Anybody have any experience with IKEA?

[Brigid]

I am looking online at their site and see some things I like. Have you been satisfied with their products? How do they hold up?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. I've been satisfied with the items I've bought.

You have to put everything together yourself, and in most cases that hasn't been too bad, but it can be time-consuming. I've bought a coffee table, a chair, a curio cabinet, a bathroom cabinet, a tv stand, and a small dresser, and they have been holding up fine. The parts fit together, too. I like IKEA.

[trof]

2. I like their drink foamer thingy.

[mwdem]

3. Bought a sofa, loveseat, and chair from them 25 years ago.

My daughter has the set, still. The upholstery is worn, but the frames are as good as new! I don't know what their quality is now, but for the price, it seems to be worth it still.

[quakerboy]

4. I think it all depends

I hear lots of good things about the older furniture. The newer stuff you should be careful of. I strongly recommend that you go in and check it out before buying. On the plus side most of the furniture that my family purchased is made of real wood. On the minus side, the wood is almost balsa soft. Running a fingernail over it leaves a groove, and its good for about one move, after which it starts getting a little wiggly.

Other stuff is also variable. Some things appear well made and sturdy. Others appear to be made quite disposable.

[kwassa]

5. Bought a desk and also bookshelves.

The entire upstairs hallway is lined with bookshelves, floor to ceiling, from Ikea.

The desk is beautiful, but I counted 123 separate parts as I assembled it. There is lots of assembly. It caused me to buy an electric screwdriver, which actually was a good investment.

They are both made of particle board covered with birch veneer, but they look great. They are not as strong as real wood, though, but then I couldn't afford them.

We have a local store.

[XemaSab]

6. I've got a couple bookshelves

They were a PITA to put together, but they look nice and they're holding my books. :D

[femmocrat]

7. Same experience as the others.

We converted our spare bedroom into a computer room/home office. All Ikea furniture and holding up very well. Two desks, three tall bookcase units, an entertainment center, two small book shelves and a wardrobe.

We also bought their entertainment centers for the kids' dorm rooms. No problems except not wanting to disassemble them for moving at the end of the term. The kids took them to their apartments and are still using them.

[many a good man]

8. Kitchen cabinets are awesome

The boxes are judged to be superior to brands that cost three times as much. I bought some and I agree.

[Demoiselle]

10. I avoid IKEA's ordinary storage furniture with drawers....

...Like bedroom clothing bureaus. I They are made with very flimsy drawer bottoms...which tend to bow if the drawers are full. I discovered recently that they give away little plastic doohickeys that you can use to prevent the bowing to some extent...but it's kind of an admission that they have a problem.
I like everything else I've bought there...the design is very good and the prices are pretty terrific. I'm glad to hear their kitchen cabinets are so good. Haven't tried them.

[laundry_queen]

12. Yes, the only things I've had problems with were dresser drawers

My whole house is mostly Ikea furniture. I buy cheap stuff because I have 4 kids and they wreck it. I'll buy nicer, newer stuff when they grow up :) Everything holds up pretty well. You may need to reinforce table legs if you move a lot. Some of the really cheap laminated tables chip easily. And as mentioned - the dresser drawers suck. Every Ikea dresser I've ever owned (at least 10) will eventually have the roller mechanism break down and little metal balls fall out everywhere. The bottoms are also flimsy, as mentioned. If you plan on only keeping the drawers half full, it might work for you, otherwise, get dressers from somewhere else or you will be buying new ones every few years. I don't think it has to do with the cheapness - I bought a really cheap change table w/drawers from Sears for my 2nd kid and it outlasted 3 Ikea dressers. There is something inherently wrong with their drawers. Anyhow, I have had really good luck with bookcases, TV stands/wall units, kitchen tables (inherited it from my parents - it's 28 years old! It did have to be re-glued and repainted once), desks, coffee tables, beds, wall shelves, and various non-furniture items (you name it, I've probably owned it!). I do like Ikea's style and that's the main reason I buy there, they just have what I'm looking for, that I can't find anywhere else, and always at a reasonable price. I have lived in 3 different places that I had to buy all new furniture (long story) and it was always Ikea stuff I ended up with. So I've had lots of experience!

[bigwillq]

9. I haven't bought any major items from them

like furniture, only small things. I've been satisfied with the things I did buy, like some furnishings and small storage supplies.

[Silver Swan]

11. I've bought several bookshelves and a TV stand

from IKEA.

I also bought my new kitchen countertops there. They are butcher block style beech, which I finished with a cherry stain and a Waterlox sealer. They look great, and they were cheaper than some laminates.

[Orrex]

13. Here's my experience with IKEA

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=105&topic_id=9092374&mesg_id=9092384">So it turns out that IKEA is just about as bad as Wal*Mart in every measurable way

[murielm99]

14. I go to local stores and ferret out furniture that was

made in the US. It is possible to find it.

A local craftsman built our bookshelves. He built a love seat for us, and will help us redo our kitchen.

My son has some IKEA furniture. Their cats dug a hole in the couch. They sit inside the hole and look out at the world. Maybe that is just their cats, but I think my cat or dog would have a hard time digging a hole in the new couch I have in our TV room.

[csziggy]

15. All my kitchen and bathroom cabinets are IKEA

Their kitchen cabinet line is awesome because it is totally customizable. You buy the box, the doors, and the drawers separately and can arrange them anyway you like. There is an entire website devoted to mostly IKEA kitchen cabinet stuff - http://ikeafans.com/ Anybody planning an IKEA kitchen would learn a lot and be able to make a better kitchen by spending time studying the modifications others have done. There are also sections for other IKEA products, and as with any forum people are not shy about complaints if they are not satisfied.

