161–170 of 246 posts
This flies in the face of what we've been told about socialism. It looks like rich people do leave the country to save on taxes. Wow, who'd have thought.
I've never been to an Ikea. Until recently there wasn't one in my state. Because of this I'm always amazed that so many people seem to have this fascination with it.
Caveat emptor always applies at IKEA!
>although the four decades he spent living in Switzerland to avoid Swedish taxes may also have something to do with it. This flies in the face of what we've been told about socialism. It looks like rich people do leave the country to save on taxes. Wow, who'd have thought.
IKEA and other similar sell that furniture that is optimized to be 80% of nothing. I say that again, the biggest part of the finished product is nothing. so what that does mean? It means that if you take a proper durable furniture and compare it with the IKEA counterpart the IKEA furniture has 80% of the matter replaced with nothing. ;-) Buy once, assemble once then throw it away since i'll fall apart.
I'd say a majority of furniture in anyone's house gets very little actual wear and tear. Couches, chairs, beds - sure. But coffee tables, end tables, nightstands, bookshelves, tv cabinets, tables? Does it really matter if they are almost never touched (more then moving around small trinkets on them?)
- Anecdote - A while ago, a coworker was excited to move to another flat but there was a little something that was going to be complicated: books. He and his girlfriend were both avid readers and their two already impressive collections fused years ago into a massive beast. As we were discussing the "problem", I asked him for a ballpark estimation of the number of books to move, expecting something like "1000 books",…
I've never been to an Ikea. Until recently there wasn't one in my state. Because of this I'm always amazed that so many people seem to have this fascination with it.
I don't buy much IKEA furniture, very little of it survives even a single move, and for the price you can find plenty of furniture that does. So it ends up not being a great investment, except for a few very specific, highly optimized pieces. 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 de…
It's absolutely true that some IKEA stuff is very low quality. Like the Billy: the shelves of the wide Billy sag when you put too many books on them. But IKEA also has higher quality furniture from solid wood. More expensive of course, but also sturdier. They're designing for various quality/price points.
I once had a really sturdy IKEA desk, either Galant or its predecessor. It was strong enough to stand on with two people. Unfortunately its successor sagged with a single person leaning against it. I loved that desk, but my wife didn't like it and felt it was too big.
My main problem with IKEA is that their beds are only 2 meters long. They've got really comfortable and affordable mattresses that my wife loves, but due to my height we have to shop for more expensive brands (which are supposed to be better and more comfortable, but turn out not to be).
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…
Similarly, there are TVs that are much more expensive, but you decided to go for this one.