Ikea - yay or nay?

[Ceinwen]

I've never been to Ikea.

My gf & I recently bought a house together and I was looking at some of the furniture, etc. on their website (mostly for my kids rooms - ages 7.5 & 2.5), decorating stuff, etc.

I'm hearing mixed opinions - either people seem to love Ikea (it's awesome!) or hate it (their stuff is crap!)

So, I'd like to gather some popular opinion... do you like Ikea furniture? Why or why not? What did you/didn't you like?

TIA!

PS - Our closest Ikea is about 3 hours away, so we'd be making a trip there this weekend to go shopping.

[BCFD]

I love Ikea - especially for kid rooms! I wouldn't say their stuff is "crap", but it's not heirloom material. You may get 5, 6, 7 years out of their stuff. Kids destroy things, so Ikea is perfect for that. When I was a first time Mom, I was going to go spend a ton of $ on Pottery Barn or Crate & Barrel furniture and I'm so glad I didn't. Ikea has really super cute stuff and most of it is very affordable.

Depends on what you buy, but I do not enjoy putting stuff together. The worst was a dresser we bought from Ikea.

LOOOOOOOVE Ikea!!!!

[doubledutch]

yay! i also love ikea. some of their stuff is crap, some is decent, and some is really very sturdy and nice. my best advice is that, if you find something you love at ikea (including the website), you can often find it on craigslist for half the price.

[limabean]

I like Ikea, but not for furniture. I've bought curtains, kid's toys, kitchen stuff, and bedding there.

Recently we got a desk, shelves, and a nightstand for our bedroom, and Ikea was one of the places we browsed, and we pretty much walked through in 15 minutes and straight out. Hardly any of the furniture is solid wood, and the very few pieces that were weren't in the finish/stain we wanted.

We bought some bookshelves there for our first apartment 11 years ago, and they're still standing, but we've used them as garage shelves for the last several years -- they're just not the quality we want in the house, although they were perfectly functional and affordable at the time, so that was nice!

[BookGoddess]

I love IKEA. You have to like their modern scandinavian style and colors. There's not a lot of chintz, cabbage roses, country-ish stuff there. If you like clean lines and strong colors, you can find a lot of things there. We have two very comfortable Danish modern type chairs from them. They're made of a light brown wood in a beautiful curved timeless design. The long white cushion is stylish and comfortable. We've had the chairs for about 10 years now. They still look good. Nothing we've bought from them has been crappy, but I'm selective about what I get from there.

We don't have an IKEA store in my state so whenever I visit a state that has one, I buy a lot.

[philomom]

It really depends on what you get.


The bookcases have held up for ten years. The nice wood dinette and four chairs that I used for a playroom art table is on its third family and still doing well. The linens hold up well, too.

The particle board desk? Trashed it within 4 years. My friend has a sofa of theirs that looks good and sits okay after 6 years.

Good luck.

[syn_ack89]

Bookshelves = good.

No idea about any of the other stuff.

[Monarchgrrl]

I love IKEA! If you don't mind building things (I like it!) then it's well worth the price. We like going there for breakfast when we need to buy things. $1.99 for full breakfast and coffee.

We had a platform bed (just upsized so don't use it anymore). Currently the IKEA stuff we have is:

dining table and 4 chairs
3 bookshelves
2 dressers
2 nightstands
couch
lounge chair
couple of paintings
wardrobe
entertainment center
many, many long curtains

All is perfect and I like how you can buy pretty much anything to match anything else.

[Owen'nZoe]

As others have said, it really depends on what you get. We have a (solid wood) bunkbed, which is very sturdy and well made. Of course, when we got it from the store, DH opened the box, looked at the 100's of pieces that needed to be put together, and said he felt like he was building the bed himself. The particle board dressers and night stand are (predictably) not the best-made things around, but we've had them for 5 years, and they are still very functional. I like that I don't have to freak out when my preschooler covers them with stickers or dumps a glass of water in the drawer to see what will happen, thus warping the bottom.

For linens, I love their duvets and duvet covers - especially for the kids! You can get a well-made, warm down duvet for under $50, and covers are $15-20. My boys were each able to pick out their own covers, and when they outgrow the pattern, we'll be able to update the bed for under $20. The pillows are also nice.

They have a lot of cute kitchen stuff, but in my experience, the glass they use breaks easily. Their kitchen linens are durable and cute. I guess, as others have said, I think you're best off getting to the store in person, and picking carefully.

[journeymom]

Ikea is a fun field trip if you've never been. It's an experience.

