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How Ikea's Billy bookcase took over the world

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Re: How Ikea's Billy bookcase took over the world

#191

Post by pier25 »

aedron wrote: post #179
pier25 wrote: post #156

There's no IKEA in Mexico, and I really miss it. Anything here with a decent design almost falls into the luxurious range. Sure IKEA has some cheap stuff, but you can also get better products by buying their more expensive products. I bought a couch 10 years ago that I later sold to a friend and he is still using it. We had some Kallax (expedit) in our previous office bought in 2004 and are still being used by someon…

In Pakistan, IKEA furniture is an imported luxury good. There are fancy high-end boutiques selling IKEA furniture in the most upscale consumer markets. In the mean time you can go to the crummiest street workshop and buy gorgeous handmade furniture with woodwork that you will never see in the West, sold for a pittance. It really boggles the mind.

> In Pakistan, IKEA furniture is an imported luxury good. There are fancy high-end boutiques selling IKEA furniture in the most upscale consumer markets.

Same here. Of course you pay double or triple the price you'd pay in Europe or the US, so it defeats its purpose.

> In the mean time you can go to the crummiest street workshop and buy gorgeous handmade furniture with woodwork that you will never see in the West, sold for a pittance. It really boggles the mind.

There are a lot of street vendors with handmade furniture here, except that those are pretty rough and plain ugly.

Another problem is that Mexicans are usually short. If you are above 6' like I am then most furniture will feel small. Usable, but small.

Re: How Ikea's Billy bookcase took over the world

#192

Post by jimmies »

computator wrote: post #99
jimmies wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait until you see art... There is no regulation, it comes with probably no return policy. It requires one person to do -- art doesn't need capital to start at all. Yet art is insanely expensive. Do you rather be a programmer, an engineer, a fashion designer, a woodworker, or an artist? I don't have a good answer for your question, but I think the idea here is everyone needs a living. Also, you don't need to purchase…

> 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.

First, saying art is cheap because billions pieces of art on Deviant Art are free is like saying code is cheap because billions of lines of code published every day on GitHub are free. Average you pay for code is zero, by that logic?

Second, the Internet can only host a very specific kind of art (digitalized) that is a very tiny fraction of art that you can experience in a museum or an exhibition. Where is my paint oil on canvas with the beautiful texture and smell I could experience on DeviantArt?

You have to count what you have to pay for an artist/coder to make what you want, not what they want. Then we are talking about the same thing.

Re: How Ikea's Billy bookcase took over the world

#193

Post by cableshaft »

kriro wrote: post #59

Still looking for a board game friendly bookshelf from one of the major chains. Depth is the problem, need roughly 30cm of usable depth. I'm currently using IVAR but it's more of a temporary solution. I own about 4 Billy for books they are decent but not great. One thing in their favor is that you can easily add another one. I'd also like it if IKEA would report the usable depth of the shelves in addition to the tota…

The prototypical board game bookshelf is still from Ikea, the KALLAX. They've got the deep square shelves that can hold six or seven square box board games pretty easily. If you look at almost any board game reviewers, behind them is nothing but Kallax shelves (especially Dice Tower).

I've got 1 2x4 and 2 2x2s and they hold about 90 games total. On the 2x2s I have about 10 of the small box (Kosmos sized) 2 player games and on the other I have 2 baskets for tiny card games that holds about 30 more games). I also keep some games on top of my 2x4 Kallax. So they probably hold about 125 games total.

Too bad I own about 200 games. :/

Re: How Ikea's Billy bookcase took over the world

#194

Post by lostapathy »

headmelted wrote: post #37
hackuser wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That struck me too: Are there leading modern entrepreneurs who are as non-materialistic? I recall hearing of several in prior generations. (Also, sometimes those stories are merely marketing, and they have a personal chef and private jet too.)

It's fairly well known that Warren Buffet still lives in the house he bought in the fifties before he got ultra wealthy, but I was watching a documentary a couple of weeks back where he was explaining that his choice of breakfast at the McDonald's drive-thru window is dictated by the market closing price the day before. That's hardcore... and a little eccentric probably. Found it: http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/bec…

Living in the same house is a popular fact, but it might be a little dishonest. It's a big house, with a lot of space around it, and it's obviously been kept up to date with somebody who has money. It's not at all like the 50 year old house my grandparents have.

Re: How Ikea's Billy bookcase took over the world

#195

Post by gazarullz »

erikbye wrote: post #147
Symbiote wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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've had to resort to the secondhand market to find furniture I actually like. I've found that the Ikea-alternatives (Bohus, Skeidar, Møbelringen) in Norway is in general not of a greater quality, just way more costly, and in general, not that much better looking (aside from beds, couches, and chairs). I'm not paying 20 000 NOK for a "vitrineskap" (google says "display cabinet") at Bohus when Ikea's is of similar qua…

The one you are talking about was designed by Eero Aarnio, a Finnish designer. The Danish one is made by Arne Jacobsen and it resembles a minimalist arm chair.

