Ikea

Because that 2 lifetimes table doesnt cost $800 thats what grandma paid for it in the 50s when buying a 4 bedroom house for $30,000 and working at the mill for 50 years was normal.
It also weighs 3 tons and given that you live in a shitty 1 bedroom apartment and have to move every 6 months to an even smaller shoebox that costs an increasing % of your income every damn time, Its probably for the best that your shit is disposable.
- Everyone should get into woodworking, because then you can just make your own and it'll be twice as expensive and shittier than IKEA's version.
  
  You had me in the first half...
  
  Never mind the space, tools and time required anyway
  
  I built a shoe rack during the pandemic. It actually turned out great, it's way better than something from IKEA. It was indeed 2-3x the cost of an equivalent thing from IKEA if you consider all the tools and stuff I had to buy though.
  
  I feel personally attacked.
- Yep Anon never went furnishing shopping. $800 will get you a large wardrobe at IKEA. Anything equivalent will be far more than double the cost if you want it made from real wood and new.
- I moved out of our house and if I wanted some furniture and beds for the kids do I spend $450 total for all 3 of us to have a bed or do I spend $2k when I'm trying to get shit settled down?
  And yes, to your point, I've moved twice since then and that would have been a nightmare. And 5 years later the bed still is fine

All IKEA furniture I've bought has lasted a long time, but the meme is wrong, the reason it even exists is you can't buy better quality furniture for the same price, at least not by very much, it will cost a lot more if you want amazing quality.
- Agreed, yet to find any ikea (or any non-ikea being fair) fail to hold whatever items i put into them... Sounds like you (OP, not person i am replying to), might ve storing something strange in them to fail often enough to complain about ALL ikea furniture...
  
  Flat pack furniture traditionally had the relationship for being crap, in particular for missing pieces like a screw here or there, but when Ikea came along they did things properly. That was the reason they got so popular, they were so much better than the competition, and they forced others to up their game. I think they were the first to actually include extra screws, to cover the occassions when they weren't there, but these days their quality assurance is so good they just include the exact right amount every time.
- I have a Billy bookcase that’s like 20 years old, if not more. It’s been there all my life, as far as I can recall.
- Keyword there is "find"
  If your hobby is trawling second hand and antique stores, yard sales, estate sales and online classifieds looking for just the perfect high quality but affordable end tables that match your decor. Then go on with your bad self, I bet your house looks sweet.
  I can go onto the Ikea website, find some cabinets that will do the job, I can check the measurements, pick my color, click a few buttons and they arrive at my house in a few days.
  
  Yeah and you can find second-hand IKEA furniture for even cheaper.
  
  If you can find 2nd hand stuff that you like for cheap then go nuts.
  I've got a garage full of 2nd hand stuff that I can't even give away on FB marketplace because nobody likes the look of it.
  IKEA has never been poor quality. It serves its purpose in the market and people seem to like the designs.
  
  If you're adamant about that, then I guess this largely depends on where you live. Outside of one lucky find in a furniture charity shop I haven't had that luxury, not to mention that you don't get to choose what furniture you're getting there.
  
  Because that would be an apples to oranges comparison, even if it had any basis in reality.
  
  I see you are in Germany, like myself, I tried other options momax, XXLutz and some others with very bad results. Yes, there are other more local brands but they are considerably expensive in comparison. Ikea has provided reliable and compact furniture, easy to move when changing apartments. Most of the second hand furniture I find is actually Ikea stuff in decent condition. I'm open to trying again with other brands and will do but my experience with Ikea has not been bad as described by the meme
  But that is just my opinion.
  
  Not sure why you're being downvoted, maybe it's because you keep replying second-hand without giving more information on that? Where are you looking? How are you finding it?
  
  Yeah... about that.
  This is representative of what I find when I look for anything second hand: https://lansing.craigslist.org/fuo/d/alma-beautiful-barn-wood-accent-table/7646902627.html
  Note that this is about an hour drive each way.

It absolutely does not cost the same price as the properly made alternative. Noooo way.
Flat pack stuff like that is way, way cheaper, thus why people buy it.
- Also, you can bring home a full armoire in a hatchback. Real wood furniture is large and heavy, and requires specialized equipment to get it up to an apartment.
  Having antique furniture is like owning an upright piano. It probably has sentimental value, and will outlive humanity with minimal maintenance, but not everyone has the space for it, and when it comes time to relocate it, you realize why furniture went flatpack.
  
