> IKEA has always fallen apart when you try to move it, none of these changes alter that.
This keeps getting repeated.. 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've also renovated my house recently which involved disassembling and reassembling some IKEA furniture. They're still fine.
It depends on the type of furniture of course. Yes, there are some specific ones that are harder to disassemble and move without breaking them. But not all.
> I want it to be cheap and disposable.
Isn't it possible to sell them on something like craigslist? I've bought and sold used IKEA furniture before, but I guess it depends on country/culture how willing people are to buy them.
> which is for the current apartment only because it fits it specifically.
I think this is an excellent point. We live in a home I intend to stay in for a long time. It's a bit on the small side, but we try to make the most of it by optimizing the furniture for that specific home. I've even customized IKEA furniture, cutting them to the right width etc. This lets us avoid moving to a new, larger home. That would certainly cost a lot and would be very resource intensive.
I can imagine the next owner would want to keep at least some of the furniture for at least the first few years too, depending on their life situation.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I think there's a lot of variation within Ikea products, and it tends to be reflected pretty clearly on the price. In a lot of Ikea's furniture lines they now offer a pretty significant range of price points and there is a corresponding range of quality and durability, with the lower end being trash and the upper end pretty impressive for flatpack.
> This keeps getting repeated.. 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've also renovated my house recently which involved disassembling and reassembling some IKEA furniture. They're still fine.
Indeed, I still have all of my original IKEA furniture after 7+ moves - none have "fallen apart". They just require partial disassembly to move. My IKEA desk and Billy bookcases are >20 years old and in great condition.
I'm not quite sure how people manage to be so destructive when moving.
No, it's pretty common. Because movers are responsible for replacing your items if they damage them.
They won't dissassemble/reassemble IKEA furniture because it's too likely to fail and then they'd be on the hook for replacement cost, through no fault of their own.
Literally the first Google result for "will movers reassemble ikea furniture" states:
> "Though individual policies vary, most movers will not disassemble and reassemble IKEA furniture, and some even require their customers to sign waivers against damage."
Even if you sign a waiver, they still won't do it because of customer dissatisfaction -- bad reviews with "they ruined my furniture and wouldn't replace it" etc.
Why would one pay someone to assemble an IKEA furniture anyway? These things are so simple to assemble and rarely require more than a screwdriver and allen wrench. A six year old could put together pretty much anything in their catalog.
While it's not the cheap stuff and movers never actually had to disassemble anything more than the bed frame, I have never seen "we don't move IKEA furniture" or any kinds of furniture related wavers.
They're willing to assemble other furniture? In my experience, IKEA furniture is some of the best-designed self-assembled furniture. Other companies don't seem to give any thought to making it easy to assemble at all. Some of the assembly "manuals" are hilariously bad.
IKEA stuff is generally great at assembly -- once.
If the back of the cabinet is nailed on, it's never going to survive removal and re-assembly. It might not survive normal wear-and-tear if you use it a lot.
If the process involves wood screws that bear weight, those joints won't survive disassembly.
> I bought used IKEA furniture, moved it around several times to different apartments, and then sold it again when I moved from that city
IKEA furniture can mean lots of different things.
The Billy bookcase specifically (which this article is primarily about) is not super great at surviving moves. Infact I had to reinforce mine just to hold lots of hard-cover books.
I'm ok with that because the price was so low it still was cheaper that getting stronger bookcases, and because they look good.
Selling furniture on Craigslist is a nightmare in most places and hardly worth doing unless you're really desperate for cash. Buyers will nickel-and-dime you, ask for free delivery, flake on scheduled meetings, show up without enough cash, maybe even try to rob you.
On my last visit to the States I bought some Ikea furniture (Galant desk, a chair, a bed etc) and after 1.5 months tried to sell all that. Used furniture store turned me down. Craiglist banned my account for reasons unknown. Goodwill refused to send a truck to collect items for free. As a last resort, I arranged the items nicely in the garbage room in hope someone picks them up, but the garbage room manager sternly requested I break them up and put into garbage bins. Americans are too rich and wasteful.
My wife sells a lot of stuff used and has good luck dealing with the flakey-nickel-dimers (the same people are typically both) by giving them a price concession of $N if they show up in M hours, where N is typically 5-10 and M is 1-3
It is still my time and attention that is far more valuable for me than whatever I would get back for reselling Billy bookshelves and the likes.
It works for you, you have headspace and you are mentally well composed to deal with that crap.
I’m not, so much rather dump furniture on the curb/trash of course after checking with family and friends in case they would need or want to take it for free. If they take it and sell it off good for them.
I've learned that giving things away is much harder than selling them for a small price. If I want to give something away, I get a lot of interest, but nobody really shows up, nobody is committed. It's a lot of wasteful communication. If I sell it for 5€, it's a much nicer experience and it still goes to the target audience (people who couldn't afford to pay the full price).
Yes, I have moved with IKEA furniture. I would like to point out though that their older stuff was sturdier, and the newer stuff is essentially cardboard.
This keeps getting repeated.. 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've also renovated my house recently which involved disassembling and reassembling some IKEA furniture. They're still fine.
It depends on the type of furniture of course. Yes, there are some specific ones that are harder to disassemble and move without breaking them. But not all.
> I want it to be cheap and disposable.
Isn't it possible to sell them on something like craigslist? I've bought and sold used IKEA furniture before, but I guess it depends on country/culture how willing people are to buy them.
> which is for the current apartment only because it fits it specifically.
I think this is an excellent point. We live in a home I intend to stay in for a long time. It's a bit on the small side, but we try to make the most of it by optimizing the furniture for that specific home. I've even customized IKEA furniture, cutting them to the right width etc. This lets us avoid moving to a new, larger home. That would certainly cost a lot and would be very resource intensive.
I can imagine the next owner would want to keep at least some of the furniture for at least the first few years too, depending on their life situation.