Ikea

nanabanana06 · September 2012

Thoughts on Ikea furniture. I had great luck with mine, with the exception of my bed frame. However, DH is solidly against it. MIL and I are in serious organizing mode to prep the house for the baby. Which means we need some real furniture. I am just trying to convince DH that Ikea isn't the devil.

FezzesAreCool · September 2012

Check Consumer Reports online.

I've heard nothing but good things about Ikea furniture. It's not crappy furniture.

MrsWindyCity · September 2012

We have an Ikea dresser for DS and it's been great. We also have a couple of solid wood pieces from there, that we bought unfinished and treated ourselves (like a sidebar/buffet). I think it's great for those types of things, but it wouldn't be my choice for other long lasting types of "adult" furniture or whatever.

Most kids furniture is crap, anyway. You are paying for veneer (which is a lot of the Ikea stuff too) but you're paying 3x the price because it goes with the crib or whatever.

French Dads Are Best · September 2012

Some of their things may be of inferior quality, but I have heard only good things about their baby furniture.

Wine O Mite · September 2012

We have a mixture of their furniture and some is good and some is bad. The dresser we have sucks....or it could be that I put it together poorly.

I've heard that baby/toddler stuff is great.

LuckyDad · September 2012

IKEA furniture is a good value for the price. There is some quality variance between items. I personally don't really like their couches, for example. But their dressers and shelves are perfectly fine, especially for the price.

The downside is their furniture is notoriously not designed to stand up to the rigors of being moved multiple times. It's not held together by nails and screws as much as by pressure pegs. It's not designed to be taken apart and reassembled multiple times.

It's much higher quality than the cheap stuff they sell at Target/Walmart, but it's not something you're going to want to own for decades and pass on as family heirlooms. There's a reason it's popular with young people; it's cheap and you can feel ok about throwing it away after a few years.

ShellShockedMama · September 2012

My ikea stuff won't die. It refuses, ha.

French Dads Are Best · September 2012

LuckyDad:
IKEA furniture is a good value for the price. There is some quality variance between items. I personally don't really like their couches, for example. But their dressers and shelves are perfectly fine, especially for the price.The downside is their furniture is notoriously not designed to stand up to the rigors of being moved multiple times. It's not held together by nails and screws as much as by pressure pegs. It's not designed to be taken apart and reassembled multiple times.It's much higher quality than the cheap stuff they sell at Target/Walmart, but it's not something you're going to want to own for decades and pass on as family heirlooms. There's a reason it's popular with young people; it's cheap and you can feel ok about throwing it away after a few years.

Totally agree! Could not have said it better.

HenHen25 · September 2012

I love Ikeas storage/organization/shelves systems. We use them all the time in Hen's room and for tot school. Ikea bedframe, pretty much hate it. So depending on what you're getting, go to Ikea!

nanabanana06 · September 2012

Thank you! We were looking at getting some shelving units, organizers, dressers, and TV stands. Nothing has to be fantastic. Almost all of our current furniture is essentially crap anyways. We just need some furniture quickly that won't cost an arm and a leg. Other places have really spotty reviews, and I've only had 1 Ikea thing be crap and it was a cheap slat bed. DH just is anti Ikea cuz he got a bad coffee table once.

TheBuddha · September 2012

I bought my dresser from ikea in 2004. I have moved 3 times since then and it's still going strong.

DH bought a dresser there and it keeps falling apart.

I have several Ikea items in my 9 year olds room.

jess60 · September 2012

I totally agree that it's a good deal for the price.

One thing they note on their website is to keep an eye on the bolts. Over time they may loosen & you'll need to tighten them up once in a while.

ETA: We have a metal queen bedframe from IKEA & we love it. DS's bed is from there & we just picked up a child's table/chairs set on Monday night. Couldn't beat the price.

TunaTown · September 2012

crystalbaby:

I LOVE Ikea for baby/toddler rooms. They have a bookshelf that can't tip over because of it's width and it has the cube cubby holes for $40. Can't beat that.

We pretty much did our whole playroom in it.

I agree that for adult furniture, it's not great quality and certainly won't last but it's totally worth it for children's furniture, IMO.

Love the castle. That's from IKEA? (i know what I'm getting LO for her bday - thanks for the idea!)

Also, we purchase a lot of stuff from IKEA. The last purchase was a futon that folds out into a queen size bed - it's made with box springs. Super comfty! We still have the Niklas bookshelf system we bought 10+ years ago. It's been assembled in all different types of ways to fit our changing needs.

Leinistar · September 2012

I like it a lot but you have to be careful with the pressed wood versus solid wood. The pressed wood is really heavy and any water with bubble to finish which is not great with kids or lazy husbands who dont use coasters. The real wood can dent easier because a lot of it is lighter wood like pine. Both have there advantages and disadvantages.

lrn327 · September 2012

DS's entire room - crib, dresser, bookcase, rug, and rocker is from Ikea, all for under 1K. He also has the kids table/chair and the mini kitchen. Quality is awesome for the price.

kj07 · September 2012

LuckyDad:
IKEA furniture is a good value for the price. There is some quality variance between items. I personally don't really like their couches, for example. But their dressers and shelves are perfectly fine, especially for the price.
The downside is their furniture is notoriously not designed to stand up to the rigors of being moved multiple times. It's not held together by nails and screws as much as by pressure pegs. It's not designed to be taken apart and reassembled multiple times.
It's much higher quality than the cheap stuff they sell at Target/Walmart, but it's not something you're going to want to own for decades and pass on as family heirlooms. There's a reason it's popular with young people; it's cheap and you can feel ok about throwing it away after a few years.

That hasn't been my experience. Back in 1999 I purchased a long-wide dresser with a birch veneer from the Ikea in Philadelphia. It survived three moves by me, then I donated it to a friend. It went through an additional move with her and currently lives happily in her dining room in Texas. I also have a few butcher block carts and some bookcases that have been through 2 moves (not across the country, though) and 5 years and still look and function well.

We actually repurposed our Ikea Forhoja Kitchen cart to serve as the changing table in DS's bedroom. We put contact paper on the top to protect it from possible leaks and spills (so we won't feel gross if we decide to re-repurpose it later) and got some baskets for storage on the shelves. It works great!

I will say, though, that I'm really neurotic about the assembly process - making sure that things are aligned properly and using a rotation process when tightening screws and such. It takes a bit longer to assemble, but I feel it helps with durability.

PSA about Ikea assembly: if during assembly the holes seem to not quite match up, don't think, "gee Ikea must have drilled these holes wrong." Because they didn't. They're Swedish assembly gods. You've f'ed up somewhere in following instructions.

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