This thread is giving me the heebie jeebies (thinking about things in wood).
We have a lot of antique wooden furniture in my house that has survived centuries and thousands of miles of travel (my favorite piece is an over 100 year old dark wooden liquor cabinet from roughly where Hungary is now). My grandparents were antique dealers and most of the furniture they left when they passed away is rather large and it mostly all fell to me as I have the biggest house. I do often love antique furniture pieces.
But my budget at this point in life is Ikea furniture
I vowed to never buy another piece of furniture from IKEA. For some reason, their fiberboard weighs more than lead, at least one screw hole is misaligned, and the instructions are in Chinese sign language with a page missing. But now that I have some pieces assembled, I have vowed to never move them lest they collapse and I have to disassemble them.
My husband, a tough man who faces life’s challenges with dignity, was once almost reduced to tears trying to align a drawer for a tv stand. I wish I was joking. He was just so frustrated. He finally admitted defeat and had the super in our NYC apartment building assemble it his own way–all new holes and hardware. But despite that, we have bought other IKEA furniture since, because in the end it holds up and looks good.
But now, unless it is the simplest of assembly, we always pay extra for delivery and installation. Yes, it ups the price, but it was still a lot cheaper and more stylish than other options.
The bed frame we assembled did not come with the correct side piece as it did not have any holes where those dowels and screws go so had to trek back 45 minutes to the store, wait in line 30 minutes, then waited another 15 minutes to get the correct piece. So not a big fan! It was a whole day affair to put together a bed frame, one nightstand and one very small dresser. Next time we are just going to get something else or find the pre-assembled pieces on craigslist.
I purchased an IKEA kitchen. I hired someone to do the demo and the installation but I did all the assembly, 22 cabinets. The biggest challenge was organizing all the parts. They give you the total number of parts for all of your cabinets but they aren’t separated by cabinet. I spent one day organizing the flat boxes and all the parts for each cabinet. The first cabinet took nearly an hour to assembly. By the time I completed the last one I could get a standard upper cabinet in about 10 minutes a drawer would take about twice as long. That was 6 years ago and they still look and function great.
If you do it as a career, you get good at it. You also have right tools. It feels like a rite of passage for parents setting kids on their own, their own apt and their own furniture.
We have assembled other furniture successfully–bar stools, bookshelves, desks, microwave carts, bunk beds, futons. Most times, we have all the parts we need and sometimes even an extra screw or two. We have very limited IKEA experience, other than disassembling it for storage for our kids. Neither of my kids has grumbled much about it, so I’m guessing they never had significant issues.
An IKEA kitchen would be a challenge, but I believe @Coralbrook successfully used IKEA kitchen cabinets. We don’t have anything comparable readily available in HI.
D1has stated that it is really hard to get rid of Ikea furniture in NYC. So many people are moving up from their beginning days. The stuff is junk. Probably best to donate.
Issue one is that the furniture is typically modular and is usually tailored to the space. Issue two is that it is easier to transport a flat box (or get the store delivery) than an assembled piece. Issue three is that it is really cheap to buy new…
I really like putting together Ikea furniture. What’s not to like about an instruction manual with no words and two tools needed? But moving a large and complicated bed (Hemnes) to a different room was a challenge. We got it done, but working the disassembly/reassembly was a challenge.
In response to Ano’s question - Ikea includes most of the tools needed for assembly. My recent experience shows that additional screwdrivers are all that is required but would be great to have an electric screwdriver or drill handy - and that is also what the professional Ikea assemblers arrive with. If buying a quantity of furniture it is possibly worth the $ to purchase in person from store closest to home and pay for delivery and installation. Delivery approx $99 - assembly approx $100 - $150 for virtually unlimited amount of furniture.
I have mixed feelings about Ikea furniture. On the one hand, I have an amazing Ikea dining room table that is 10 feet long, made out of solid pine, and was $300 new from the store. That’s just a good value for a quality piece of furniture. The aesthetic of it is very minimalist, but it’s covered with a tablecloth 99% of the time so it works.
On the other hand, both D’s have Ikea furniture that is just crap-the particleboard bracer underneath one of the drawers snapped in two when I pushed on it during assembly, and despite me clamping and gluing it, continues to randomly re-break. The armoire in older D’s room can’t stay square to save its life.
So, some Ikea stuff is ok, but man, a lot of it really is disposable and will not move with us when we move someday. Since I’ve gotten away from the disposable mindset, if I were going to buy more non-upholstered furniture, I’d get secondhand. Although we’re pretty much done with needing to furnish, barring things breaking.
I did all the Ikea assembly. My husband is a computer scientist kind of guy, but gets very aggravated by the assembly. Which is funny because he’s very patient with other stuff. And I’m not typically good at following directions, but I find that the Ikea directions make perfect sense to me :).
^Except when you assemble a piece upside down because you couldn’t tell which side is up or down and couldn’t fit the piece at the last moment because of it.
Like everything else… some years, IKEA has excellent designs and colors and choices. Other years, not so much. I think the same goes for its quality. Some years, the quality of the parts has been outstanding. Other years, not so much. I love going to IKEA. Whenever I visit, I can usually get in most of my steps for the day. And Lingonberry jam. But it’s a 50/50 whether or not they’ll have something that works for what I’m looking for.
.up. Has anyone had any luck taking ikea stuff apart? We have desk that one D doesn’t need and other D does, but would have to transport in small car, so probably needs to be disassembled. Is this a lost cause?
