7 ms·

Feels obvious in retrospect, because both brands have a pretty similar vibe (at least for me). I don't really get it, though – is this fundamentally different f

Feels obvious in retrospect, because both brands have a pretty similar vibe (at least for me). I don't really get it, though – is this fundamentally different from a plain old Lego Starter Set, apart from the nicer box?

mc32 6y ago
Legos to me are bit more premium than Ikea. Ikea for the most part, with some exceptions, comes across as cheap and disposable —the opposite of Legos which have durability built in. The main commonality may be the “design language” but not so much the engineering language. Ikea plastics are cheap and degrade rapidly (compared to Legos’s premium polymers).
- asdasfasdfasdf 6y ago
  > comes across as cheap and disposable I think they get a bit of a bad rep because, yes you can get a $10 MDF nightstand that will probably last a couple years... but once you stop scraping the bottom of the barrel, their mid-range and up stuff does complete really well on quality and price, especially if mid-century style aesthetics appeal to you...
  - jedberg 6y ago
    That may be true, but most people go to Ikea for the cheap stuff, otherwise they would go to a "real" furniture store.
    - nkozyra 6y ago
      Well someone's buying the more expensive stuff or Ikea would stop bothering.
    - crazygringo 6y ago
      It really depends on the category. If you're going to IKEA for a sofa, mattress, or coffee table -- yeah, it's going to be super-cheap stuff that doesn't last. But IKEA's phenomenal at a whole range of other stuff that's just as high quality but far cheaper than elsewhere. Lighting/lamps, storage boxes, kitchenware, a lot of their chairs/stools, bathroom, and so on. They're also really good for a lot of "basic" apartment pieces like bookshelves, dressers, storage cubes. A lot of people shop for those things at IKEA not for the price, but simply for the aesthetics. People with a lot of money and good taste still often wind up buying a bunch of stuff at IKEA because it works well. Not for a nice wooden coffee table mind you, but a nice white media stand for sure.
      - kalleboo 6y ago
        IKEA mattresses have lasted fine for me - and they come with a 25 year warranty.
      - xchaotic 6y ago
        I sold my Beddinge sofa after 7 years. You can replace the mattress and covers separately
    - colechristensen 6y ago
      The problem is the “real” furniture with a decent design aesthetic and quality is 10x the cost. The rest of “real” furniture shopping involves sifting though large volumes of future which are nearly as bad as ikea’s worst quality for some multiple of the price, or of decent quality with a “grandma’s house” look or cheap suburban look. Reasonably priced, reasonably designed, furniture of reasonable quality is very hard to find. Expensive furniture would own me, as in the value lost through worry about damage, time spent finding, or moving hassle outweighs the value gained with aesthetics, durability, and other quality. Ikea furniture is often of questionable quality, but frequently of acceptable design and price such that i can’t find anything of middling price that i actually want. In other words, I want a $300 couch or a $3000 couch but can’t find or am not willing to spend any more time looking for something in between.
      - jedberg 6y ago
        FWIW I got my couch at Costco for $1500 and it’s great. And comes with a lifetime warranty.
    - powersnail 6y ago
      People who buy $100 couch are not the ones who's going to buy $3000 couch anyway, even if IKEA doesn't exist. They --- including me --- are not going to buy, period. I just personally don't see a piece of furniture worthy of that much money.
      - asdasfasdfasdf 6y ago
        At one point I was buying $100 couches, but there's a good chance my next one will be in the $1500 range. I think Ikea has a solid strategy of selling nice looking but disposable furniture to young people (lots of college students)... and they've got a wide enough quality range to keep those people around as their tastes/incomes mature... and if your tastes/income stays the same... they've still got that cheap stuff for you.
  - mc32 6y ago
    Yes their MDF is terrible, but also their plastics are inferior polymers that don’t age well. Some metal furnishings are sheet metal thin and lack structural rigidity/strength as well. Obviously they make compromises to meet a price point, so given the price points of these products I believe they well lean heavily to the Ikea quality rather than Legos quality. I would almost say if people have kids it’s maybe an option since they’d grow out of it, but then engineered wood would have lots of chemicals in them.