  Real talk, I fit an Ikea mattress, slats, bedframe, and a weeks' worth of groceries in my Ford Focus hatch when I was moving into an apartment in college. Meanwhile I had to rent a U-Haul for the 60 year old dresser passed down from my parents, because it wouldn't fit in my car or either of their SUVs.

I make and restore wood furniture. I have taken plenty of “all wood” furniture apart, repaired it, or just salvaged whatever actual wood scraps I could find.
Whatever idiot wrote this has no idea how expensive true wood furniture is. There is hardly ANY actual wood furniture in the market, PERIOD. You think it’s wood, but it’s veneered ply or fiberboard. That is the state of the entire industry, not just IKEA. This is a simple fact of life in a world that has already been heavily deforested even before all 8 BILLION PEOPLE currently living were born. Wood is precious. You also don’t need solid wood for your fucking nightstand. So maybe you should buy a nightstand made out of the particleboard that is waste product from milling lumber for other uses, like construction. That’s called using everything, wasting nothing. It’s sustainable.
There is nothing wrong with IKEA furniture for most people’s everyday needs. And you are not going to get a 150-year all wood piece for the same price. LOL fuck no. When you are in your 40s and have made it big time you can go to a craft furniture maker and get a solid oak bedroom set. It will cost more than your first car did.
IKEA furniture does not fall apart in 3 years, either. I’m about to go get my pajamas out of the IKEA dresser I’ve had since 2001. It won’t last centuries like a real craftsman made wood dresser. But it’s not 3 year garbage either, and looks and works like the day I bought it, despite me using it daily for 22 years and moving it between at least 4 houses in that time.
IKEA furniture is good for what it is and very cheap. One of the reasons it’s cheap is that it is flat packed for efficient shipping. Assembly by the customer also saves cost. And seriously, if you can’t figure out the IKEA instructions, you must not be trying very hard.
- And seriously, if you can’t figure out the IKEA instructions, you must not be trying very hard.
  You missed the part where the same idiot posting stupid misunderstandings about the furniture market is the one trying to assemble the furniture. They're working their ass off trying to assemble that nightstand, but it's too damn complicated. Just opening the box took years off their life.
- Sounds 'bout right.

OP has clearly never priced out solid wood furniture. A single mission-style sofa--by which I mean something made using Gustav Stickley's plans--will typically retail for well over $3000 US. ...Such as this version--from the original Stickley company--that has an MSRP of >$9000
- OPs whole shit is wrong, honestly. I have a house furnished on quite a lot of Ikea shit that's been going strong for 10ish years through multiple moves? Though I don't disagree that I'd rather have better materials like real wood that can be refinished and really can last a century, that is not happening for anywhere near Ikea prices.
- Exactly what I’m thinking, can furnish a whole place for a price of some of these solid wood furniture.
- That's what I was thinking too. Like, where can I get a nice, sturdy couch for under $800 USD?
  
  Sometimes on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist, or similar. If you like mid-century modern, and are willing to reupholster, you can often find 50 year old pieces at estate sales and such. But new? Ain't happening.

For the same price
Lol
- OP has clearly never purchased furniture

Where do you get wooden furniture for the same price?
- @SachMalChris
  @to55
  cheaper, not the same price ... and it's in the thrift stores. I love buying old shit and refurbishing to my liking, it's fin, it's good for the enviroment, your wallet and it's unique. Not gonna find my coffee table in any floorroom and that bitch would break a mofos back
- Well, I’m in a third would country and wood furniture is cheaper than ikea for sure. Even custom made stuff is not that expensive sometimes.
- I don't think it's fair to compare brand new unassembled Ikea furniture to used furniture found on a marketplace. Compare the price of used Ikea furniture with new Ikea furniture, or new Ikea furniture with new non-ikea furniture.
  Used goods being cheaper isn't a surprise.
  
  Nice, I have absolutely nothing like that within my area.
  I used to keep an eye on the marketplace sites for a while, but after a few months gave up because there was usually fuck all good furniture and the good deals get snapped up instantly.
  Dealers spend all day watching these market places (I’ve met at least five in my local area), the second they see a deal they jump on it, then post it back on with a 500% markup.
  
