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An architect friend of mine once said that he admired IKEA above all other furniture manufacturers because it made a modern range of aesthetics available to the

• psunavy03 1mo ago
  > And who buys furniture to pass it on to your kids? Your kids will be unburdening themselves of your old furniture before you are in the ground. This highly depends on the furniture. As an example, my dad built some custom pieces out of solid oak that are absolutely finding a place in my house after he's gone.
  • nswango 1mo ago
    Your father did not buy those so that isn't a counterexample to what the GP said. Clearly, something your father made with his own hands will have a different value to something he bought.
• throwaway219450 1mo ago
  > For those of you who look down on IKEA furniture, I'd like to hear about what alternatives you think need mentioning. Especially for young people or people of modest means. I look in antique/thrift/charity/freecycle/secondhand stores or groups. Where I live you can pick up a solid hardwood dresser for a few hundred bucks, because as you say - nobody wants their parents’ heirlooms. And lots of things can be had for free if you can hire a van to collect.
  • bborud 1mo ago
    At least here, you'll also find a lot of IKEA furniture at those stores as well. Most of the nicer stuff tends to go to higher end stores and ends up being rather pricy.
  • jjkaczor 1mo ago
    Also "estate sales/auctions" and/or online returns auctions. A month ago I got an entire king-size bed headboard (with storage), with cabinets on each side, and a bridge that connects the two cabinets across the top (and has lighting - also there is power in the headboard - needs a few upgrades though). It was made in 1986 - solid wood. I paid $1 CAD at an estate sale... Now, the matching dresser with a tri-fold mirror was $175. Why the difference? No one wanted the hassle of disassembly for the bed unit - but many felt they could probably flip the dresser. Admittedly, I had to rent a U-Haul (say about $100 including gas) and rope in a family member to help with the move. (because, it had to be at least 800lbs of awkward parts...) So, my all in was $276 plus some auction fees. But - still cheaper, more durable and better looking than most "DIY assembly options". OTOH - if we move again, this sucker stays with the house...
  • class3shock 1mo ago
    I have had goodluck with this and have gotten many pieces of furniture that will last for the rest of my life used. It is very hit or miss based on your location though and it does restrict your style choices.
• bredren 1mo ago
  There is also some life stage appropriate utility in its ~disposable entry tier pricing. For example, having young kids is not a good time to have a nice teak dining room table. (Or new wood floors for that matter) (or really anything nice you don’t want to hide in a locked box or room) Also, pets, like a cat is wonderful. But without great diligence a more lower mid-tier couch will get clawed up the same as an ikea special. At least it may be more comfortable in the meantime. I suspect wealth may be having your cake and eating it too—-you have fancy furniture that kids or pets wreck and you file that under dc. All of it screams for automated materials reprocessing. One can only hope that the collision of robotics and AI will reduce the amount of landfill we create.
• rerdavies 1mo ago
  Yes, the tried-and-true first apartment cheap stuff is still there. But the majority of what's for sale in IKEA these days is of significantly better quality (and significantly higher price). The best alternative to IKEA furniture is more expensive IKEA furniture.
  • liotier 1mo ago
    Indeed, Ikea nowadays caters to a range of quality/price optima. Kitchen door finishes make a world of difference in durability and prices. Bedside tables exist with wood-on-plastic-slides drawers - and other models with ball bearing drawers.
• varispeed 1mo ago
  I love IKEA because I could furnish entire office (apart from chairs, they don't have anything of Herman Miller quality) with practical and good looking desks and other fixtures and I didn't spend a fortune. I don't know what it would look like if I had to use other suppliers. Not many showroom if at all, long lead times, often problematic assembly.