    - timc3 6y ago
      You get what you pay for, but not all their plastics are like that. For example, the few plastic parts used in the kitchens are quality plastics where needed. The metal used is the same, with some Blum parts and the material the cabinets are made out of is quite substantial.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 6y ago
    > I think they get a bit of a bad rep because, yes you can get a $10 MDF nightstand that will probably last a couple years... Their Lack coffee table is an iconic POS. It’s almost completely hollow but I’ve seen them last years and it doesn’t look that bad. It’s also really cheap so I’ve seen lots of hacks for it. I think the hacking is where IKEA really shines. If you’re careful of what you buy, you can reconfigure, paint and chop up their furniture on the cheap and make it your own.
    - Hamuko 6y ago
      >Their Lack coffee table is an iconic POS. It’s almost completely hollow but I’ve seen them last years and it doesn’t look that bad. It’s also really cheap so I’ve seen lots of hacks for it. I've had mine for several years and despite the top surface having some wear on it, it's just fine. Definitely a solid purchase considering it costs about as half as much as a takeout pizza.
    - smueller1234 6y ago
      Makes for a great play table for kids as well. We bought one and put a custom sticker of roads/trees/houses on it that the kids can play with toy cars on, or amend with additional lego houses/trees etc.
    - egil 6y ago
      Such as the Lack Rack :) https://wiki.eth0.nl/index.php/LackRack https://wiki.eth0.nl/index.php/LackRack
- Waterluvian 6y ago
  I thought this too until I started buying the solid wood IKEA furniture. That stuff will be with me for a long long time.
  - rags2riches 6y ago
    I believe my kitchen table was bought at Ikea by my parents inlaw in the seventies... It's a solid build and has been moved many times over the years. The chipboard stuff often breaks when moving between homes.
  - mc32 6y ago
    Solid solid or the finger jointed stuff glued together stuff —I’ve tried their pine and it was on the thin side. The solid solid stuff is as expensive as dedicated furniture stuff. They also have pretty veneered stuff but it’s not to my taste.
    - Waterluvian 6y ago
      I can’t help with taste but Good furniture is expensive. I realised that when I bought my house and my dad gave me some wonderful pieces from his grandfather. Not that ikea is an heirloom but good furniture is bought once and wears gracefully. The kids have put dings in the stuff but they’re just that. Dings. They’re not fake wood texture peeling to expose particleboard. I encourage people to reconsider the value of good furniture.
  - WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
    > solid wood IKEA furniture Interesting, got a list somewhere.
    - selectodude 6y ago
      If you spend what you think is way too expensive for ikea furniture, that’s the stuff. I have a $400 ikea table that is basically bulletproof.
    - techdevangelist 6y ago
- Hamuko 6y ago
  >Ikea for the most part, with some exceptions, comes across as cheap and disposable I wouldn't really call IKEA furniture "disposable". I've had my glass IKEA desk since like 2006 or something. And even though my MARKUS chair recently broke down, I did have it for 5+ years and I got it exchanged for a working one under warranty as it has one for 10 years. I think most of my stuff is from IKEA and that pretty much all of it beats stuff from other stores at the same price range. My TV stand is quite nice and robust and only cost me like 120 euro. I only found really shit, low-quality alternatives for the same price where the doors didn't have any soft closing and there were no ready-made holes for cable management.
  - vidarh 6y ago
    Almost my entire house is furnished with IKEA stuff, bought between 10-15 years ago, and I've so far never had to throw stuff away because of wear or breakage. It's not like any of it will be family heirlooms handed down through generations like really high end furniture easily can, but I can easily see most of it lasting another 10-20 years or more. My couch has survived 10 years of my son treating it as a trampoline, for example. Last couple of years I've had to constantly try to get him to stop jumping onto it from a running start through the living room...
sukilot 6y ago
What's not to get?
hbosch 6y ago
To me this looks more like LEGO Starter Set Classic, and actually appeals to me quite a bit more.