  It’s mostly Ikea furniture on the marketplace sites in my area lol
  
  That "bureautje" thing looks like the random crap furniture my grandmother had in her house.
  
  The first one is absolutely hideous, I wouldn't want that in my house.
  The second one doesn't even look too be solid wood, but rather engineered wood with a veneer - I don't see how that's any different than IKEA.
  I love real wood furniture as much as the best person, I have some myself, but your post here does not help the point you're trying to make

Speak for yourself, I have multiple IKEA furniture that’s lasted me for 10 years. You just have to be careful and take care of your stuff.

The massive wood furniture that lasts two lifetimes is only as cheap as the IKEA counterpart if you do it all by yourself, in your own little woodshop, and only need to pay for glue, nails, hinges, and electricity. And still only of you Include felling and milling the trees on your own.
Some years ago, I wanted one wall of the living room done with a custom-made, wall filling book shelf. Estimated cost by the carpenter: 7000. I paid about 3000 for IKEA furniture and other materials and did two walls of shelves instead of just one, suspended the ceiling, ran a ton of wires and redid the whole living room electrical and communication infrastructure. Yes, all that for half the price quoted by the carpenter. Guess what? None of the furniture has broken down so far. And I don't expect it to.
- Carpenters build house frames, cabinetmakers build furniture.
  
  Is it legit $7,000 for a big wall filling bookshelf?
  Sounds insane.
  Like who would ever buy that service?

No idea what that guy's talking about. I bought a bunch of furniture from Ikea 15 years ago and all of it is still standing. Even the flimsy-looking chairs.
- Yea, there are a couple tiers of ikea quality, and it’s clearly reflected in the price.
  I spent $600 on a king size tufted headboard and box spring set and it’s been a tank for 10 years. I bought a $400 tv console and it’s similarly been a tank for 12 years.
  I bought a cheap table for my dorm room and it didn’t survive the year.
  
  I bought a £30 coffee table from IKEA and it lasted me 6 years and 6 house moves. Only reason I got rid of it is because the flat I moved into had the exact same one already
- You expect to coherent points from 4chan? Everyone's an idiot on that platform. Case and point they are arguing for a completely disprovable point.

In the UK before Ikea, it was MFI (colloquially known as 'Made For Idiots') that was even lower quality chipboard horrible furniture.
Yes, Ikea isnt some handcrafted solid wood furniture but until most people can afford that stuff, it will do.
- Yeah what's with this idea that solid wood furniture costs the same as IKEA's equivalent. That's just not true. If it was no one would buy IKEA furniture so it's obviously not true.
  Mr green text is a lying git.
  
  I bought one piece of real furniture and the only reason we could afford it was because it was made by a dude as his hobby and he was selling practically for cost. And even then I had to really commit that I wanted that walnut dresser. Internals are still MDF btw.

I actually like putting the flat packs together. It's like Lego for adults.
Sue me.
- They don’t use text in the instructions, just pictures. This lets them print the same instructions book for all the hundred countries they sell in. But it can make assembly just a little bit more tricky. This is the only even moderately challenging part, but like you say it’s usually fun.
  
  Have you tried putting furniture with written instructions together? IKEA is a million times easier because they show you right in the pictures what you gotta do, instead of trying to explain it in words.

My IKEA wardrobe survived 3 moves and 10 years so far and it's almost a good as new

In my experience, it's a choice between decent Ikea shelves that don't sag after a few years of use and super shitty Walmart furniture that falls apart in about 6 months.
Aside from the price of good quality wooden furniture, it's heavy as hell which is rough when you're a renter and moving every few years. There's also a lot of wooden furniture, old or new, is just as poorly constructed with peeling veneer and failing staples. Not everyone has the time, money, or space to fix that up.
And all that being said, Ikea isn't really that expensive for what it is. Their soft furnishings and decorative items seem overpriced, but their storage products (mostly what I get from them) are pretty decently priced. Yeah I've had my issues with missing parts and shitty customer service, but all in all my experience has been positive enough to keep going back.
I still want to get a couple really nice, high quality items, but I'm not going to break the bank every time I need a bookshelf.
- Not to mention, they do sell actual nice solid furniture for decent prices. For example, my current dining table from Ikea is solid wood, not veneered particle board, and was less than $200 dollars. I'll gladly take the 5 minutes it took to screw the legs on for a decent piece of furniture at that price.
  I also have a few of those adjustable metal shelves from Ikea, which have been sitting on my balcony for two years now, exposed to the elements, with not a single spot of rust on them. Those were about half the price of comparable shelves from a big box store, which rusted out in less than a year.
  Sure Ikea sells some cheap crap that disintegrates if you look at it wrong, and that sucks, but if you're just a little more selective about what you buy there, you can get stuff that'll last at a very reasonable price.

