Do you IKEA?

Spent the evening at IKEA tonight. I was trying to find some furniture for my place and even ate the Swedish meatball special for dinner there.

They completely revamped the IKEA where I live and decided to check it out the new remodel. But as usual I spent 3 hours there, went thru all the mock rooms and serpentine display path on the second floor and didn't find anything worth buying. It all seems like pre-garbage or cheap college apartment furniture.

In some ways I admire a company that can bring good and cheap design to the masses but the problem is I never find anything there I like.

Speaking from personal experience Ikea is good for smaller stuff - more decorative items etc - but I made the mistake of buying a desk from them. Within about 2 weeks the desk was coming apart at the joints and after a month it was in pieces. I took it back and to give Ikea there credit they refunded it no problem.

I like the little 'nick nacks' that they sell, and sometimes the bigger furnature looks kinda cool, but I will always resist in the future.

Oh, and good choice with the meatballs!

Gay by nature, fabulous by choice!

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I agree. Their furniture tends to look cheap but cheerful and most won't take much wear and tear. If you look carefully however, there is some furniture that is more durable.

See this bed? I got it assembled and within a month the board that runs along the bottom of the side I sleep on simply split and collapsed. There are two boards, a lower and upper. It was the upper that broke. It's not real wood either. It's MDF. I don't weight THAT much and I had to prop it up for the night using my car's jack. After that it has a metal bar plus 2 books keeping it from completely collapsing. I'm really pissed off about it but how do you return a bed? I need to go to the hardware store and make my own brace to really fix it.

Ikea does have some nice stuff but they also make a lot of junk. Sometimes they just go too cheap.

They do have some great food (I'm a big fan of Scandinavian food) and I agree about the knickknacks and other things. The Poang chairs are nice and for basic furniture they're great. Sometimes though they fall into the great trap of Swedish engineering. I know Earl's heard me say it before, but for the rest of you, to paraphrase my Saab mechanic, "Saabs are 90% genius and 10% what-the-fuck-were-they-thinking??" I think the same applies to most Swedish engineering. If they lost that 10% they'd be on par with the Germans.

I'm so proud of you all shopping, I mean donating to the world's BIGGEST CHARITY!

IKEA | Flat-pack accounting | Economist.com Read that article and you tell me if it's not a crock of shit, er I mean are so magnificantly beneficent to the world of interior design.

Yes I know my PM box is now full... use the visitor wall til I can pare it down to something more manageable, say something under 900

I do think Ikea serves a great purpose. When I had next to no cash it was a god send that I could furnish my crappy hell hole of a home for next to nothing. Even if it did all fall apart within a few months....

Gay by nature, fabulous by choice!

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IKEA is to furniture what Ford's model T was to automobile.

You will be assimilated...Resistance is futile.

Flamey try it with NO cash next time

FedEx Furniture (the website domain is now just a cyber squatting site)

How about a bed?

Yes I know my PM box is now full... use the visitor wall til I can pare it down to something more manageable, say something under 900

And if you like modern furniture, you may want to try some of these other places:

D E S I R O N

Design Within Reach

I really like DWR. If IKEA is the Wal Mart of home furnishings, DWR is Target. They have showrooms all over the place (including the Bay Area) and nice things that aren't junk. Their furniture is made with real wood and has corresponding real prices. If you're looking for something that's just, "OK," then IKEA is fine. If you're looking for something to live with, DWR is, "Good."

Tucker Robbins

Pricey but unique and sophisticated furniture without appearing pretentious.

west elm

Is another good place. If DWR is, "Good," then west elm is, "Better." They also have a showroom in the Bay Area. Their look is a little mellower than DWR or IKEA. I like it.

Cosmic Closet

I'm usually not big on mail order stuff but if you're looking for the truly unique or never got over the Memphis look, Cosmic Closet is your groovy bag, baby. Lots of fun and just plain weird pieces. If the B-52's went into interior design, this is what they would cranking out.

I agree -- the knick knack stuff can be good (have a great pair of neo-classical verdigris finish candlesticks everyone likes) and the selection of kitchen gadgets is great. Also offbeat items like organizers of various kinds etc.

And, and, and, where else can you reliably buy a jar of ligonberry preserves? Some of the high end places have them from time to time, but they are a lot more.

Most of my furniture is 1800's but bought a bookcase there once in my younger days. Eventually gave it to a friend and it's still in use. But I agree, as a general rule you don't want to go there for quality furniture.

I think the key is that if it's not made of real wood but tries to look it, then don't get it. I also don't like that some of their furniture uses really cheap cardboard for backboardings. That said, my entire bedroom is nothing but IKEA: Three dressers, bed, both bedstands, desk, credenza, four lamps, curtains, curtain rods, towel racks, bathroom mirror, light, shelving, toilet caddy, rolling metal table (very useful in the bathroom), and two bathroom rugs. I really like all of it though it is cheap.

IKEA's food section is a blessing to Scandinavian food lovers (there are a few of us out there). You can get not just ligonberry preserves, but cloudberries too and they're far cheaper than other places. They also have whole allspice and cardamom (which is a revelation when freshly ground).

We bought a bunch of Ikea stuff while in Houston including a whole shelving unit set. There's none here in N.O.

But I had two sets of undercabinet lights whose transformers just went out (for no apparent reason). I sent them two emails asking if they had replacement ones available for purchase. Didn't get so much as a response.

Guess some people would've just packaged it back up and returned it. Who knows, maybe next time I'm in Houston...

"What are you doing?"
"Screwing the earth."

I don't know if the standard of Ikea products is different in the US, but I have always found it to be really good quality furniture, never ever had anything fall apart on me. I have literally spent thousands of pounds over the years on Ikea furnishings and products. Can only speak as I find and would recommend it to anyone. To me Ikea produce Stylish, well made, easy to assemble products at a reasonable price.

I will be shopping in Ikea when ever they open their store here in Dublin.

I bought some cheap black bookcases at IKEA a long long time ago and some of the particleboard connections split open when disassembling the unit when I was moving. It was an OK bookcase when I bought it but it just didn't hold up very well. Just looking at the sofas it seems they won't last very long. So in effect much of the stuff they sell there is pre-garbage destined for a landfill in 5-6 years of use. But I suppose much of what Walmart sells is the same.

I wonder if the quality of the merchanise they sell at IKEAs in Europe is better than the stuff they sell here as the Europeans seem much more conscientious about quality than Americans.

There are other stores here that sell the same style of contemporary furniture like Design Within Reach, which Jason mentioned, and Room & Board and Crate and Barrel. The stuff they sell there is much more expensive but you pay for the quality but in the long run it's a better value if you plan on keeping your furniture for a while. I've never come across IKEA furniture at a garage sale or consignment store probably because it goes straight into a landfill.