Fair point, though spacial reasoning and following instructions can be developed, i don’t think they’re have-it-or-you-don’t situations.
I’m sure people who aren’t naturally gifted at those skills get frustrated more quickly.
back to the original question, have you put together any Ikea furniture and do you find it genuinely difficult or do you think it used to be more difficult in the past?
Ikea has several things that last. My desk is 20 years old and still solid as a tank, I have a shelf and two small tables that are 30 years old, my mom had a bookshelf that was over 30 years and in good shape when she sold it. You just have to avoid the flimsy crap.
I think Ikea makes a point out of being sustainable.
also, their products last decades.
I’ve only ever got maybe one Ikea table and it was used, but if your main concerns are sustainability and waste, those are two shortcomings Ikea doesn’t bear.
you’re drawing false conclusions from incorrect assumptions and half-truths.
What about a cheap, biodegradable upcycled material that lasts for decades screams wasteful to you?
Many of their products are sustainably sourced solid wood.
you obviously don’t know about the company’s sustainability processes.
At least learn how they source their material and what they do with their products at the end of their life cycle instead of pretending they’re scary because… they use upcycled materials and are committed to net zero waste.
with so many actually wasteful and harmful companies, you are screaming at a windmill here.
I don’t agree with how he’s been responding so far, but I’ve got some Ikea that’s over 20 years and 10 house moves (three coast-to-coast) old. One piece has stood up really well.
In general, though, as the son of a cabinet maker’s son with no ability whatsoever, I can easily see these pieces are sub-par. Beaver-chow with the cheap veneer throughout, so a drop of water spells eventually doom for them; or just thin, thin real wood.
My mom has downsized recently, and the only pieces of furniture she has now are the handed-down wooden desk and tables and whatnot you’d expect; but they’re all 200 years old.
Ikea may last a decade or two, but they are cheap materials that we cannot reasonably expect to last much longer than 2 years or a house move. In that way, they’re incredibly wasteful.
In the same sense that cheap fares have driven up the cost of real seats as luxuries and also cheapened the in-flight options and the entire experience of flying, Ikea’s cheap goods have pushed the price of real equivalents up into the stratosphere, and has cheapened everything about acquiring furniture to keep and use for generations.
I understand the abstract logical connection, but I’m unfamiliar with practical data and statistics on airfare increasing in cost as a result of lower priced tickets, or chairs being prohibitively expensive because Ikea makes chairs., and am interested in reading the data.
in my anecdotal experience, airfares are getting cheaper directly as a result of budget airlines, and I travel quite a bit by air.
I get all of my furniture second hand, so I really don’t have any anecdote experience about for furniture haha.
I still don’t see the connection between Ikea products using sustainably sourced wood and being wasteful, either.
using upcycled and sustainable materials is responsible and resourceful, rather than wasteful.
It depends on where the particle board comes from. If it’s from good solid wood pieces being ground up to be glued together, then yeah I’d agree that’s wasteful.
If it’s from wood that isn’t otherwise usable (like scraps from things made from hardwood, wood that isn’t suitable for making furniture (like too soft), or pieces of trees that are too small, that’s the opposite of wasteful. It can also be a way to effectively use fast turnaround tree farms which IMO is better than logging established trees at an industrial scale.
They seem to have two levels of furniture; the flimsy, mostly made of particle board/cardboard and hope stuff, and the solid wood stuff. The latter is as robust any anything you’ll get elsewhere, even assembled, just easier to get home and takes some assembly. I suspect it’s mostly that that lasts, although even the lightweight stuff holds up well if you’re carefully with it.
Ikea’s fine as long as you’re managing expectations and using them appropriately. My general rule of thumb is that I wouldn’t buy anything from them that I put my weight on, but I’ve used my KALLAX for almost two decades and about a dozen moves across the country and it’s been sturdier than some $1,000+ organizers I’ve owned
Some people don’t have good spatial reasoning skills and/or suck at reading and following instructions.
Fair point, though spacial reasoning and following instructions can be developed, i don’t think they’re have-it-or-you-don’t situations.