... What? I have Ikea furniture that's lasted 10+ years, through 5+ moves including disassembly and reassembly every time. Nothing took more than 20 minutes to assemble, and I definitely believe this furniture can outlive me.
- The IKEA shelves in the studio are about 30 years old, moved twice, and are still fine.
- You have to remember, you bought that quality 10 years ago though, to play devils advocate

Flat pack stuff has been around much longer then IKEA. The real wood stuff was great, but heavy and inconvenient to transport. That's why the flat pack stuff caught on so fast.
- Particle board is heavier than un-processed wood. Ikea does sell some stuff made from actual wood if you look for it. I bought an unfinished pine table from them for $60 a few years ago.
  
  That's just false. Particle board is without a doubt less dense than actual wood.
  
  No it isn’t. Particle board is not one product, first of all. It comes in all kinds of material compositions, densities, and coatings.
  Yes, 3/4” sheet of MDF is heavier than plywood. Heavier than a panel made from construction wood species. Not necessarily heavier than hardwood.
  But IKEA furniture is not made from MDF. The particle board they use is something far lighter and full of tiny voids where MDF has none.

I’ve got an Ikea couch I bought fifteen years ago that’s made a move across the US three times. I have two kids in their teens. The couch is still in good shape. I also have an entertainment center/TV stand that I bought from them 10 years ago from Ikea that’s in great shape.
The couch cost me $250, the TV stand cost me $50.
The myth of crappy Ikea furniture is overblown.
- That's cheap! I paid $800 for a sectional sofa from a scratch and dent markdown furniture store. It was among the cheapest furniture they had. And it had slight cosmetic damage.

I can spend a good deal of time criticizing Ikea but on one thing I can't: their furniture is incredibly easy to copy and upgrade into a better version with minimal effort.
I took the time to break down, piece by piece, in a crazy exercise of reverse engineering, a love seat, to understand how they had designed and put together the thing.
After that, I sat to run the "numbers" and realised I could make it cheaper, sturdier and add storage room to it, with minimal modifications to the basic plan.
It was very interesting to discover.
- I mean sure but then it sounds like you’re already a woodworker with the proper tools. Most people aren’t that.
  
  I'm not. Far from that.
  In fact, I live in a country where being a carpenter is not even a hobby and traditional, small scale carpentry shops are very uncommon.
  We had a very strong push to shift the country towards services and white collar professions during the 80s and 90s.
  For myself, whatever little "carpentry" I know comes from personal curiosity. What I do is use the services of a carpenter to do what I can't, which is usually the cutting and rough fitting of parts, and I do the finishing, like sanding, stain, varnish, etc, which is also the most expensive and labor intense but requires less tools.
- You don't have to pay for R&D, warehousing, shipping, marketing, etc.
  The only thing you don't get is bulk rates on the parts. But the parts themselves are cheap.
  
  Correct

As someone that worked in a cabinet shop for years, all mass produced furniture is going to be basically the same quality as what you buy from IKEA. It just feels cheap when you do it yourself.

It, like most things, wasn’t expensive. You used to have to pay a shit ton for anything that wasn’t custom made. Then Ikea came along and created massive competition and variety for the furniture market. Yes, now other brands are better, but that’s because they had to compete with Ikea

You'll notice most responses in this thread are saying "5+ years ago, 10+ years ago, 15+ years ago" but if you check out IKEA prices and quality post-Romanian wood poaching bust, and post-Ukraine/Russia war, it's like night and day.
A couch in 2021 was $799 USD for a 3 piece sectional, now it's $1599 USD, and their entire "Solid Wood" search category has been replaced by "Wood + Particle Board + Veneer / Wood-like finish", as their solid wood category was removed. Now you have to discern every piece by eye and material quality.
Most of the furniture in my home is from IKEA, but imo it's gone dramatically downhill and will probably continue to do so.
- Everything's going up in price though, seems redundant to cover Ikeas inflation without reflecting what its done to the solid wood industry as well.
  For me the modability of Ikea is ideal(ikeahacks). I definitely prefer function over form most of the time so easy to move and adapt Lego furniture is really cool. And I genuinely don't understand how people break so much furniture if it's not meant to be slept or sat on...
- Enshittification doesn't just apply to online things.
- Find any cool new places or sellers that are better?

