What Material Is Ikea Furniture Made Of – Ikea is known for producing affordable Scandinavian modern furniture, but not all of the store’s flat-pack offerings seem to stand the test of time. The store may get a bad rap for pieces that fall apart after a move or lose their shine at the first instance of wear. But the Swedish furniture giant actually has a number of high-quality, sturdy items that even your most design-obsessed friends will admire. You just need to know what to look for.
Whether you’re furnishing your first living room or looking to upgrade a tired bedroom set, here are some expert tips and tricks from Jules Yap, founder of Ikea Hackers, and interior designer Jen Chu for spotting the best Ikea designs. . —without being overwhelmed.
What Material Is Ikea Furniture Made Of
While online shopping is the most convenient way to peruse Ikea’s 10,000+ products, you’ll get a much better idea of a piece’s construction and material quality if you see it in person. Nothing beats your own experience trying out a piece of furniture when you’re looking for something that will last. If it looks beat up in the showroom, there’s no way it’s going to feel more solid in your own home.
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If you want to be ultra-strategic about your time in the store, browse the Ikea site for a must-see list. That way, you won’t waste time double-checking your bed frame measurements or making sure you don’t miss out on the perfect end table.
While Ikea is probably best known for furniture made of compressed wood chips sandwiched between plastic veneers, just steer clear. The material is notoriously prone to damage, and something as simple as over-tightening a screw could split the fiberboard and leave you with a permanently wobbly bookcase.
“If you want something durable, read the label,” says Yap. “Solid wood is a better bet compared to particle board. Solid wood shelves don’t warp as easily either. Metal is probably next.”
Furniture made of solid wood, preferably a hardwood like oak or acacia, but even a softwood like Swedish pine, will always be stronger than fiberboard. If you can’t choose a more expensive material, consider adding a higher quality component.
Skogsta Chair, Acacia
“Any tabletop takes a lot of abuse, and it sucks when your table top is messed up,” says Chu. “If you’re going to buy a cheap laminate table, cut a piece of glass for the top. Any glass shop can do it, and it’s not very expensive.”
Yap also advises avoiding parts with complicated moving parts. The added complexity creates more chances for failure. “Compare the Olov adjustable leg to a Lerberg easel,” he says. “You know which one wins.”
As with any piece of furniture you are considering buying, check how all the pieces fit together. Simple tenon joints, like the ones that connect the top and sides of Ikea’s Billy Classic Bookcase, aren’t really designed to be taken apart and put back together. In fact, if you were to buy this type of furniture pre-made instead of packaged, those joints would be glued together.
Both Yap and Chu mentioned that running a small bead of glue along the edge of a piece before securing it in place can make a world of difference. “A drop of wood glue before you put in screws or bolts will make furniture 10 times more rigid and wear and tear much better,” Chu says.
Ikea Choosing Materials
If you know you’ll want furniture that may one day fall apart, try to stick with pieces that have stronger joints.
When working with designer partners, Ikea sometimes experiments with different materials and higher-quality construction techniques. The company’s collaboration with Swedish ceramicist Ingegerd Råman resulted in a handcrafted furniture set made of natural fibers woven over steel frames, and Ilse Crawford’s 2015 Ikea collection introduced a series of items made from cork. Ikea’s most recent Delaktig collaboration with British designer Tom Dixon uses aluminum frames.
There is more to Ikea than its furniture. The company “makes great drawer hardware across the board,” says Chu. Swapping out your kitchen handles and knobs for a sleeker Ikea design is a relatively simple way to refresh the look of your kitchen, and they’re durable enough for everyday use.
“Many of the smaller items, such as accessories, bedding, cookware, flatware, and cookware, are true value for money,” Yap explains. “And they are long-lasting.” So when you peruse the store, you shouldn’t feel too bad about buying Ikea housewares on impulse. IKEA is a worldwide furniture store popular for its build-it-yourself furniture. IKEA is named after the initials of the founder, Ingvar Kamprad, and the first letter of his farm and village, Elmtaryd and Agunnaryd. Kamprad began selling furniture in 1947 with the intention of selling it at a very low cost so that more people could buy (Edmonds). Currently, IKEA is mainly focused on its sustainable design rather than DIY furniture design. IKEA is dedicated to conserving raw materials, saving energy, and eliminating as much waste as possible. IKEA obtains its main raw materials (wood and cotton) from sustainable sources and seeks to reduce the use of raw materials and the production of waste by finding alternative materials for their use. IKEA uses a tool called “e-Wheel” to analyze the four stages of a product’s life cycle, which includes resource extraction, production, use and recycling/end of life. It helps to assess the environmental impact of the products they are supplying and to keep track of the use of raw materials (“About IKEA”).
Tips For Buying And Putting Together Ikea Furniture
IKEA did not focus much on its build-it-yourself furniture, but it did receive some criticism from customers that building the furniture was too difficult. However, IKEA does offer a service for people to come and fix it for customers for a small fee (Edmonds). In this perspective, IKEA is less convenient for customers because other furniture stores would already have the furniture in one piece transported to your home (“FAQ”). IKEA seeks to use less raw materials and replace them with other materials to be more sustainable.
Unlike most furniture stores, IKEA puts the price of its product first. Designers then need to look at the entire process of producing the product, from raw materials to the amount of energy use to the delivery system. The designer has to meet the objective of staying within the budget and calculate that the sale of the product will allow him to make a sufficient profit (Edmonds).
The IKEA store setup is smart in trying to get consumers to buy their products. The store walkway guides customers with arrows from the entrance to the long path to the cash register forcing customers to view all IKEA products. They have display rooms for customers to view and then the products are placed later down the walk for customers to purchase and then through the furniture placement location to the checkout line. IKEA furniture tends to sell well at all its locations, and “the average cost per customer on a visit [is] about $85, [which] is also the same across countries” (Edmonds).
IKEA’s two most important raw materials are wood and cotton, and about 50 percent of IKEA’s 9,500 products are made from wood or wood fibers. Wood is considered a good resource when it comes from a sustainable source because it is recyclable and renewable (“Building a sustainable supply chain”). IKEA does not accept illegally logged wood or wood collected from intact natural forests and only accepts wood from high conservation value forests or intact natural forests if it is verified that they are “responsibly managed” (“Raw Materials”). The top five timber supplying countries are Poland, Russia, China, Romania and Sweden (IKEA). In fact, IKEA has its own forestry specialists who share knowledge and trace the wood back to its origins at the suppliers (“Raw Materials”). IKEA seeks to increase the availability of certified wood, specifically in regions of China and Russia, and seeks ways to decrease the use of raw material as well as seek alternative material that prevents resources from becoming scarce (IKEA). IKEA tries to use as much material from each tree trunk as possible. For example, the NORDEN birch table, “introduced in 1998, was probably the first time anyone thought of making furniture out of the gnarled top of birch rather than burning it like firewood or grinding it to produce chipboard” (“Raw Materials”) . The top five tree species used in IKEA products are pine, birch, fir, beech, and oak (IKEA). Another way IKEA is achieving sustainability is by using a new particleboard material (an engineered wood product made from wood chips) specifically for use in furniture. As a result, the raw material of wood was reduced to 85,816 tons and the trucks for transport were reduced to 2,800 fewer per year. This was due to “less weight of the cargo, easier handling of the merchandise for customers and reduction of costs and prices” (“Raw Materials”).
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Cotton is one of IKEA’s most important raw materials and its production requires a lot of water, so IKEA works to find better farming methods to move closer to more sustainable cotton growing and processing.
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