141–150 of 246 posts
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Fun factoid. Staff of Slovak and Slovenian embassies meet each month to exchange wrongly addressed mail. http://www.slovak-republic.org/slovenia/#politicians
That is amazing!
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> Yet art is insanely expensive. That's not true. There are a billion people putting their art on the Internet every day: DeviantArt, Pinterest, Flickr, Shutterfly, and other sites with fan fiction, manuscripts of books, cartoons, millions of homemade videos, music sites. The average price of all of this art is zero. Only a very tiny fraction of people make money with art.
>DeviantArt Did anyone else shudder?
Living in Norway I've had my share of Ikea products... My feeling towards Ikea is that their products are cheap, flimsy, and bland. I have a few of their products in my home now, but they'll definitely be replaced with something better; why I got them in the first place, considering how I feel about Ikea products? Cheap. As for my books I wanted something more sturdy and went with what's just known here as a "Bombay…
It was difficult to find a shop selling better furniture than Ikea, except for the designer furniture stores in the centre of Copenhagen -- and I'm not ready to spend over 5000kr on a concrete-topped table.
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60-70 m of books, assuming he uses only one layer in Billy. I have two, and occasionally three (though it's not Billy but another higher-quality shelf maker Lundea).
True, I assumed single-layer as billy isn't open-backed and I prefer seeing all my books. Also billy seems a bit short for two layers to be comfortable and not risk damaging books, even with small-ish paperbacks.
I remember being surprised by that new unit but also astonished by the fact that I instinctively understood what he meant.
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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.
Living in Norway I've had my share of Ikea products... My feeling towards Ikea is that their products are cheap, flimsy, and bland. I have a few of their products in my home now, but they'll definitely be replaced with something better; why I got them in the first place, considering how I feel about Ikea products? Cheap. As for my books I wanted something more sturdy and went with what's just known here as a "Bombay…
I have too much Ikea furniture because, after moving to Denmark, it was the easiest way to buy everything I needed in just a couple of trips. My table seems to be good quality, but the sofa and bed are disappointing. I didn't like any of the coffee tables (sofaborde) so I have the 299kr "Lack" until I find something better. It was difficult to find a shop selling better furniture than Ikea, except for the designer fu…
I hear you on those Danish design furniture, often ugly, impractical, and expensive. But, I like the biggest of the "ball/egg chairs", the ones were there's enough room for two in one chair. Used to have one when I lived in Oslo, outside on the balcony. Isn't that by some Danish designer?
http://zedomax.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/ball-chai...
There's a disconnect when I look at the price of good furniture compared to products that are insanely more complicated (laptops, smartphones), heavier than furniture (motorbikes, snowblowers, lawnmowers), as bulky as flatpack bookcases (big screen TVs), and need to be shipped even greater distances than furniture (all my examples would be coming to the U.S. from Asia). Furthermore, furniture has much less regulation…
It's the economy of scale; complexity is mostly a one time upfront cost. Once you've figured out how to efficiently make a hundred TVs at a time, you know how to make a million. For a TV most of the materials and components are either plastic (and thus light and cheap) or generic silica based stuff that is produced in batches of millions at a time (electronic components) in the blink of an eye. The most expensive par…
the difference is variety. variety means no single product is a very large seller which can defeat economies of scale. the bookshelf in the article is generic and can be done on the cheap. Other furniture items tend to have more variety
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When I moved house, the removalists (in Australia) specifically pointed out the "our guarantee doesn't apply to IKEA" clause in the contract. "It's basically compressed cardboard," they told me.
Make sure the back is positioned correctly (seated within the recess, and with all corners at right angles), and use twice the number of nails Ikea suggests. This will help maintain rigidity during a move.
I have 6 Billys and my parents have something like 10. When I worked at a small startup and needed to fit out some field offices, I bought two things from the store, a Galant desk and a Billy bookshelf for each employee. Two Galants turn into a reasonable conference table. The employees loved both, a simple sturdy desk that doesn't dictate function and a highly customizable wall, they quickly became filled with all kinds of personalization. Cost per employee? something like $250.
They lasted for years and when the startup finally sold and closed up, the new owners didn't want the furniture, so we asked around and found a battered women's shelter who had just placed a woman and three kids into an apartment. They had been living without any furniture at all. Suddenly our reception couch turned into a living room couch, our Galants turned into their dining room table and our extra chairs turned into their dining room tables. Desk lamps became living room lamps and torches lit the bedrooms. Billys became impromptu wardrobes in all the bedrooms. After the move, all they needed were some mattresses, but they at least had an apartment full of other furniture. But I came away impressed at the general versatility of the furniture. Nearly a decade later, that family still has their Billys.
Billys basically get out of the way and turn into walls with storage. I've never bought the accessories (doors, etc.), but all the ones I know turn into curio cabinets as much as bookshelves. Nobody really cares much about what shelves look like, they care about what's on them and in that sense IKEA nailed it.
I also have a handful of other shelves from various manufacturers and it's very weird how they get things wrong and how optimized a piece of furniture the Billy is. It's weird to get so passionate about such a plain looking piece of furniture, but it's really kind of perfection of form.
