<p>This thread is making me hungry for Swedish meatballs and lingonberries! Closest IKEA is about 3 hours away but is on the way to son’s place so we are due for a visit to IKEA. I enjoy just wandering around and looking at things. Agree that it can be fun.</p>
<p>The thing about IKEA is you really have to get it assembled. Then it’s not that cheap. But if you’re careful about what you order it can be very good. We helped furnish our son’s first apartment largely thru IKEA and it worked out very well.</p>
<p>There are two kinds of people: those who have miserable experiences assembling things from IKEA, and those that don’t. Unfortunately, the only way to find out which kind you are is by getting something from IKEA and assembling it. :)</p>
<p>I always wonder who buys the Ikea kitchens. They are amazing to look at in the show room.</p>
<p>I’ve been going to our local Ikea for over 15 years and loving it! There is a learning curve when it comes to shopping there, managing the goofy ersatz names (Laftke desk, Krepk cups, Frmke desk ;)) and the fine art of Ikea assembly. It certainly does help that I have a former Ikea furniture designer living nearby. She has a fantastic house(including kitchen) that is 90% Ikea furnishings and has been featured in a very prominent lifestyle magazine. I’ve phoned her more than once to help me put together Sfrank shelves.</p>
<p>@ sewhappy - every European ever! I don’t know anyone under 40 who doesn’t at least have half their kitchen compromised of Ikea furniture. </p>
<p>The secret to successful Ikea shopping is to use the spreadsheets they provide, to know your measurements (well, those of your house/flat), position the boxes so that the bar code is up front, and use the self-paying line instead of the normal cash out. </p>
<p>If you have assembled something from there before, keep the spare screws & tools, chances are they can be re-used in another item.</p>
<p>Back-boards of wardrobes/cupboards etc are fragile and it’s best to use extra nails.</p>
<p>The spreadsheets have a floor plan on them, including the short-cuts.</p>
<p>Ikea furniture is designed to be re-designed… you don’t have to use the shelves and boards and hangers as they were intended. There are whole websites dedicated to Ikea modifications: www dot ikeahackers dot net</p>
<p>The hot chocolate is AWESOME!</p>
<p>Who buys the ikea kitchen?</p>
<p>One friend who renovated an early 20th c brick commercial building into loft like downstairs office space and upstairs living space keeping all the original elements possible. The kitchen and bathrooms (also ikea) are in a sort of tower in the middle of the space. All white cabinets with minimal gray knobs.</p>
<p>Another friend who renovated a bungalow, painting the ikea cabinets a period appropriate color and installing period appropriate hardware. She also has their apron farm sink which was significantly less expensive than any other source available to her, unless she was going to use a comparable 1920s/30’s sink which is difficult if you want to have a dishwasher.</p>
<p>One of those pre-2008 house flipping tv shows featured a designer who always gutted the kitchen and then installed an ikea kitchen with granite counter tops.</p>
<p>My sister, who is a surgeon and could certainly afford whatever she wanted, LOVES the IKEA storage stuff. We have one nearby (she does not), so she comes to visit us with her IKEA list and once spent 8 straight hours there designing/purchasing her closet organization system.</p>
<p>We bought a couple of Ikea dressers 10+ years ago, they have been through three kids in multiple locations, grad & undergrad, and are still going strong. They have been moved 2-4 times a year, as long as you are careful not to stress the cam joints, just lift the pieces not drag, they can be quite sufficient for a long time.</p>
<p>I’ve been shopping at Ikea for a few decades now, so I know how to maneuver my way around the store quickly. It helps knowing that you don’t have to walk by everything if you don’t want to.</p>
<p>Now that you can check online for what’s in stock, I think the Ikea shopping experience is much better than it used to be.</p>
<p>We have some Ikea stuff that has lasted a very very long time. Even so, I’m not sure I’d buy a mattress there, or a couch (I do love the Poang chair, though).</p>
<p>My sister in law bought Ikea kitchen cabinets and the butcher block counter and is very happy with it. It’s about two years old now. She’s also got a cart like this instead of an island. [url=<a href=“FÖRHÖJA Kitchen cart, birch, 393/8x167/8" - IKEA”>FÖRHÖJA Kitchen cart, birch, 393/8x167/8" - IKEA]F</a></p>
<p>We love IKEA and outfitted S’s college apt with tons of stuff from bed to living room to kitchen. All the the stuff is having a second life. All they needed is a little tweaking with a wrench to tighten things up.