  • TacticalCoder 1mo ago
    > For those of you who look down on IKEA furniture, I'd like to hear about what alternatives you think need mentioning. Word! My desk at home is a very wide T-shaped desk made of three Kallax and two kitchen countertops: I share it with my wife and there are four monitors, two desktop PC towers (inside modded Kallax), two laptops, one shared printer, etc. and we've still got plenty of room on the desk. Our chairs: we've each got an Aeron (mine is just out of warranty, 13 years old and the wife's got an used one, don't know how old but older than mine). That's quality stuff (it took me a few minutes to set up correctly: when you put your hands behind your head, an Aeron should lean back and then when you put your hands above the keyboard, it should move forward)... Fun fact: neighbor's kid sat in my chair (by himself, I wasn't offering him to try it) and exclamed "wow, that's a good chair!". My Aeron has already been to four countries with me. The "hit hurts my leg" is bullshit from people who haven't spend the 15 minutes needed to read the manual to set it up correctly.
• hvb2 1mo ago
  > If I pay $5000 for a chair I have reason to expect a lot from it. And more often than not, pricey furniture doesn't actually deliver sufficient quality to be able to defend the price. That's not the point. A large chunk of the price is the name on it and the marketing/image you associate yourself with. I thin, as engineers, that's hard to relate to. But that is how it works. The price is not a reflection of quality, it's an outcome of a process to pick a price just enough people are willing to pay.
  • yowayb 1mo ago
    I once paid $3500 for a very deep and low chaise lounger/sofa. It was very high quality. You did have to get used to having your feet on the seat because it was so deep, but it was a great guest bed. But more importantly, to me, at the time, it looked very cool in my tiny downtown apartment.
  • bborud 1mo ago
    For years I consistently wore a Seiko around people who had watches that cost more than my car. Proudly. When asked why I didn't have a "proper watch" I'd point out that their swiss masterpiece wasn't nearly as accurate as my cheap quartz watch. They'd laugh because they knew it wasn't about the accuracy. And I'd get some satisfaction from the fact that they thought I didn't already know that. I too own things where the price tag can't be justified by the objective merits of the product. So I do get it. But what they have in common is that these things generally are very good -- but you can get the same level of quality for less. I won't buy a low quality product with a hefty price tag. Anyway, these days most people around me wear some kind of smart watch. And the funny bit is that the people who own expensive watches now have to choose: show off or practicality :-)
  • account42 1mo ago
    Yet you keep seeing people that tell someone off for complaining that a cheap thing broke and that they should have paid more to get quality. Problem is that unless you're an expert with enough time you don't know if your paying for quality or bullshit.
• kakacik 1mo ago
  You can easily get better kitchen for example here in Europe, but you have to pay >2x more. Their price/value ratio is stellar usually (but not always). Some designs are great, some are... obscure and I would not want it at home even for free. Taste is eye of the beholder and all that. One problem is - its sort of take it or leave it. You can't really make custom sized kitchen, you only compose of lego-like bricks of 20-40-60-80cm width and try to cover the inevitable gaps, but they are there. Fine if you don't have constraints, but we do - square-like shape with hard dimensions on all 4 sides. Sloped roof on one side. A lot of custom work and its not perfect, cannot be, its Ikea. But we got big kitchen for... 11-12k altogether, including artificial stone worktop. Only due to the fact that their sub-contracting company (here in Switzerland!!) messed up first delivery, and white worktop with small black veins came as black with white veins (order came good to factory but out came reverse). Second delivery - each plate was mildly different coloring, so when put together, it looked very cheap and amateurish. Raised with Ikea, after some discussion they offered another one but couldn't guarantee color uniformity. I've chosen another look that would work in any case, but then they seemingly decided cut off that supplier and just returned all the money for worktop, while we kept our current one. Around 5k that was. Also my massive pet peeve with their kitchen - you have to take their always crappy dishwashers, buying directly say Bosch products won't make them fit well with closing mechanism. I had to throw away perfectly functional Siemens dishwasher and buy their Bosch one. Sounds good, but never ever do Ikea rebrands work the same, offer same quality as originals, don't understand why but even previous time I did that, their Whirlpool-rebrand was crappy, every single device had big issues. That new top of the line (in Ikea) Bosch is massively subpar to older (5 years max) basic Siemens one.
  • stevesimmons 1mo ago
    When we did a full renovation, we had the cabinet maker install an Ikea kitchen, with a custom non-Ikea worktop and a small amount of his expertise to adapt it for our non-Ikea dishwasher etc. This was a massive cost saving on a fully custom kitchen, and let us shift the budget to custom built stairs/bedroom cupboards elsewhere. Ten years on, it all still looks as good as new.
