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>Ikea furniture is not wood it's crap particleboards

My kitchen table is from Ikea, it's solid wood. My Poang chair from Ikea came with a 10 year guarantee and I expect it to last longer than that. This idea that everything that comes out of Ikea is barely going to make it home is nonsense.

Of course if you buy a side table for £6 then you can't expect it to last long. That isn't representative of the whole though.

I went to IKEA when I was building a kitchen - solid wood counter top was an option but wasn't cheaper than hiring local custom kitchen company for similar materials and I had them design a metal frame arround the kitchen island in the dimensions that couldn't be done with IKEA. My point being IKEA isn't much cheaper when you account for materials and you usually get better flexibility elsewhere.

IKEA is like McDonald's of furniture, there's a place for it, but like the McDonald's fancy burger options if you're going for that you'll have significantly better options for a bit more money

> wasn't cheaper than hiring local custom kitchen company for similar materials

Only if you value your time at 0. If you value your time at more than that, the time it takes to get a contractor and back and forth with him to agree on a design etc makes it more expensive, since with Ikea you pretty much opt into a generic solution of one-size-fits-all.

I agree it's not for everyone; though I wouldn't say it's the McDonalds of furniture – this would IMO be Poco (https://www.poco.de/); also I'm saying that as someone who doesn't eat McDonalds :-D

IKEA is McDonald's in terms of global presence and consistency and catering towards budget spectrum

I bought two Poang chairs roughly 20 years ago, and they are still fine. Wonderful product.

> Ikea furniture is not wood it's crap particleboards, cheap plastic, etc. - repairing that looks terrible.

Depends a lot on the line. Eventually one figures it out.

I love the Hemnes line for example: the design suits my tastes and it's all 100% wood – from the smell of it I guess pine.

Regarding the paint job, that can be the case, though I wouldn't know as I normally get them in raw wood. Sometimes I overpaint them myself with a different color.

Hemnes is pine; see materials section under product details: https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/hemnes-chest-of-8-drawers-white...

> "Ikea furniture is not wood it's crap particleboards"

There are different tiers of furniture at IKEA. Cheap lines made of particle board. More pricey ones made of good quality solid wood. Middle priced stuff that's somewhere in between.

> Good luck breaking the steel beam bed frame :)

Depends entirely on the quality of the welds!

An old rented flat had metal dining chairs. Eventually the welds on the back rests broke and they started popping off. Nothing I can do about that, as much as I would like an excuse to buy a tig welder...

My parents have wooden furniture which has been in the family for 100+ years and repaired many times.

> I bought a work desk that would scratch from moving a monitor on it and has wear marks from resting my hands.

And I'm working on a desk that I picked up 15 years ago and it's still in great condition even after daily use.

With IKEA you get what you pay for. If you want quality IKEA furniture, you can get it. But it won't be that cheap.