I think it is hit-or-miss really.

A pain to assemble, but the prices are good.

If you have younger kids it is a fun store for them to go to.

Ours has a fun little play area, a free drop-in play center + good inexpensive food.

Kids also like playing house there too.

We have an Ikea sectional, console table, bookcases, kids' beds.

Our longest-lived IKEA is 3 billy bookcases with glass doors. They are over 20 years old and going strong.

We've had a couple of the KURA loft beds for our kids which I love for the size but did have problems with the mattress support slats breaking when kids bounced on the beds -- the slats were clearly made from scrap wood stitched together so they broke easily at the seams. DH replaced them with solid boards and none of those have broken

Most recent purchase was a KIVIK sectional. I considered other brands but we had a tight space and the scale of the KIVIK maximized seating in the space. One big advantage of IKEA is that a lot of their pieces are sized for smaller rooms. We love the sectional. It's very comfortable and the fabric has been easy to clean.

Anonymous wrote:Isn't it made in China with the worst wood they can find?

Two thirds of their stuff is made in Europe and most of their wood products are from Europe, its more accessories and fixtures that are manufactured in Asia.

They are probably the only "cheap" furniture place that DOESN'T get most of their stuff from China, actually.

Our Expedit has made it through two moves so far; one was long-distance, and it's still very strong. It's one of my favorite pieces of furniture. Other shelves have also held up, but some not quite as well.

I hated one of our IKEA couches--it had metal feet and was pretty uncomfortable. But I had a sleeper couch and chair combo that were very comfortable and held up very well.

I've never had luck with dressers, even the Hemnes. The bottoms of the drawers are too flimsy for me.

What's held up:

Akurum kitchen
Ektorp couch - don't like how low it feels though
Bookcases/storage - Billy, Besta, and Stuva
TV console - Hemnes
Dresser - Malm
Desk - Micke

What hasn't held up:
Dresser - Hemnes
Bed - Malm

Hemnes

Our entire house is IKEA, bought when we were grad students 13 years ago. The dining table, beds, desk, buffet, coffee table and many bookcases (Lesvik and Hemnes) have held up wonderfully. They don't make some of the lines anymore though.
The Lesvik dressers fell apart quickly but the Hemnes ones are great. We have dogs that sometimes chew on furniture so we don't plan to upgrade anytime soon.
Oh, and we put in an IKEA kitchen too a few years ago, going strong.

I've had good experiences with a variety of IKEA furniture. You can tell just by looking at some of their stuff whether it's likely to hold up well. I got an ektorp sofa and armchair, and a TV stand with glass doors for my apartment in grad school and it held up fine through 2 big moves (1 cross-country). Currently, we have the Besta bookcase. It's so versatile - it's gone from being in our home office, to being in the nursery and now to my son's "big kid" bedroom. We've changed it up as needed - moved the cabinet doors and drawers around to suit our needs, changed the height, etc. We also have one of their wooden kids tables with chairs and they still look fine, even after a lot of use.

I used Hemmes for my son's basement apartment in my home and have been very pleased with the quality, simple and does the job. Wish he would pick up around it though.

We have enough money we could buy whatever we want, and we still buy ikea furniture from time to time. Our style is minimalist modern, so we mix with some vintage pieces, and upholstery from midrange stores. As others have said, some of the stuff is dirt cheap. But the mid and higher priced stuff in their non-upholstery lines are very good quality for the money. Anything for the kids are great for 10 years (the plastic tables, storage units, cribs, high chairs, toys). We have a patio set we love that is going on 4 years and looks great - and was $350, relative to every other modern set we liked elsewhere was going to cost at least $2500. Billy bookcases, hemnes, we have several fold out chairs for when we have more than what fits at our dining table. The media consoles are general excellent quality, anything they make with the lacquer finish will hold up forever (including their kitchen cabinets, which we have and love). The pax systems are fantastic, and the sliding doors are a known trick by many contractors to use in kitchens and closets - saves you about $2000 relative to other more custom places. We have a bathroom vanity, and I'm a bit less impressed but it will last as long as we need it to. Most of our other wood furniture is vintage or handmade, so I don't have much to compare to... but we bought our master bed set from west elm 4 years ago and it looks like total shit. Same or worse quality than ikea but a lot more money.

I agree about coming down to filling a need at a reasonable cost. We frequently do this calculation and just can't justify the cost of other stores. We have a wall unit for our living room with tons of storage for 1/4 the cost of any other store and another built-in hack desk and shelving unit in our den for our kids that was so much cheaper than a custom unit.

But we also have an IKEA kitchen that we love.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The durability is hit or miss. I have 25 year old Ikea furniture that is still going strong, and I have items that only lasted a year. It is worth it to go to the store and scrutinize what you are buying. Some things look great in the catalog but not in real life. Other things that I had not considered from the pictures turned out to be great items once I saw them in the store. FWIW, the sofa I bought 5 years ago is holding up well even though 3 boys use it as a jungle gym and trampoline. However, they discontinued the product and now I can't get new slipcovers for it.

Have you tried looking at Bemz for slipcovers? They do have slip covers for some discontinued lines and yours may be one of them

http://bemz.com/

No. I have a Hovas sofa and they don't carry it. There are multiple places online that offer nice custom covers for the Hovas sofa but it's going to cost $300+. It's probably worth it but I'm going to wait until my boys are done destroying the cover we have. (We're about halfway there, but the frame is indestructible.)

The solid wood furniture (most, but not all, of the Hemnes line, for example) is sturdy and good quality.

Don't buy anything else.

Some things are very solid, others not so much. I've always noticed their sofas fall apart quite fast - because they use foam.

The beds we have bought from IKEA, when assembled correctly, have remained solid and looked great for years.