• MomsAVoxell 1mo ago
  >IKEA had done more to evolve the public taste than any other manufacturer. I have lived and worked around a fair chunk of the western world, establishing my local headquarters each time, building myself a home. Long, long ago, I gave up on IKEA for everything except cookware and meatballs. The reason? I grew rapidly tired with seeing my living room everywhere. Move across the US, get invited over for dinner with new colleagues: oh, that's my old couch. Cross Germany for personal reasons, stay at a friends place - yeah, that's the kitchen I had in LA. Couch-surfing for a few months in Tokyo? Right, you get the point, same coffee table. It just became, impersonal. I get it, mass furniture, for the masses, has its time and place and economies. But as I got older and traveled a lot more out of my own box, I saw the repetition. These days I go to what remains of those ghastly furniture shops, or the second hand markets, or the good flea markets (which don't accept IKEA stuff) .. and do my best to assemble my living devices from older, antique things. Its not so easy. But, it does accomplish one thing: it's mine. I won't see this setup anywhere else in the world, again. >For those of you who look down on IKEA furniture, I'd like to hear about what alternatives you think need mentioning. One should not overlook the value in spending the IKEA budget on tools and instead rolling ones' own ...
  • clickety_clack 1mo ago
    IKEA is fine when you’re just starting out, but after years, you realize that it’s got a shelf life. Good furniture really is better. You can get great stuff for very reasonable prices on Craigslist and Facebook marketplace, and it’s much more solid, durable and interesting than the cookiecutter ikea stuff.
    • MomsAVoxell 1mo ago
      While helping friends move, as one does, I often challenge them to disassemble and reassemble their IKEA gear and still have it tight on the other side, so to speak, of the particle board .. Some do it with grace, some of us with a bit of duct tape. Others, not at all.
      • manwe150 1mo ago
• jbm 1mo ago
  Nitpick but solid wood furniture does not weigh more than the particleboard furniture from Ikea. Also, my 2 cents, but it is high time for a return to utilitarianism in furniture. Just getting a basic leather sofa without cup holders and other e-garbage is a huge pain. (Ironically, Ikea is ok for this.)
  • guax 1mo ago
    > Nitpick but solid wood furniture does not weigh more than the particleboard furniture from Ikea. What is this special space time dilation wood you found? If its made of hardwood it will be a lot heavier. If it weights similarly and its solid wood is usually very soft and will live as long or less than IKEA furniture.
    • hasperdi 1mo ago
      100% wood is way heavier, even the lighter variant. Interesting note... I recently disassembled an IKEA cupboard from 1999 made from MDF. It was definitely much heavier than their MDF products (eg. Metod kitchen cabinets) from today.
      • mastermage 1mo ago
        There has been quite some changes on the construction of IKEA furniture within the last 30 years. There was an interesting video that I cant remember the name anymore about this.
  • BeetleB 1mo ago
    > Nitpick but solid wood furniture does not weigh more than the particleboard furniture from Ikea. While perhaps IKEA sells some heavy wood furniture, most of it is fairly light.
  • WillPostForFood 1mo ago
    It depends. Solid particleboard is pretty close, but a many Ikea pieces are hollow, with internal cardboard support. I prefer some of these to particle board because of the lightness. Like the Lack or the Linnmon table tops.
• ludicrousdispla 1mo ago
  The one criticism I can offer on IKEA furniture is that some of it doesn't move well, specifically the particle board stuff which will fall apart at the joints if it's not carefully handled. Having said that, I also tend to not buy the particle board stuff. I'd prefer it if IKEA offered more options (dimensionally) on their durable furnishings.
  • leni536 1mo ago
    They move OK if you dismantle them.
    • ValentineC 1mo ago
      I think what the parent commenter means is that the screws might not screw back the same way after, because that mirrors my experience with a lot of their furniture too.
    • account42 1mo ago
      Nah, the cheaper particle board stuff barely survives the initial delivery.