D and I could wait to put a coffee table and a night table together for her off-campus apt. this year. It’s so easy!</p>
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<p>I just did. Approx 200 boxes were delivered to the house I’m renovating. DH and I spent a couple weekends assembling them. The value proposition in the cabinets is the frameless boxes and the Blum hardware and drawer boxes. Blum.com has a line of expensive drawers, which are the drawers that Ikea sells. In addition, because these are sold as ready-to-assemble, the price reflects the savings of the flat packs and the labor you’re not paying for.</p>
<p>Doors are ok if you like their limited styles. There are several companies that specialize in custom doors for Ikea cabinets. You also have to be able to work with their limited cabinet sizes, or be brave enough to hack them.</p>
<p>We purchased custom grain-matched walnut doors for half the cabinets in our kitchen and are using the Ikea high gloss white style for the other half. We’re also using 3 cabinets with stock Ikea doors for the kids’ bathroom. With the recent sale, we saved thousands on cabinets + Caesarstone counters. We saved tens of thousands when compared with the custom quotes we got for the same cabinet layout.</p>
<p>Fortunately there’s an Ikea close to my town - I lost count of how many trips I took there to tweak our cabinet order and take a closer look at how some of the filler pieces were attached. I found all the shortcuts through the store :)</p>
<p>[IKEA</a> FANS | THE IKEA Fan Community](<a href=“http://www.ikeafans.com/]IKEA”>http://www.ikeafans.com/)</p>
<p>I"m waiting for the update after the OP wrestles the bed together, drives back to the store for the missing pieces, and discovers that the electric screwdriver has dead batteries. We just constructed an entire bedroom of Ikea furniture for D3 and it was the cheapest alternative available that was acceptable construction. I begin to understand my oldest child’s approach to building ikea stuff: borrow multiple power tools, get a group of friends with good spatial awareness and turn the whole thing into a drinking game!</p>
<p>I think a lot of ikea complaints come down to location, and also what kind of expectations you have walking in-- ikea is not a full service furniture store. I had a GREAT experience shopping for my first bed and mattress at ikea. I came in and spent hours on multiple different occasions trying to decide between two mattresses and the staff were perfect every time I was there, even though I think by the time I picked a mattress they’d had every right to have lost patience with me! They remembered my name and everything and did everything possible to help me make the best choice, without being pushy. My next mattress came from a Gardener White type store and the pushy staff alone was enough to make me miss ikea.</p>
<p>Really, every time we’ve shopped at our ikea we’ve had a great experience. It’s an exhausting task but I’ve always felt it was worth it. We’ve done desks, beds, mattresses, sofas, dressers, shelving, and coffee tables at this point and everything has been great. And we’re on our third or fourth year now for our oldest pieces and they still look like new, which to be honest I didn’t expect.</p>
<p>We’ve shopped at various IKEA’s in different places for different apartments that our daughters have lived in and have not had tremendous problems and they have both shopped IKEA on their own a good deal. I think you have to go looking for something specific, understand that it will take time, looking online in advance is helpful-it is not meant to be a full-service furniture store with lots of options and customer service. Also for cheaply made furniture, it looks good, it wears well and I guess we’ve been lucky not having too many assembly problems.</p>
<p>Ikea worked great for us. Price/value ratio is great, and we never had problems assembling Ikea furniture unlike simular pieces sold elsewhere. We have a couple of bookcases with and without doors, and a desk. My friend has most of her appt furnished with Ikea stuff, including kitchen. It looks very nice, if you like contemporary style ( we do)</p>
<p>Best of all, I can put it together by myself,and I am no handyman (or should I say handywoman?
)</p>