Frankly I'd rather have sturdy furniture for my kids, stuff that isn't going to be thrashed in the first place. But I can't actually afford to buy 'heirloom' (I like that term) furniture. What do they say? Champagne taste, beer budget.

[MissMommyNiceNice]

Ikea is good & bad. If you pay for the nicer pieces, they will last and are worth it. If you are poor & buy the cheap pieces, they will fall apart. We love their butcherblock countertops we just installed. I like their kids play items.

Another thing to consider and why I like them is they are a real world-leader in sustainable forestry, packaging, etc.

[Magelet]

I like ikea, however I definitely agree you have to be selective. I love our mattress we got there, (erfjord), as it's a 85% natural latex mattress with lambswool, and low-pesticide cotton, and didn't off-gas that I could smell (it says it has a cotton fire-resistant interliner, don't know but don't think it had other fireproofing besides cotton and wool and latex...). And since we couldn't afford a latex mattress anywhere else, and would otherwise have to get a totally conventional mattress, it's pretty awesome.

they definitely have some good stuff, and some not so good stuff. you have to be selective.

[*bejeweled*]

I Ikea.

[Penelope]

Mattresses and linens, and dishes/cookware, excellent. Bookshelves, sturdy. Beds? I've had bad luck. Chairs, mixed results, tables, pretty good.

For kid furniture, I think they're fine; accent pieces, really good; furniture that's going to get a lot of wear and tear might not hold up well, however.

[just_lily]

I am sitting on my couch and looking at a tv stand, coffee table, dining room table, stools and three high chairs, all from Ikea. We have two beds, night stands, dressers, little metal shelves, book shelves, toy storage, kids table and chairs, art easles, trains, play tent, change table, doll bed and countless stuffies. And my kitchen cupboards are also Ikea, although they were installed by the previous owner.

So yes... we like Ikea here.

But it is what it is. Low cost furniture that you will have to assemble yourself. Heirloom pieces? No. But when you are in a situation of having to furnish most of a house, it can be an affordable way to go. And I run a home daycare and the kids are so hard on everything there is no point buying nicer stuff at this point.

[starling&diesel]

It serves a purpose, in my opinion.
You can furnish your home on a low budget, yet you will have pieces that millions of other people have, and it will not last for long.

Most moving companies will not insure against damage to particle board furniture (read, IKEA) because it is so flimsy. We've taken apart our IKEA bed and moved it three times and it won't last another move. One end of our IKEA bureau cracked in a move. Every single 'solid wood' piece I've purchased there dents and mars super easily (ie. knock your headboard with your ring finger and there will be an imprint of your ring forever etched into your headboard).

Lately, we've been trying to save up and purchase higher quality items that we'll have for a long time, but we still end up at IKEA for certain things. It's cheap, functional and has nice clean European lines.

So, ultimately, I'm of two minds. Yay. And nay.

[kittywitty]

I love it. Maybe it's that I'm always broke, but for the price, it can't be beat. All of the other furniture we've ever bought has broken to pieces much quicker. My IKEA stuff is going on year 3 with cats and 4 kids and still is in great shape.

As for it being stuff everyone else has and such-I couldn't care less. With my budget, I'm happy to have furniture at all. There's no way I could afford antique one of a kind pieces or Pottery Barn.

[zinemama]

I'm not one to enjoy shopping for the sake of shopping. Except when it comes to Ikea. It's like going to a fabulous theme park for me.

That said. Don't buy furniture made of particle board!!

The solid wood stuff from Ikea is great. The particle board warps. Plus, particle board=nasty.

We bought the smallest, cheapest wooden bunk bed from Ikea 9 years ago and it's going strong. Same with our big bookcases.

Kids' duvet covers, great, as is most of the kids' stuff, wonderful storage options, cute rugs.

As pp said, you just have to look at the materials.

[lonegirl]

Our whole bedroom is in Ikea-I put it all together. Everything we have is solid wood, stained antique. Well the bedframe is not Ikea but our old one for our old queen was and we have it in the guest room now.
My kitchen hutch is from there....not solid wood but solidly built.
The shelves in my son's room-Ikea-solid wood with plastic buckets
Son's train set-99% Ikea
Most of my kitchen utensils....LOL you get the idea!!
We love IKEA and where we live now there is one a 5 min drive away.
Oh yeah and I love the kids' bowls, plates, cups and utensils

[kallyn]

Practically all our furniture is Ikea and it's survived for five years and moving three times (one all the way cross country). Everything is still in great shape! I just wish we had one where we live now.