- Bought 2 billy bookcases for £20 each in 1991, and moved them a couple of dozen times, including moving country twice. Last month I disassembled them and used the pieces to make wall shelves in the pantry of the house I bought 2 years ago. That's some longevity.
- Let me guess, her drawer was too full and as she opened/closed it, the clothes broke a crossbeam in half?
- Almost everything in my apartment is from ikea, the only thing that isn't holding very well is the sofa and that was my fault, we changed orientation 4 times and some of the screw holes got to big.
  And even then the sofa is still good, is just kinda crooked if you now where to look

Ikea is good at standardized parts and dimensions, you can often swap pieces around and do more stuff with modularity. Also they're pretty easy to fix when broken. A reinforcing bracket here, an extra screw there, attach it to the studs, there are options.

Not Ikea specific, but proper wood furniture only really makes sense if you're staying somewhere long term, have your own house, etc. If you have to move every couple of years for work, because rent is getting too expensive, etc etc, solid wood furniture is really inconvenient and expensive to transport.

Man I dunno about that. IKEA furniture lasts forever. I still have furniture that I bought from them decades ago.
- Yeah it's not bad for the price. There are always exceptions, and particle board struggles with humidity, but for most use cases most of the time, Ikea nails price/performance.

Real wood furniture is heavy, hard to sell, and expensive to buy. It requires a guarantee of long term housing or a disregard for the long term nature of the furniture.
Ikea is(somewhat) cheap, functional, can be broken down and moved in a car, and when your lease is up, so is your particleboard coffee table.
- I have an antique entertainment cabinet that I nicknamed "the burden" that was given to me for my first apartment. It's heavy as all fuck, has tried to kill me everytime I've moved, doesn't fit a TV larger than like 32", and nobody wants to buy it. It makes a great piece for an aquarium setup, but has now been relegated to storing junk since I had to give up the aquarium
  I'm moving at the end of the month for the first time in a decade, and it sure as hell ain't coming with me. I'll try to sell it, I'll give it away, or I'll trash it; but it will no longer be my burden. Hopefully someone wants to come get it, because it really might last forever and I'd hate to see it just trashed. But I refuse to be it's keeper any longer
  
  I've acquired far too much furniture I'd like to keep in my current apartment and I'm terrified of having to move. I'm terrified to hire movers which will trash everything, terrified of the stress of loading my own truck and dealing with the post move out nonsense. I moved like 9 times in a 5 year span during college and it never got easier. I hate it more every time.
  No one wants to buy the furniture in a timely manner, you cant buy anything cheaper to replace it.
  
  Why’d you give up your aquarium?

In the early 90s I bought a second hand IKEA twin bed. It has survived a transatlantic move and is still around.

The meatballs man. It's all in the meatballs.
- Ikea is actually a kötbullar store with a furniture side hustle.
- Counterpoint, the meatballs aren't better than grocery store brand frozen meatballs.
  You've been meatballed!
  
  They just taste better because they are the one damn thing you don't have to assemble yourself.
- Fuck that IKEA is to Swedish cousine what chipotle is to Mexican cousine

- Clothing and furniture is overproduced as hell; evidence: Festivals, urban pavements, informal dumping grounds, wood waste power plants, clothing markets in South Western Africa.

Ever heard of the IKEA effect ?
- Beat me to it.

Is this why IKEA isn't that popular here? Because I can get IKEA quality at Wal-Mart?
- IKEA is a lot better quality than Walmarts build-your-own furniture. I have both. The IKEA stuff is a lot more dense, the connections are more precise and stronger, and overall the IKEA stuff is just better quality.
- I found my long lost brother

If I saw something clever...

I've only been to an IKEA once, and I've never bought their furniture, but my best guess is the meatballs.
On a semi-related note, if you haven't read the book Horrorstör by Grady Hendrix, you really should.

