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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

#151

Post by Symbiote »

rsynnott wrote: post #146
michaelvoz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the UK and Ireland, Argos do it. Similar pricing to IKEA, dramatically worse quality.

Oh, Argos go way cheaper than Ikea. For example, the £28 metal and polycotton wardrobe: http://www.argos.co.uk/product/6219826

There are (from searching) several supplies of cheap, flatpack furniture for landlords, which probably explains why half the properties I rented as a student had the same furniture, made of 5mm thick hardboard and bits of plastic. That stuff didn't even hold together properly when it was new, let alone a couple of years old.

Habitat should be decent quality. MFI used to be a major retailer of flat-pack stuff, but they went bankrupt in 2015. My parents bought almost everything for the kids' rooms from MFI. None of it is broken, 15-25 years later.

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

#152

Post by hvidgaard »

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 with all other offerings in my experience. Ikea is the king in the budget segment - they offer more quality for money, than any of their competitors. You need to significantly upgrade the material choice to get better quality, and since that is not produced at scale it's significantly more expensive.

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

#153

Post by wcunning »

DannyBee wrote: post #136
computator wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real reason is simply that nobody wants it. Could you expand on that? Obviously people do want Ikea, so why wouldn't people want mass-produced really-good furniture?

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…

Strong agreement. For specific examples, read the history of Stanley Tools or Craftsman. Compare that to the rise of Harbor Freight and the stories the old timers will tell you about Taiwanese tools from about 1975.

My only argument -- real CNC is still north of 100k, it just happens to be worth running because of the production speed increases. The reason you don't CNC furniture like IKEA is that you get more production in less time by using custom built machines that produce specific sizes and shapes in volume. The real reason that IKEA employs the number of engineers it does is so that they can optimize production -- reuse this shape or this part in eleven designs instead of ten and you save the company two machines valued at $X million and you save Y meters of production facility floor space valued at $Z/m^2.

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

#154

Post by Symbiote »

weaksauce wrote: post #15
michaelvoz wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As a counter point, ikea furniture works well enough for most loads but I have a chest of drawers and the bottom of the drawers is made from something similar to a less stiff version of masonite. for clothes it would be fine but for anything else the bottom of the drawers bends and scrapes the next drawer when opening. I need to retrofit the bottom to something worthwhile.

Something like this is a quick fix: https://www.amazon.co.uk/FIX-A-DRAWER-Repair-Buckled-Drawers... .

> the bottom of the drawers is made from something

In British, we call this "hardboard". I've always assumed it's "hard" in comparison to cardboard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardboard

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

#155

Post by fwn »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #57
DashRattlesnake wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're both a little bit correct. Ikea probably sells the best quality flat-pack furniture out there, but I think it's pretty fair to expect their stuff to fail in some way within 5 years of normal use. Keep in mind the failure may or may not be catastrophic, and the item may still be usable for some time. They're definitely a good value, but only if you're OK with eventually needing to buy replacements. Some…

> Lack coffee tables: utter trash, fall apart quickly If you want something to last you aren't going to get it for $8 no matter where you buy it.

Six years ago I bought one of those longer Lacks for ~15EUR and heavily use it close to every day. The black top varnish seems to get pretty thin at the most used locations which is the only wear marks I can spot.

I use it for eating, writing, etc. Maybe others have other plans to use a coffee table in a way that requires tougher structures.

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

#156

Post by pier25 »

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 someone.

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

#157

Post by beachstartup »

bane wrote: post #150

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…

seems like the way ikea classifies their furniture is merely a suggestion. for example i've always used their dining tables as desks, as their "desks" are too small and flimsy and relatively expensive.

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

#158

Post by rsynnott »

Symbiote wrote: post #151
rsynnott wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK and Ireland, Argos do it. Similar pricing to IKEA, dramatically worse quality.

Oh, Argos go way cheaper than Ikea. For example, the £28 metal and polycotton wardrobe: http://www.argos.co.uk/product/6219826 There are (from searching) several supplies of cheap, flatpack furniture for landlords, which probably explains why half the properties I rented as a student had the same furniture, made of 5mm thick hardboard and bits of plastic. That stuff didn't even hold together properly when it was new,…

That wardrobe's not really a flatpack, though. Last time I looked, Argos's flatpacks were similarly priced to IKEA's, though I haven't really looked in a while.

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

#159

Post by pjc50 »

computator wrote: post #93

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…

Wood is remarkably expensive. Especially cabinet-grade wood that's free from knots. Even more so if you want sustainable hardwood. I've costed up doing my own furniture and it's far more expensive than IKEA even if you count your own labour as free.

Furniture assembly is surprisingly non-automated.

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

#160

Post by spaceisballer »

DannyBee wrote: post #136
computator wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The real reason is simply that nobody wants it. Could you expand on that? Obviously people do want Ikea, so why wouldn't people want mass-produced really-good furniture?

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 looking for a dining room table to Ashley's and Bob's and whatever other chain store they are all selling the same crap, just at slightly different prices. I'm honestly thinking I would rather build my own table than buy something made out of particle board with laminate on it.

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