How Ikea's Billy bookcase took over the world
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Re: How Ikea's Billy bookcase took over the world
#2I dislike IKEA furniture - It never seems to go well, and always in a different, hard-to-plan-for kind of way. Either the bed frame slats will crack at an odd place, or the bookshelf will bend under the weight of too many books, or perhaps a layer of plastic-ish(?) faux-wood will peel off revealing the flimsy glue pressed wood-ish material inside.
I understand the appeal of well designed, flatpacked, self assembled furniture - but why does the quality have to be so terrible? Is it so they can produce and sell at volume? It would be nice to see an intersection of medium/high quality end furniture that I can buy and assemble like IKEA products.
Re: How Ikea's Billy bookcase took over the world
#3> Ingvar Kamprad "is said to fly economy and drive an old Volvo. This frugality may help to explain why he is the world's eighth-richest man - although the four decades he spent living in Switzerland to avoid Swedish taxes may also have something to do with it."
Re: How Ikea's Billy bookcase took over the world
#4Interesting article, mostly it's about the processes behind the manufacture that allow them to hit their particular price/quality point.
One item that jumped out me: "Look at Gyllensvaans Mobler: compared to the 1980s, it is making 37 times as many bookcases, yet its number of employees has only doubled. Of course, that is thanks to all those German and Japanese robots."
Re: How Ikea's Billy bookcase took over the world
#5I dislike IKEA furniture - It never seems to go well, and always in a different, hard-to-plan-for kind of way. Either the bed frame slats will crack at an odd place, or the bookshelf will bend under the weight of too many books, or perhaps a layer of plastic-ish(?) faux-wood will peel off revealing the flimsy glue pressed wood-ish material inside. I understand the appeal of well designed, flatpacked, self assembled f…
I have had exactly the opposite experience as yours. You describe every flat pack furniture brand except Ikea.
The only thing Ikea doesn't do superbly (for the price) is padded furniture. Their chairs and couches are terrible, in my opinion. Their cabinets, though? Their desks? Great look, and reliable for years. I am proud of my Billy bookshelf and the books on it in the living room.
Re: How Ikea's Billy bookcase took over the world
#6I dislike IKEA furniture - It never seems to go well, and always in a different, hard-to-plan-for kind of way. Either the bed frame slats will crack at an odd place, or the bookshelf will bend under the weight of too many books, or perhaps a layer of plastic-ish(?) faux-wood will peel off revealing the flimsy glue pressed wood-ish material inside. I understand the appeal of well designed, flatpacked, self assembled f…
IKEA furniture is often bought with the understanding that it's relatively disposable. There's a lot of demand for that in cities where people move around more often.
Re: How Ikea's Billy bookcase took over the world
#7I dislike IKEA furniture - It never seems to go well, and always in a different, hard-to-plan-for kind of way. Either the bed frame slats will crack at an odd place, or the bookshelf will bend under the weight of too many books, or perhaps a layer of plastic-ish(?) faux-wood will peel off revealing the flimsy glue pressed wood-ish material inside. I understand the appeal of well designed, flatpacked, self assembled f…
I have had exactly the opposite experience as yours. You describe every flat pack furniture brand except Ikea. The only thing Ikea doesn't do superbly (for the price) is padded furniture. Their chairs and couches are terrible, in my opinion. Their cabinets, though? Their desks? Great look, and reliable for years. I am proud of my Billy bookshelf and the books on it in the living room.
Are there other flat pack furniture brands? I did not know this. I had all IKEA up until I started replacing IKEA with already-built pieces from garage sales/ furniture stores/ family.
Maybe I have just gotten unlucky, and fallen in the tail end of their defects.
Re: How Ikea's Billy bookcase took over the world
#8[deleted]
Re: How Ikea's Billy bookcase took over the world
#9I dislike IKEA furniture - It never seems to go well, and always in a different, hard-to-plan-for kind of way. Either the bed frame slats will crack at an odd place, or the bookshelf will bend under the weight of too many books, or perhaps a layer of plastic-ish(?) faux-wood will peel off revealing the flimsy glue pressed wood-ish material inside. I understand the appeal of well designed, flatpacked, self assembled f…
IKEA furniture is often bought with the understanding that it's relatively disposable. There's a lot of demand for that in cities where people move around more often.
Yes I have owned and suffered through plenty of it. The move part rings true - disassembly never ever leads to correct reassembly.
Re: How Ikea's Billy bookcase took over the world
#10I dislike IKEA furniture - It never seems to go well, and always in a different, hard-to-plan-for kind of way. Either the bed frame slats will crack at an odd place, or the bookshelf will bend under the weight of too many books, or perhaps a layer of plastic-ish(?) faux-wood will peel off revealing the flimsy glue pressed wood-ish material inside. I understand the appeal of well designed, flatpacked, self assembled f…
I love IKEA furniture for their hackability -- I built pretty much all of my furniture out of Kallax bookshelves reconfigured in various ways. I also store about 95% of my possessions in Kallax baskets and drawers so it's super-easy to move to a new apartment. If I move to a new city I can sell the shelves, ship the baskets with the stuff in them (put into cubic cardboard boxes), and buy new IKEA shelves at the destination because there will be an IKEA there.
I had to reinforce the baskets though because they were falling apart :-/