Speaking of furniture....Ikea? Is it junk?

It's not that bad, but you'll never get your pad in Architectural Digest with it..

 

It will last a few years. It's all made in China and mostly particle board, but it can hold out for a while. Actually if you're single then that might be the way to go - odds are when you marry that she will want newer furniture anyway, if only to have things she picked out. When we were first married we got a bunch of things from there. The glasses break really easily, but are cheap to replace (we must have gone through a dozen). Plates ok. We got a real wood table there for $35 which lasted as our dining table for 4 years before being broken in a move.

Much of the stuff looks nice and hip, but the durability isn't there. Again though, if you're going to move or redecorate in the next 2-5 years you should be fine.

 

Ikea, EYE-key-uh (noun). Swedish for place to buy everything for the recent college grad or recently divorced.

 

Ikea furniture is ok until you try to move it. A friends dad was in the moving business and they refused to "insure" ikea stuff because it broke so much. Its good once you put it together and don't move it but apparently as soon as you tried to move it it breaks

 

+100

cheap but once you try to move it it breaks
i don't recommend it

 

FYI :

IKEA translation = "crap" in Swedish....



LOLLL

 

I was a mover all summer. Whenever you saw Ikea furniture, you knew it was going to be a bad day.

 

I have a desk from there that's holding up pretty well. But then again I'm a poor college student, haha.

 

Nothing wrong with that. Later, buy the good stuff if you want to keep it.

 

Once again. It's the cheap stuff made of composite which will not hold a screw for long. Nice design. Terrible materials.

 

I suppose we should have a small tutorial on furniture. The US and the UK build the best long-term furniture. Viet Nam, Malaysia, the Philippines, China build garbage. That is a fact.

Composites with laminate tops will crash after about three years. Stay away from Ikea, Value Furniture, Wal-Mart and Costco if you want long-term satisfaction. Stay away from the discount houses. If the price looks too good to be true, IT IS!!

Open drawers. If they are not dovetail tongue and groove construction, move away. OK in the kitchen, horrible anywhere else.

Watch for "tis wood." Tis wood but, no one knows what kind. Fine companies like Harden, Leister tables, and others sign their work. Buy them. If the manufacturer will not sign his work, you do not need it. If it says "Martha Stewart" collection, it is Chinese crap and you should run the other way at speed.

Teak is immensely expensive. If it says, teak, and it is cheap, you are in for trouble.

Careful on the "hardwood construction and fine veneers." If they won't tell you what it is, you don't need it.

Be careful of plastic trim. Glass on cabinet doors should be embedded with wood, not plastic.

Your Grandmother never bought junk. Don't you buy it either.

 

Yeah, no reason spending large amounts of money on something that will probably get damaged one way or another.

 

Some things are OK. The quality and integrity of furniture has gotten a lot cheaper over the years.

 

As mentioned, you have to be very careful taking things apart and moving them. The lower end stuff tends to not hold up well, but we've actually had some things last a pretty good while. Our Ikea bed made it safely through three moves over 7 years. I'm in Hawaii and if they could figure out a way to open a store here it would absolutley kill.

 

You get what you pay for. When I lived in Houston I bought a couple of various large pieces of furniture. From an office chair that still works, a wooden dresser that I had to modify to handle any extra weight of clothes by adding support beams underneath the drawers using a hot glue gun to help secure it the drawer panels. One thing I really wanted to get was the Jerker computer table, it was one of those items that was very well made but discontinued for some unknown reason. It's current replacement is a smaller, weaker, & cheaper knockoff version. What the hell are they thinking?

 

Oh, here's an added bonus.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ODeJCKdLzY

 

The simple rule with buying Ikea (And other inexpensive furntiture that you have to put together) is to USE GLUE when you assembly it! Use Elmers wood glue when assembling and you can get decent life out of cheap furniture. Ikea is a perfect outlet for decent looking furniture and great for people on a budget, just 'build in' a little more quality with some glue! Thier houseware departments always have great deals on the general stuff eveyone needs around the kitchen including a few items that are hard to find!

 

i saw a young comedian who sang a song about ikea furniture. it was called pressed wood. very funny. i call their stuff rat furniture. because it's designed for hamster sized dwelling units.

 

Calling it junk is being much too kind.

 

True! We've never bought a seat, chair or sofa from Ikea because they're all ridiculously tiny. Makes you think Swedes who design it are Oopa Loompas.

 

It's o.k. - I don't recommend it though.


BUT you get tons of small cool accessories to decorate you home with at low, low prices. Like CD-shelfs, curtains, cheap "art" photos etc. So they are not that bad in the end.

And IKEA is great if you want a upgrade to a modern looking home but don't want to spend a fortune on design furniture that will be outdated next spring lol

Their sleeping room stuff is all good.


Btw Don't expect any personal service. You have to look for yourself what you want, order it yourself/ pick it off yourself and of course mount it yourself. But at those prices it's pretty o.k.

 

IKEA is basically short term, disposable furniture.

Sort of like a plastic food container....its good enough to use a few times, and cheap enough to throw out when it gets old.

 

Modern furniture goes out of style every five years... so disposable furniture makes sense. If this bothers you, furnish your home with valuable antiques (or stop caring about such things). Personally I can't stand living with furniture that someone who is now dead used to sit on. Antique bed from Granny? Gross!

Ikea is great because you'll spend 1/5th of what Wickes/LaZBoy will charge (and 1/100th of what you'll find at Fashion Island in Newport Beach) and it will last until the next life cycle. Some of their items are garbage, but you can feel them out in the showroom (if it's wobbly or delaminating in the showroom, avoid it!).

Most items in Ikea are euro sized. Most American women are... not. Shop accordingly.