I’m sure people who aren’t naturally gifted at those skills get frustrated more quickly.
back to the original question, have you put together any Ikea furniture and do you find it genuinely difficult or do you think it used to be more difficult in the past?
I don’t buy ikea because i prefer things that last. We already have tons of waste as a species. I don’t need to add more to it than necessary.
Ikea has several things that last. My desk is 20 years old and still solid as a tank, I have a shelf and two small tables that are 30 years old, my mom had a bookshelf that was over 30 years and in good shape when she sold it. You just have to avoid the flimsy crap.
I think Ikea makes a point out of being sustainable.
also, their products last decades.
I’ve only ever got maybe one Ikea table and it was used, but if your main concerns are sustainability and waste, those are two shortcomings Ikea doesn’t bear.
Particle board by its very nature is going to last decades less than normal wood. So yes, ikea is wasteful.
you’re drawing false conclusions from incorrect assumptions and half-truths.
What about a cheap, biodegradable upcycled material that lasts for decades screams wasteful to you?
Many of their products are sustainably sourced solid wood.
you obviously don’t know about the company’s sustainability processes.
At least learn how they source their material and what they do with their products at the end of their life cycle instead of pretending they’re scary because… they use upcycled materials and are committed to net zero waste.
with so many actually wasteful and harmful companies, you are screaming at a windmill here.
I don’t agree with how he’s been responding so far, but I’ve got some Ikea that’s over 20 years and 10 house moves (three coast-to-coast) old. One piece has stood up really well.
In general, though, as the son of a cabinet maker’s son with no ability whatsoever, I can easily see these pieces are sub-par. Beaver-chow with the cheap veneer throughout, so a drop of water spells eventually doom for them; or just thin, thin real wood.
My mom has downsized recently, and the only pieces of furniture she has now are the handed-down wooden desk and tables and whatnot you’d expect; but they’re all 200 years old.
Ikea may last a decade or two, but they are cheap materials that we cannot reasonably expect to last much longer than 2 years or a house move. In that way, they’re incredibly wasteful.
In the same sense that cheap fares have driven up the cost of real seats as luxuries and also cheapened the in-flight options and the entire experience of flying, Ikea’s cheap goods have pushed the price of real equivalents up into the stratosphere, and has cheapened everything about acquiring furniture to keep and use for generations.
I understand the abstract logical connection, but I’m unfamiliar with practical data and statistics on airfare increasing in cost as a result of lower priced tickets, or chairs being prohibitively expensive because Ikea makes chairs., and am interested in reading the data.
in my anecdotal experience, airfares are getting cheaper directly as a result of budget airlines, and I travel quite a bit by air.
I get all of my furniture second hand, so I really don’t have any anecdote experience about for furniture haha.
I still don’t see the connection between Ikea products using sustainably sourced wood and being wasteful, either.
using upcycled and sustainable materials is responsible and resourceful, rather than wasteful.
It depends on where the particle board comes from. If it’s from good solid wood pieces being ground up to be glued together, then yeah I’d agree that’s wasteful.
If it’s from wood that isn’t otherwise usable (like scraps from things made from hardwood, wood that isn’t suitable for making furniture (like too soft), or pieces of trees that are too small, that’s the opposite of wasteful. It can also be a way to effectively use fast turnaround tree farms which IMO is better than logging established trees at an industrial scale.
Edit: looks like I forgot to do this: ).
They seem to have two levels of furniture; the flimsy, mostly made of particle board/cardboard and hope stuff, and the solid wood stuff. The latter is as robust any anything you’ll get elsewhere, even assembled, just easier to get home and takes some assembly. I suspect it’s mostly that that lasts, although even the lightweight stuff holds up well if you’re carefully with it.
Ikea’s fine as long as you’re managing expectations and using them appropriately. My general rule of thumb is that I wouldn’t buy anything from them that I put my weight on, but I’ve used my KALLAX for almost two decades and about a dozen moves across the country and it’s been sturdier than some $1,000+ organizers I’ve owned