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Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

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Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#131

Post by bastawhiz »

imglorp wrote: post #111
apendleton wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've installed Ikea kitchen cabinets before. The assembly is trivial (they're just boxes), and they all sit on a single rail you screw into the wall at the start. Lifting them into place takes an extra set of hands, but it's not high-skill work. This is not custom cabinetry or anything.

The hard part is most houses do not contain a single plumb, true, and square room. Walls do weird things, especially where they meet floors and ceilings. Floors are hard to get flat. Etc. I'd say once you resolve all this and get your rail level and parallel to the floor, yes, then throwing up the cabinets is the easiest part. After that, you probably want to learn how to do some molding to trim them in.

Having someone else install your IKEA cabinets for you probably won't help with the quality of the installation if your house is a bit wiggly around the edges.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#132

Post by stephenr »

morgante wrote: post #130
stephenr wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't personally use IKEA in that case but an unfurnished house/apartment takes a lot of stuff to become usable.

What would you use?

There are a few things I like IKEA for (the aforementioned "Grundtal" kitchen racks work really well) but generally I prefer more individual furniture (watch Friends where Phoebe responds to Pottery Barn furniture if you want to understand better), and as I'm a little older, I prefer timber furniture (I had more steel/glass stuff when I was in my 20's), which is where IKEA fails hardest, because practically all their "wooden" furniture is just particle board/plywood.

So, for furniture I try to use smaller local places that either sell direct or at least are selling locally built stuff (this works in my favour when you consider the above - shipping assembled solid-timber furniture isn't cheap). This obviously doesn't work everywhere, but I detest living in the city so it hasn't been a problem for me so far.

For general housewares like kitchen utensils/etc I don't see a lot of difference between IKEA/ so it's just whoever has what I want, but IKEA's constant focus on low price also makes me a little wary of anything that isn't obviously just solid steel/wood (e.g. anything with a steel 'head' and wood/plastic/rubber handle, is basically guaranteed to fall apart) because in my experience these items embody 'you get what you pay for'.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#133

Post by stephenr »

morgante wrote: post #129
scotth wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I'm not sure where the misconception of their furniture being difficult to build comes from. In my experience their instructions are unambiguous and well-designed.

It's not particularly difficult but nor is it particularly fun. I certainly don't plan to assemble the furniture for my next apartment myself.

But is that because you'll pay someone to assemble similar furniture, or because you'll buy better furniture that isn't just IKEA flat-packs?

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#134

Post by pcurve »

qq66 wrote: post #67
jrowley wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus if something isn't right, you really only have yourself to blame, which is nice.

Plus, you can build it "right" (wood glue on all joints, extra corner braces, etc.) It makes it impossible to disassemble but I find that IKEA furniture doesn't handle disassembly and reassembly that well anyways.

tbh I'd imagine most furniture wouldn't either. It's a one way trip.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#135

Post by limelight »

stephenr wrote: post #132
morgante wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you use?

There are a few things I like IKEA for (the aforementioned "Grundtal" kitchen racks work really well) but generally I prefer more individual furniture (watch Friends where Phoebe responds to Pottery Barn furniture if you want to understand better), and as I'm a little older, I prefer timber furniture (I had more steel/glass stuff when I was in my 20's), which is where IKEA fails hardest, because practically all their…

Thanks for the detailed reply.

Personally, IKEA fits my lifestyle pretty well as a young urban-dweller. I don't really anticipate having my furniture for more than 5-10 years and their aesthetic definitely matches my preferences.

I've actually looked at some more "premium" stores and really disliked a lot of their merchandise unless it was obscenely expensive (ie. 10x the price of IKEA).

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#136

Post by DanHulton »

PakG1 wrote: post #97
robterrell wrote: post #12

This is hilarious/perfect to me personally, because I have only ever used TaskRabbit to hire someone to build Ikea furniture.

There are people who don't care to build their own Ikea furniture? How strange! I've always enjoyed building my own Ikea furniture! :)

Whoof, can't stand it, myself. I don't know what it is about the activity, but it just bores/frustrates me silly.

It's not hard! It's perfectly within the realm of accomplishment! I have already built my IKEA desk, bed, table, and bookshelves. I just really disliked every minute of it.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#137

Post by zaf »

PakG1 wrote: post #97
robterrell wrote: post #12

This is hilarious/perfect to me personally, because I have only ever used TaskRabbit to hire someone to build Ikea furniture.

There are people who don't care to build their own Ikea furniture? How strange! I've always enjoyed building my own Ikea furniture! :)

Some don't have a helping hand and/or cannot follow the instructions (most of the time low quality) and/or don't have the patience and/or have a screw +/- left at the end and/or etc...

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#138

Post by peteretep »

PakG1 wrote: post #97
robterrell wrote: post #12

This is hilarious/perfect to me personally, because I have only ever used TaskRabbit to hire someone to build Ikea furniture.

There are people who don't care to build their own Ikea furniture? How strange! I've always enjoyed building my own Ikea furniture! :)

My parents, who do small-scale construction and decorating, get non-trivial numbers of enquiries about fixing people's poorly-assembled Ikea furniture.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#139

Post by Ntrails »

scotth wrote: post #113
PakG1 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are people who don't care to build their own Ikea furniture? How strange! I've always enjoyed building my own Ikea furniture! :)

Agreed. I'm not sure where the misconception of their furniture being difficult to build comes from. In my experience their instructions are unambiguous and well-designed.

I put together a couple of wardrobes for a friend which was fine, but she still had to get a genuinely useful person in to drill them together and attach to wall etc as I lacked the tools.

Re: Ikea has bought TaskRabbit

#140

Post by majewsky »

zaf wrote: post #137
PakG1 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are people who don't care to build their own Ikea furniture? How strange! I've always enjoyed building my own Ikea furniture! :)

Some don't have a helping hand and/or cannot follow the instructions (most of the time low quality) and/or don't have the patience and/or have a screw +/- left at the end and/or etc...

> most of the time low quality

Huh? Do they have instruction leaflets where you live? I live in Germany, about 80% of my furniture is Ikea, and I've always found the instructions to be very precise. I was never confused about what to do.

(I won't argue that some furniture needs an additional pair of hands to assemble just because of the weight, of course.)

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