As always when I am looking for advice on furniture I turn to an automotive website.
My wife and I are looking for couches. The prices at Ikea look great but I worry that they will only last for a couple of years. I know the furniture you assemble works fine if you don’t use but I haven’t had one of their couches. Your thoughts would be welcomed.
Also I am looking for wall color ideas for my garage……..kidding
My daughter sleeps on an Ikea bed. It's been about eight years and the bed is in fine shape even though it's a lightweight, adjustable type (it was the cheapest bed we could find to elevate her a bit to fight against asthma-related problems). OTOH my daughter is a cute little thing, so it's not like the bed has been abused.
Crap, sorry, no way around it. They do have replaceable slip covers though.
Much better off going to a local furniture warehouse and digging around in the back on returns or partial sets and haggling then selling on Craigslist when you don't need it.
I like our ikea bed. dont have one of the couches yet though, but more than likely will be getting one when we make the move (asap hopefully, not looking forward to my new 100+ mile round trip daily commute)
I disagree on the unilateral crap statement. We've got a bunch of IKEA furniture. The flat pack particleboard stuff is just that and doesn't tolerate being moved very well. However we had an IKEA sleeper sofa that lasted through 15 hard years with 2 heavy adults and 2 kids jumping on it. Yeah, it was dead when we replaced it, but it was only about $750 new.
All 4 of us are sleeping on IKEA beds too, in regular US mattress sizes.
Depending on the assembly, they live longer if you tighten them up once in a while.
If you are looking for a minimalist, college student look then go for it. But everyone who enters your house will know you bought it at Ikea.
If you are looking for a latex mattress, they do have the best prices around. They don't have fancy covers, but who cares. They are single stage, single slabs of latex with an unknown firmness index (Latex is great in that unlike other types of mattresses, they comes in standard firmness levels with an ILD rating so that you can shop easier).
Single stage simple means you won't find a twin layers of different density material, plush top mattress at Ikea.
You can't get any oddball sizes like Twin XL, but if you don't need that then you don't have to worry.
We have a bunch of Ikea stuff (combined with some antiques, go figure).
The trick with Ikea is to avoid their cheap stuff and go for at least the mid-price funiture.
Bought a ton of IKEA's solid wood offerings. No complaints here.
I've had their cheap loveseat and cheap chairs for ages now. The loveseat is fine, no complaints. I really like the chairs - they fit me perfectly. They've held up to a good amount of abuse - parties, pets, moves...um...activities....
^I've replayed that clip about 5 times now, and it still makes me chuckle 
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I seem to remember we arrived at a pro-Ikea consensus during the last Ikea thread.
We've had IKEA bookcases for 25 years and they're full of books. We also have a couple of the Poang chairs. They're really comfortable and guaranteed for 25 years,too. The kitchen chairs are 30 years old. We buy there,but you do have to watch the construction of some of the stuff. I didn't like their couches the last time we were shopping for one because the backrests were all shorter than I wanted. I do like to lay my head back and nap.
You can buy crap in pretty much any store, and I'm sure Ikea is no exception. My (limited) experience with them has been very positive. I agree with the statement above regarding the avoidance of anything on the bottom end of their offerings. Look the stuff over. You can generally get a good sense of what will hold up and what will fall apart just by looking.
Recently bought a sectional couch from Overstock.com for pennies on the dollar. It is pretty cheap construction, but looks good from 5 feet away and since the dogs are allowed on it and the kids turn it into a fort every other day, we know it will only last a few years anyway.