I also got my huge double bowl apron front sink at IKEA for a great price. The first one we had was $99 at the IKEA "As Is" shop - it had a manufacturing defect that did not affect how it would work and was not visible. The tile guy broke that sink while installing it and had to pay full price for the replacement, a whole $299. Considering that most ceramic apron front sinks run a thousand or more, that was still a great deal.

I've got a couple of IKEA pans. For the price they are good, heavy metal pans that heat evenly and make cooking a pleasure. I could not find a 10" saute pan for any where near the same price as the one I found at IKEA. The 3 quart sauce pan is really nice, too and cleans up easily.

Their food is pretty good too - you might as well plan on eating in the food court upstairs. And if you live close enough, you can buy chilled or frozen foods to take home, like their excellent meatballs. We always get some cinnamon buns to eat on the way home and my hubby loves their gooseberry and other preserves.

[OmahaBlueDog]

16. I love the Swedish Meatballs

I dip the fork in the lingonberries, spear the ball, then roll it in the sauce before devouring. I wash it down with the lingonberry soda. I also am a huge fan of the cinnamon rolls, as well as the ginger snaps and those savory chocolate sandwich cookies.

They don't hold up well. They get eaten very quickly.

[struggle4progress]

17. I have a sofa, a couple of tables, and several bookshelves I got about twenty years ago

The bookshelves are cheap particle board with veneer but they've held up under my use: I need places to stash my books, so they won't get tossed

The comment upthread about the wood being soft and tablelegs getting wobbly matches my experience: I waxed the wood with a hard wax when I got the tables, but a thick polyurethane coat might have done better. I keep table clothes on those tables anyway. My wobbly tableleg problems were fixable -- I don't remember what I did, though

The cushions for the small sofa or loveseat were always a nuisance: they tended to get out-of-kilter easily. After about a decade, I got tired of that and got some better bigger cushions somewhere. The cushions are supported by a synthetic weave stapled to the frame: when I replaced the cushions, I noticed the weave was deteriorating so I got something comparable and inexpensive somewhere, pulled the staples, and stapled in the new fabric support

If there was a store nearby, I'd probably have more of their inexpensive stuff. I never thought their prices were good on everything

[distantearlywarning]

18. Cheapest, best place for bookshelves

We prefer dark wood for our furniture, and IKEA has several lines of dark wood furniture that looks awesome and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. We shopped around at other furniture places - everything was about the same quality (mediocre), but at every other store the bookshelves cost 3-4 times as much. Would it be better to have hardwood bookshelves made with perfect carpentry instead of do-it-yourself assembly? Sure, but we had trouble finding any of those at any kind of reasonable price. So we went with IKEA, and it's been fine.

Our bookshelves from IKEA are actually wood (albeit pine or something else soft), they look more expensive than they actually are, and we we could fit them in the back of our car to take home, and assemble them ourselves. And all their accessories are sized to fit properly in their furniture, so you can easily build mix-and-match sets with glass doors, baskets, lighting, etc. I've been happy with them for years.

The other thing IKEA is really good for is cheap kitchen accessories, household textiles, and the like. We have a set of cheese graters from there which have held up for 4 years and are more amazingly functional than any other cheese grater I've ever seen. This cheese grater is so awesome that some IKEA-less friends of ours had us pay more in shipping to send a set to them in the mail than the graters were worth. I also get cheap candles there. We also have a set of small-ish stainless steel bowls that I love for popcorn and food prep. And we got all our cat food dishes there - cheap, cute sets of tiny decorative low-sided bowls that are the perfect size for a can of wet cat food.

Someone else mentioned bedroom furniture - I haven't had any problems with my dresser drawers bowing, but the "normal" daily wear-and-tear that happens to furniture seems to affect the looks of the IKEA furniture more than I would like. But at the price, we probably could afford to replace them every few years. (And again, we have furniture from "better" stores which is exactly the same way and cost more...there's no such thing as quality furniture anymore unless you are significantly richer than middle class.)

On Edit: the little cafeteria at IKEA stores serves pretty good food at low prices. I think the meatballs with the cream sauce and lingonberry jam are particularly good. I don't always stop into the cafeteria when I go to IKEA, but once in a while it's a nice treat. And my husband likes the lingonberry preserves in the jar.\

Also On Edit: I forgot to mention that I am an artist (amateur hobbyist), and I got the greatest desk set/lightboard combo thing there - it's very sturdy, has held up well, and I was able to customize the exact combination of legs/shelf/lightboard top thing that I wanted. It's the most awesome set-up and I love it. I also have some of their decorative boxes in my craftroom to organize my art supplies.

Ok, I admit it. I just love IKEA. Maybe that makes me a bad liberal or something. But I think it's a great store. :shrug:

[bif]

19. Most of their stuff is pretty good. However...

We bought a futon/sleeper sofa that was a piece of crap. Several of the slats broke within a couple of years. You get what you pay for. I don't think their stuff is an incredible bargain, but it's pretty reasonably priced. Their cooking supplies are a good value--including dishes, pots and pans, etc.

[LibertyLover]

20. We have a fair amount of IKEA furniture and accessories -

they have held up very well. Most nights I sit in my IKEA chair and read. My whippet likes the chair very much as well. We had an IKEA crib for our daughter when she was young and actually, now that I think of it, all the furniture in her room and the dining room is from IKEA with the exception of one antique table. It's good furniture at reasonable prices.

Edited to add that my daughter's dresser drawers do have a problem with the bottom bowing - however in IKEA's defense, if she didn't try to shove everything she owns for both winter and summer in the drawers, it might not have happened. We also have a tangine that we got from IKEA and it is wonderful. We love to make curries and stews in it and it does the job very nicely.