mc32 6y ago

Legos to me are bit more premium than Ikea. Ikea for the most part, with some exceptions, comes across as cheap and disposable —the opposite of Legos which have durability built in. The main commonality may be the “design language” but not so much the engineering language. Ikea plastics are cheap and degrade rapidly (compared to Legos’s premium polymers).

asdasfasdfasdf 6y ago
> comes across as cheap and disposable I think they get a bit of a bad rep because, yes you can get a $10 MDF nightstand that will probably last a couple years... but once you stop scraping the bottom of the barrel, their mid-range and up stuff does complete really well on quality and price, especially if mid-century style aesthetics appeal to you...
- jedberg 6y ago
  That may be true, but most people go to Ikea for the cheap stuff, otherwise they would go to a "real" furniture store.
  - nkozyra 6y ago
    Well someone's buying the more expensive stuff or Ikea would stop bothering.
  - crazygringo 6y ago
    It really depends on the category. If you're going to IKEA for a sofa, mattress, or coffee table -- yeah, it's going to be super-cheap stuff that doesn't last. But IKEA's phenomenal at a whole range of other stuff that's just as high quality but far cheaper than elsewhere. Lighting/lamps, storage boxes, kitchenware, a lot of their chairs/stools, bathroom, and so on. They're also really good for a lot of "basic" apartment pieces like bookshelves, dressers, storage cubes. A lot of people shop for those things at IKEA not for the price, but simply for the aesthetics. People with a lot of money and good taste still often wind up buying a bunch of stuff at IKEA because it works well. Not for a nice wooden coffee table mind you, but a nice white media stand for sure.
    - kalleboo 6y ago
      IKEA mattresses have lasted fine for me - and they come with a 25 year warranty.
    - xchaotic 6y ago
      I sold my Beddinge sofa after 7 years. You can replace the mattress and covers separately
  - colechristensen 6y ago
    The problem is the “real” furniture with a decent design aesthetic and quality is 10x the cost. The rest of “real” furniture shopping involves sifting though large volumes of future which are nearly as bad as ikea’s worst quality for some multiple of the price, or of decent quality with a “grandma’s house” look or cheap suburban look. Reasonably priced, reasonably designed, furniture of reasonable quality is very hard to find. Expensive furniture would own me, as in the value lost through worry about damage, time spent finding, or moving hassle outweighs the value gained with aesthetics, durability, and other quality. Ikea furniture is often of questionable quality, but frequently of acceptable design and price such that i can’t find anything of middling price that i actually want. In other words, I want a $300 couch or a $3000 couch but can’t find or am not willing to spend any more time looking for something in between.
    - jedberg 6y ago
      FWIW I got my couch at Costco for $1500 and it’s great. And comes with a lifetime warranty.
  - powersnail 6y ago
    People who buy $100 couch are not the ones who's going to buy $3000 couch anyway, even if IKEA doesn't exist. They --- including me --- are not going to buy, period. I just personally don't see a piece of furniture worthy of that much money.
    - asdasfasdfasdf 6y ago
      At one point I was buying $100 couches, but there's a good chance my next one will be in the $1500 range. I think Ikea has a solid strategy of selling nice looking but disposable furniture to young people (lots of college students)... and they've got a wide enough quality range to keep those people around as their tastes/incomes mature... and if your tastes/income stays the same... they've still got that cheap stuff for you.
- mc32 6y ago
  Yes their MDF is terrible, but also their plastics are inferior polymers that don’t age well. Some metal furnishings are sheet metal thin and lack structural rigidity/strength as well. Obviously they make compromises to meet a price point, so given the price points of these products I believe they well lean heavily to the Ikea quality rather than Legos quality. I would almost say if people have kids it’s maybe an option since they’d grow out of it, but then engineered wood would have lots of chemicals in them.
  - timc3 6y ago