The problem is any of the stuff like shelving or say a load bearing surface like a desk. Those flat surfaces are almost always MDF or whatever cheap engineered wood products IKEA uses. The furniture looks nice initially, especially for the price, but the horizontal surfaces always sag after 2-3 years even under low weight. I have a dresser, a desk, and shelving that all developed this problem and some of the shelves barely have anything on them.
- Weird, I've had some IKEA dressers and bookshelves for a decade that have been completely fine.
  
  Same here, most of my flat is ikea stuff and they've been going strong for 10 years. I don't buy the cheapest options at ikea but still, a kallax will easily last you that much if you don't jump on it. Only thing I don't recommend is mattress.
- I've had my Billy bookshelf for 20 years, always stocked full with books and never did any of the shelves sag. Same for my ikea desk that's used every day.

I like to ask anyone when they say they went to IKEA "did you have to build your own exit to leave?", it makes me chuckle

I like their designs but their materials for desks are crap
- mine is steel and some sort of plastic/polymer for the top, its by far the best desk ive ever owned.
  
  Yeah mine the surface started getting seamed and bulging within a year.
- I have one of their cheapest desktops with like third from the bottom tier legs and it's been going strong for about 8 years because it's in a low traffic area and only used for a laptop and a few desktop items. Is it made of cardboard and tin and good intentions? Yes. Will it crumble like a stale cookie if I ever damage it in any way whatsoever? Also yes. But so far so good, and for $40, it's already lasted like 5 years longer thsn i thought it would when i bought it.
  On the other end of the spectrum, I used to have their ALEX desk and it was sturdy as hell, and my old JERKER was a fucking tank. Only reason I don't still have them is I needed to downsize.
  You spend bottom dollar, you get junk. But, Ikea's "junk" will still outlast damn near anything else you can find at the same price point. Like shit, I have some of those cheapass LACK side tables I got in college that are nearly through their teens now and still hanging in there. Not everything has fared as well, and I'm much more discriminating and scrutinous in my purchases because of that, but overall I'd say I've been generally satisfied with the longevity:price ratio, and often pleasantly surprised. There are very few stores about which I would say that.

I bought an IKEA desk that caved in when I attached my monitor mount to it. That said, the legs were good enough and made of metal so I just bought a piece of timber to be the desk top and attached the IKEA legs

Their big bags are really good for hauling stuff

Is this true tho? We don't have any IKEA furniture in my house, so the 2-lifetime claim is definitely true.
- Almost all furniture in my room is Ikea (except the table which is custom) and the 3 year claim is definitely wrong.
  We even own our Ikea kitchen for over 12 years now and it still isn't broken at all. The only thing that broke in that time is the oven at the beginning of this year.
- I have a two decades old ikea shelf that is just fine.
- Bought my Ikea kitchen when moving into this house 17 years ago. Got a new one this year because of water damage due to a leaking pipe. Most of the stuff was still in good condition though.
- It isn't. I have a bunch of ikea furniture because I'm not really settled in where I live, so it's nice and easy and lightweight to take apart and move every 3 years. For one, it absolutely isn't that expensive, and it's pretty good quality. My oldest pieces are two kallax units that were already second hand when I bought them 6 years ago, and they're still in the exact same condition as when I bought them, even through 3 moves. The only thing I'm disappointed about are a couple of wooden folding chairs because the horizontal slats tend to get loose and fall out, but you can just pop them back in in 5 seconds. It's obviously not as good as high quality non-ikea furniture, but if you (have to) move often and don't have much money, it's just a good and practical choice.
- Absolutely untrue.
  Ikea is not the same grade as custom made real wood furniture, that is true. But it is exponentially cheaper and easier to transport. And on top of that, speaking specifically about Ikea vs other similar options, it is roughly the same cost but in my experience higher quality.
  If you go buy flat pack consumer-assembled furniture from a big box store like target or Walmart, in my experience you've got at least a 40-50% chance that you are missing a piece, it's damaged, the instructions are shit, etc. Since we started buying stuff at IKEA I have done quite a few builds. Never once have I even had a missing piece. But on top of that the quality control on the machining and fit of parts is head and shoulders better than equivalent options from other big box stores. I never have to force things, they fit as designed, etc.
  I'm not here to say Ikea is super high quality furniture compared to real, heirloom quality furniture. But it's laughable to claim that it doesn't occupy a very useful and necessary niche between real furniture and Walmart crap.

How did they do it??
Oh that's simple. Ikea founder sold his soul to the devil. He didn't included the assembly manual though and thus Ikea still functions.