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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

#181

Post by vidanay »

yoz-y wrote: post #103
smcl wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's understandable - their names in their respective languages is "Slovenija" and "Slovensko" which is relatively similar. Tougher still is discerning Slovenia and Slovakia in spoken Czech or Slovak - "Slovinsko" vs "Slovensko" - though context tends to help here :)

Fun factoid. Staff of Slovak and Slovenian embassies meet each month to exchange wrongly addressed mail. http://www.slovak-republic.org/slovenia/#politicians

I have heard something similar about Austria and Australia

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

#182

Post by HelloNurse »

usrusr wrote: post #102
pif wrote: post #70

I don't like buying IKEA furniture for two reasons: 1 - With a handful of exceptions, IKEA furniture looks like... IKEA furniture! It reminds Henry Ford and his "Any customer can have a car painted any colour that he wants so long as it is black." 2 - Most important, while I appreciate its hack-ability, it's important for me to get quickly an idea of the budget involved. I understand that there's no standard IKEA war…

I'm genuinely surprised by your #2, because predictable pricing is the number one reason for me to rarely consider anything other than Ikea. It might be a cultural thing, maybe the difference between Ikea and other alternatives goes along a very different line where you live. Here, conventional furniture stores are still pretty much selling at highly individualized prices, where they pull some random fantasy "regular…

Chains of sofa stores in Italy follow this pattern to the point that ads are slightly ironic about their discounts and/or try to divert attention towards good craftsmanship, quality, etc.

Stores of expensive or custom furniture are completely different, with genuine market pressures keeping prices and quotes in check.

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

#183

Post by driverdan »

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…

Make one! Bookshelves are pretty easy to make and don't require a lot of tools, knowledge, or skills. Plan the dimensions, buy the boards, cut them, screw together.

If you can't make one at home look into joining a hackerspace.

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

#184

Post by wavefunction »

vidanay wrote: post #180
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…

Your TV could conceivably stay in functioning order for 20 years. More likely 5 years. Your table could conceivably stay in functioning order for 2000 years. More likely 500 years. Quality built wood furniture has essentially an indefinite lifespan.

That's assuming maintenance and care for the table, which is not much of a possibility with the TV. Another + for real wood furniture!

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

#185

Post by kalleboo »

mcv wrote: post #169
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…

Your first paragraph seems to contradict the rest of your story. 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 Gal…

The fact that IKEA beds are 2 meters long makes them my savior, in a country where all the other beds are 190 cm long...　(or less!)

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

#186

Post by driverdan »

tehwebguy wrote: post #16
michaelvoz wrote: post #2

I dislike IKEA furniture - It never seems to go well, and always in a different, hard-to-plan-for kind of way. Either the bed frame slats will crack at an odd place, or the bookshelf will bend under the weight of too many books, or perhaps a layer of plastic-ish(?) faux-wood will peel off revealing the flimsy glue pressed wood-ish material inside. I understand the appeal of well designed, flatpacked, self assembled f…

We've had mixed results: Bed - it was 200 or 300, lasted 10+ years. Veneer peeled off in 2 places (scraped it like crazy moving it 2x inc. up/down stairs, stored it for a year). Sold it in the end, crazy. "Cubes" Bookcase - had it for 6+ years, moving it 1x was enough to make it too wobbly for us but still were able to sell it. Tip: leave 1-2 cubes empty and arrange books by color, looks awesome. Med + small coffee t…

> Wood countertops - amazing and amazingly cheap compared to any other countertop options we found (by a big margin).

Lumber Liquidators has the same price for thicker oak butcher block countertops. Woodcraft has similarly priced thicker birch butcher block.

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

#187

Post by kalleboo »

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.

My sister is very much into books, and she ran out of wall space. Sleeping in her living room felt claustrophobic to me without any open walls!

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

#188

Post by magic_beans »

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.

I recently culled my book collection to those I truly cherish (around 50 or so). Nowadays, I only buy physical books from my favorite authors which I am sure will be exceptional and worth re-reading. Whenever I feel my book collection is getting too big for their shelf, I cull again. It allows me to keep some books around, but prevents my space from getting cluttered!

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

#189

Post by driverdan »

Terribledactyl wrote: post #74
fpgaminer wrote: post #52

> The Billy innovations are about working within the limits of production and logistics, finding tiny ways to shave more off the cost, all while producing something that looks inoffensive and does the job. The perfect summary of Ikea's engineering. I got into woodworking recently; designed and built a 50", full-back garden bench from scratch in redwood. The project gave me a more keen awareness of the wood that surro…

They have solid wood options, but you have to hunt for them. Also, they tend to up the price and it's "fancier" looking. Your comment makes me wish I had the space to get back into woodworking, but I just bought Ikea today because it fits into a small car and apartment easily.

Most of their solid wood stuff is cheap, unfinished pine. In some cases it makes sense but in many it does not.

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

#190

Post by pingec »

yoz-y wrote: post #103
smcl wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's understandable - their names in their respective languages is "Slovenija" and "Slovensko" which is relatively similar. Tougher still is discerning Slovenia and Slovakia in spoken Czech or Slovak - "Slovinsko" vs "Slovensko" - though context tends to help here :)

Fun factoid. Staff of Slovak and Slovenian embassies meet each month to exchange wrongly addressed mail. http://www.slovak-republic.org/slovenia/#politicians

Another fun thing I have heard multiple times is that ordering electronics from China to "Ljubljana, Slovakia" somehow makes it from China to Slovakia and then Slovenia without going through customs in any of those two countries.

Does anyone know why this would be? Or maybe is it just pure luck?

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