    You get what you pay for, but not all their plastics are like that. For example, the few plastic parts used in the kitchens are quality plastics where needed. The metal used is the same, with some Blum parts and the material the cabinets are made out of is quite substantial.
- 2muchcoffeeman 6y ago
  > I think they get a bit of a bad rep because, yes you can get a $10 MDF nightstand that will probably last a couple years... Their Lack coffee table is an iconic POS. It’s almost completely hollow but I’ve seen them last years and it doesn’t look that bad. It’s also really cheap so I’ve seen lots of hacks for it. I think the hacking is where IKEA really shines. If you’re careful of what you buy, you can reconfigure, paint and chop up their furniture on the cheap and make it your own.
  - Hamuko 6y ago
    >Their Lack coffee table is an iconic POS. It’s almost completely hollow but I’ve seen them last years and it doesn’t look that bad. It’s also really cheap so I’ve seen lots of hacks for it. I've had mine for several years and despite the top surface having some wear on it, it's just fine. Definitely a solid purchase considering it costs about as half as much as a takeout pizza.
  - smueller1234 6y ago
    Makes for a great play table for kids as well. We bought one and put a custom sticker of roads/trees/houses on it that the kids can play with toy cars on, or amend with additional lego houses/trees etc.
  - egil 6y ago
    Such as the Lack Rack :) https://wiki.eth0.nl/index.php/LackRack https://wiki.eth0.nl/index.php/LackRack
Waterluvian 6y ago
I thought this too until I started buying the solid wood IKEA furniture. That stuff will be with me for a long long time.
- rags2riches 6y ago
  I believe my kitchen table was bought at Ikea by my parents inlaw in the seventies... It's a solid build and has been moved many times over the years. The chipboard stuff often breaks when moving between homes.
- mc32 6y ago
  Solid solid or the finger jointed stuff glued together stuff —I’ve tried their pine and it was on the thin side. The solid solid stuff is as expensive as dedicated furniture stuff. They also have pretty veneered stuff but it’s not to my taste.
  - Waterluvian 6y ago
    I can’t help with taste but Good furniture is expensive. I realised that when I bought my house and my dad gave me some wonderful pieces from his grandfather. Not that ikea is an heirloom but good furniture is bought once and wears gracefully. The kids have put dings in the stuff but they’re just that. Dings. They’re not fake wood texture peeling to expose particleboard. I encourage people to reconsider the value of good furniture.
- WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
  > solid wood IKEA furniture Interesting, got a list somewhere.
  - selectodude 6y ago
    If you spend what you think is way too expensive for ikea furniture, that’s the stuff. I have a $400 ikea table that is basically bulletproof.
  - techdevangelist 6y ago
Hamuko 6y ago
>Ikea for the most part, with some exceptions, comes across as cheap and disposable I wouldn't really call IKEA furniture "disposable". I've had my glass IKEA desk since like 2006 or something. And even though my MARKUS chair recently broke down, I did have it for 5+ years and I got it exchanged for a working one under warranty as it has one for 10 years. I think most of my stuff is from IKEA and that pretty much all of it beats stuff from other stores at the same price range. My TV stand is quite nice and robust and only cost me like 120 euro. I only found really shit, low-quality alternatives for the same price where the doors didn't have any soft closing and there were no ready-made holes for cable management.
- vidarh 6y ago
  Almost my entire house is furnished with IKEA stuff, bought between 10-15 years ago, and I've so far never had to throw stuff away because of wear or breakage. It's not like any of it will be family heirlooms handed down through generations like really high end furniture easily can, but I can easily see most of it lasting another 10-20 years or more. My couch has survived 10 years of my son treating it as a trampoline, for example. Last couple of years I've had to constantly try to get him to stop jumping onto it from a running start through the living room...

sukilot 6y ago

What's not to get?

hbosch 6y ago

To me this looks more like LEGO Starter Set Classic, and actually appeals to me quite a bit more.