions.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com