      • leni536 1mo ago
        That is not my experience, but maybe quality is not consistent across countries.
• anonthrownaway 1mo ago
  >For those of you who look down on IKEA furniture, I'd like to hear about what alternatives you think need mentioning. Especially for young people or people of modest means. I don't know about Europe, but a drive through most SFH residential areas in the US and you will score more usable furniture than you could ever need (skipping mattresses, fabric couches, etc...). At my last home, I ditched a lot of furniture by leaving it out front and never had to wait more than a day to have it gone. Failing that, there are a plethora of thrift shops with dirt cheap furniture (and other household goods). And if you want something more classy, go to antique shops loaded with cool oak furniture that is out of style so isn't worth much anymore. Compare that to the obnoxious particle board Ikea crap that is the antithesis of buy it for life (and thus TCO is terrible).
• wuschel 1mo ago
  > But IKEA is more often than not more than sufficient quality. I am not so sure about that. There are some product lines that are somewhat OK price/quality e.g. IVAR seems to be OK. But most IKEA products are too much optimized optimized on the cost side for my taste. The good days of "wooden furniture" is over.
• gwbas1c 1mo ago
  > And who buys furniture to pass it on to your kids? That's just the excuse people tell themselves to justify a purchase.
• coldtea 1mo ago
  >it made a modern range of aesthetics available to the masses It made lack-of-aesthetics available to the masses: the same monopoly pre-selected designs for everybody, saturating every home.
  • lou1306 1mo ago
    Of course it is not to everyone's taste, but Ikea definitely has an aesthetics. A Lack coffee table or a Poang chair are instantly recognizable.
    • coldtea 1mo ago
      >but Ikea definitely has an aesthetics. It has a recognizable design language. Doesn't mean it has aesthetic merit (which was my point). The design language is derivative mix (copies of decades old scandinavian originals, adopting of this or that famous design language like mid-century modern, globalized minimal viable design), basically substituting a ready-made corporate taste for the buyer's own - the very opposite of aesthetics. If IKEA has an "aesthetic" it's in the trivial sense that everything designed has one, the same way a fast food meal is a culinary artifact as every other prepared meal is, doesn't mean it has culinary (or even nutritional) value.
• cannonpr 1mo ago
  I’m not sure I understand this perspective, I’m looking forward to inheriting some of my parents furnitures and getting rid of some of the ikea crap.. they are furniture that have been in the family in some cases for over 200 years, and I learned to maintain them and care for them as a kid just as a regular part of housework. Some have had amusing changes in use as the times changed, like an old wardrobe being turned into a chest of drawers as larger wardrobes became available, etc.
  • teiferer 1mo ago
    > I’m looking forward to inheriting some of my parents furnitures and getting rid of some of the ikea crap.. I think you are confusing the perspective of the GP here. Your perspective is that of the "kid". You like the parents' furniture and eventually want to use them and that's all fine. But GP is describing the parent perspective which, they argue, shouldn't be to plan life such that the kids will be inheriting and using things later. That puts pressure on them to actually do instead of making their own choices. It's a subtle but important difference. I see similar issues with people buying the neighboring lot and building a second house there such that eventually their kids can move in their with their family, once they have one. Some kids certainly so, and that's great. But think about your own life, would really have wanted to do that? Or grow up feeling that's expected of you? Most of my friends live half a day of travel away from where they grew up. Most of them would despise the idea of moving in next to their parents. Which doesn't mean they don't love them, just that they value their independence and made choices free from the constraint that it needs to be exactly there. (Besides, a couple usually consists of two people and they often didn't grow up in the same neighborhood.) Generally, trying to plan for leaving inheritances (of substantial value) is overvalued. Modern society is striving to less dynasty building and I think that's a good thing. A lot of the poor/rich divide is rooted in that and governments should discourage it (through inheritance tax) rather than encouraging it (through e.g. lack of actions against housing costs which forces people to get a big inheritance to be able to live anywhere.) Though I'm really getting too far from the topic as that was about furniture. :)
    • cannonpr 1mo ago
      This is a complex topic and I’m not going to do it justice in a comment, but I feel like modern society might just be destroying social mobility in the name of what you described, while the already rich are dynasty building just fine as usual via a variety of legal means only available to them selves.
