this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2025
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How do we feel about IKEA? (piefed.ca)
submitted 6 days ago by Sunshine@piefed.ca to c/buyeuropean@feddit.uk
29 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I haven't been to one of their stores before.

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[โ€“] rbn@sopuli.xyz 41 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

One aspect I like about Ikea is that they brought some level of standardization and continuity to furniture. I can get used Ikea stuff from several sellers and easily combine it. For a lot of stuff that's decades old, I can still get new accessories, spare parts etc.

And there's a big community around Ikea stuff to creatively repurpose and adjust their products (often referred to as Ikea Hacks), almost giving it a feeling of open source to me.

It's still a huge capitalist company with all of the typical downsides, but I think with only lots of small, local players ressource consumption might be even worse overall without having the advantages above.

So overall, I tend to like Ikea while still trying to avoid unnecessary overconsumption.

[โ€“] Cherry@piefed.social 7 points 6 days ago

Well written. I agree the adaptability, abilility to maintain and way alternate pieces string together make picking up send hand pieces viableโ€ฆit helps under consumption.

I do like ikea but the amount of plastic and tat it produces does leave me shunning it in the last 10 years.

[โ€“] dynamoMaus@feddit.org 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

There are still some local carpenters that do really good stuff for a lifetime

[โ€“] rbn@sopuli.xyz 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Absolutely. And I'm definitely not promoting to buy from Ikea rather than local carpenters. I'm just saying that both have their pros and cons, even if we ignore the price.

I'm pretty sure that resource consumption is more efficient if you build at a larger scale.

Furthermore, I'd say that most people's requirements change over time: Families grow, families shrink, rooms are repuposed, people move to another city etc. Not in all these cases, you can buy for a lifetime. And that's what I meant with the standardization aspect. If I own a simple Ikea shelf (like Ivar), I can easily convert the shape, size etc. years after the initial purchase by just buying/exchanging a few parts. And the leftover parts are quite easy to sell or give away as there are many people out there using exactly the same system.