Re: How Ikea's Billy bookcase took over the world

#196

Post by data_hope »

hvidgaard wrote: post #152
erikbye wrote: post #106

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 wouldn't buy a sofa from Ikea, except perhaps the Klippan. The rest aren't really good IMO. But neither are any of the other budget offerings from other stores. Unless you buy a super expensive designer sofa, you will get the flimsy feeling sofa. And if you look at the option, you can have 1 good quality sofa, or 5-10 cheap ones - it's not hard to see why people opt for the cheap model. And this story continues wit…

I'd like to add, that with IKEA you know what you can expect in terms of quality, sturdiness and usability. You know it's not the best, but you also know that it'll survive a few years and maybe moving once.

With other brands, your expectation has a broader variance.

* the discount furniture competitor also uses cheap material, but you cannot be sure that you can even assemble the furniture (lousy packaging and screws are missing or you aren't able to grasp the manual, etc). * the quality brand thing might be amazing, or it might just be an expensive, good-looking piece of bad furniture. Anyone use USM Haller?

I admit: I buy all my furniture at IKEA. And helping friends move their furniture from place to place, I have learned, that IKEA is the choice if you don't want to become a furniture expert. They are sturdier than their reputation, their design doesn't quickly fall out of fashion (like other furniture often does) and overall a rational choice.

Also this seems to be reflected by the their resale value. I had lived a 1 h drive away from an IKEA last time I moved, and was able to sell off a lot of ikea furniture for prices I never dreamed reachable for used furniture. People knew what to expect, what the stuff cost new (because: catalog), didn't want to do the 1 hour drive and then felt like a high price was still reasonable.

Re: How Ikea's Billy bookcase took over the world

#197

Post by mholmes680 »

spaceisballer wrote: post #160
DannyBee wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. Let's look at some of the major pieces of furniture people have: Tables, cabinets, chairs. It's the same story with all of them. Let's start with cabinets. A bit of cheating since most people don't consider it furniture, but worth talking about. Most people want white or colored cabinets. The "natural wood" look is mostly out of style these days, due to mass over-production of red-oak cabinets (and thank god. t…

Thanks for your writeup, I'm really getting sick of the cheap stuff that is out there. IKEA has served it's purpose for me, and to be honest a bunch of pieces have survived multiple moves but they are now usually stuck in closets or in my kid's rooms. Anyway I'm rambling on because I'm curious if there are any decent places to buy furniture nowadays, a good table for instance? I feel like when I got dragged around lo…

I has similar experiences with Ashley and Bobs. The Farmhouse Store is decent. They ship their orders out to Amish country (or so they say), which is also a good resource. But its solid wood and some hint of craftsmanship. (I've heard Restoration Hardware also, but can't confirm directly.)

I've been through a house fire and needed to replace furniture in most rooms over the past year or so. What I've learned is to pick and choose for quality. Family dining table to last until we move out of the house, where we're going to congregate daily for laughs, tears, homework, meals, holidays? High-quality for this family. Bookcase? Kids furniture? Cheaper the better (Sauder, Ikea) and anchor them to the wall - they're going to get beat up and are potential safety issues.

(edit) Oh, Estate Sales might be the only way to get out of that scale that Danny Bee is speaking of. Get some old furniture, and tweak it to your style (assuming thats enjoyable work to you). Just dont assume if it was made in 1960 there won't be some laminated wood veneer.

Re: How Ikea's Billy bookcase took over the world

#198

Post by CocaKoala »

hueving wrote: post #166
johncoltrane wrote: post #104

- 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",…

One thing I lament after switching to ebooks is the lack of books. Sounds silly, but I think a wall with shelves of books was quite nice looking and colorful.

One of the things I like about ebooks is the lack of books; when I was just out of college, I had to stop buying books for a couple years because I didn't have any room to store them!

I'll buy books again when I'm in a long term living situation (i.e. not renting), and can fill walls with bookshelves.

Re: How Ikea's Billy bookcase took over the world

#199

Post by gdulli »

johncoltrane wrote: post #104

- 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",…

He might have to provide more info. When I looked up Billy to find out what it is I found over a dozen variants/sizes: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/search/?query=BILLY+Bookcase

I don't understand if the article is talking about a specific one or the whole product line, and what makes one or the other special. I don't see anything notable, other than the impressive simplicity and packing innovation that applies to Ikea products in general.

Personally, I love these and have a few: http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30275861/#/102758...

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