• nkrisc 1mo ago
  IKEA is great for stuff where I'm willing to sacrifice some quality for a proportionally large price discount. But for furniture where quality is more of a concern, and I'm willing to go up a rung on the price ladder, I've been very happy with both Crate & Barrel and Room & Board (noun & noun) here in the US. I have a C&B sectional sofa and quite a few pieces from R&B such as our king size bed, dresser, nightstands, kid's dresser, dining room sideboard cabinet. They're not $5000 for a single chair range, but $5000 for bed + nightstands + dresser, though you can certainly get stuff for less. But for "young people or people of modest means" I agree that you probably can't beat IKEA. There certainly are other cheap furniture retailers but you don't really know what you're getting and the style leaves a lot to be desired.
  • BeetleB 1mo ago
    Couch: I'd never get from IKEA. Comfort really matters. I have 2 IKEA beds. Quite happy with them! Ditto dressers and nightstands. I don't see why I'd get something more expensive.
• mannyv 1mo ago
  I think Ikea is great. But my overall goal is to replace all of our Ikea furniture with better and/or self-made furniture. It's easier said than done.
  • submain 1mo ago
    Likewise. I signed up for woodworking classes. I think I'm in for a rude awakening.
• mastermage 1mo ago
  Ok so i have varied opinion on this. IKEA is great for getting some stuff quickly and you know what to expect. The big problem I have with Ikea is it creates a sort of disposable Furniture Industry because quite often people will throw their Ikea Stuff away after the first or second moving. Or not even take it with them. Because it is so easy to get and so cheap.
  • dolmen 1mo ago
    Well, because of wide availability, it allows to get a kid room for cheap and with consistent style over time always buying second hand.
• modo_mario 1mo ago
  >And who buys furniture to pass it on to your kids? Your kids will be unburdening themselves of your old furniture before you are in the ground. My great grandparents and grandparents did and I appreciate it a ton. I think modern consumerist culture that has even started to affect buildings with throwaway architecture (because long term thinking doesn't properly fit into the profit motive) is absolutely ghoulish.
• ulnarkressty 1mo ago
  I think most people who are critical of IKEA would be fine with cheap carboard furniture, if it weren't for their unethical practices hinging on corruption in developing countries. I recently learned of their practices of clearing old growth forests and was quite ashamed for falling for their greenwashing campaign. I won't be buying their products anytime soon. Some recent documentaries about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSV7RlgQtWc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSV7RlgQtWc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=860f0EqmYao https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=860f0EqmYao
• frgturpwd 1mo ago
  You do need to have some combination of money, time, a car, patience, taste, willingness to inspect things in person, and owned housing to care about a piece of furniture that's "not from IKEA". For a normal person who wants their rented apartment to be livable like... now, it is probably the only good choice. People are so quick to talk crap about it when their only decent options outside of it are either "designer furniture" they cannot afford, custom made furniture they don't have the vision for (but also can't afford), or "eclectic pieces" from "thrift stores" that only unemployed hobbyist or people who own their apartments can afford (in terms of time). I really dislike that.
• watwut 1mo ago
  > There was a lot of what we call "cabin furniture" - which isn't made to look good, just be practical. I thought that is what IKEA is. But like, I hate the modern trend of turning "aesthetic" into synonym of "unpractical and uncomfortable". At this point, when I hear "it looks good" I just assume it will be unpractical.
• Tangurena2 1mo ago
  Danish furniture started being fashionable (among the young adult market) in the late 1960s and early 1970s. That was veneered with actual wood. I still have my kitchen table that I bought in the mid 80s. Later styles adopted laminated Melamine, which is the current fashion among young adults. > If I pay $5000 for a chair I have reason to expect a lot from it. My parents had a leather wingback chair made in the late 80s. They paid around $2500. I use it still. There are some tears in the seating, but for something that's lasted 40 years,
• GreenLightGo 1mo ago
  Nothing better has been invented yet. It’s as simple as it is brilliant.