We sold our house and are moving in about 2 weeks. Here's the thing we are in desperate need of some new furniture. I need to get my DD a bedroom suite, I need one too. We also need living room furniture. Well, I was pricing furniture and OMG! Just to get 2 mid line suites would run us a minimum of $2500. So I got to thinking, there is an IKEA less than 2 hours away, plus you can buy on line, so I started browsing their site. Well I found some great stuff and could get 2 bedroom suites, a chest of drawers for the boys and a complete living room for $3000. On the site it looks wonderful, but I've never had any dealings with their products. My question is who on here has? Is their stuff durable? I don't want to have to buy my DD any more furniture, I want this to be it till she gets what ever as an adult. I have always heard people talk about their stuff, but always in generalities. If I were to buy a sofa, do you think it would last 10 years? Anyone who has purchased furniture from them, please give your opinion. I am just looking for a frugal answer to my needs, but not at the expense of quality. Spending $3000 now to have to spend twice that in 5 years in not smart, so I wanted to ask. TIA

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~*JAMI*~ GO RED SOX! WORLD CHAMPIONS!

We are in Germany and we shop in IKEA every now and then so far we never have any problems. I don't know about furniture for kids. But we have gotten a small couch. Over here its hard and very low to the ground but I like it. From what I hear IKEA its a pretty good place to get things. Its cheaper too.

I wouldn't shop online at IKEA...it's very expensive to ship. It would be cheaper for you to drive and pick everything up. You can even rent an Enterprise Cargo Van, for about $30 per day (no mileage) and pick things up that way. Also you'll have to sit on, look at all the furniture in person I would imagine! You wouldn't want to spend a lot of money just on pictures from a website...

IKEA has some nice things and it has some, not so nice, things...you definately get what you pay for. Their solid wood furniture stands up very well IMO. Some of their upholstered furniture isn't comfortable IMO, so that's why I'm thinking you might want to head out to your IKEA and sit on their couches, sit on their chairs...figure out what you want etc They also have a limited variety of fabrics for many of their cheaper pieces...

I think you definetely get what you pay for. The stuff I have purchased from IKEA is stuff I am going to want to replace in a short amount of time. I love IKea and have got a lot of great deals. I have only bought a small amount of furniture from them and have not had it very long, so I can't really comment on how long it lasts, but you can definetely tell the quality is less than what we used to have (replaced it with IKEA because I wanted soemthing that took up less space) but it was cheaper than our old furniture too. Personally though if I was going to buy something for my kids that I wanted to last for a long time, I wouldn't buy it at IKEA.

I think several years ago their quality wasn't as good as it is now. I wouldn't call it top of the line by any means, but I do have a cabinet and two upholstered chairs in my home.

The chairs are wearing well but we don't use them every day. If I had kids that used them daily, I don't think they would last 10 years. That being said though, I have a good couch from Sears that started to look like crap after 3 years and I spent $2300 on it!

I would go to the store and try out the pieces that you are interested in. I don't think you can say for sure how long they will last. I guess it depends on the piece, as well as how much they are used.

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I've gotten a few pieces of furniture from IKEA including:

something similar to the Poang chair, it's comfy

my dining room table and chairs (fosby) it's a soft wood so it has lots of knicks and dings in it now but otherwise nice and sturdy, they don't seem to have the chairs I got but they had an X in the back and out of 4 of them 2 of the X's have gotten busted.

IKEA | Storage furniture | Bookcases | HENSVIK Emily has this bookcase and I'm really pleased with it.
The last thing I can thing of is a small chest of drawers and that DOES NOT hold up well, they front of the one drawer really hasn't stayed on since day one. It was on clearance so no big loss!

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Amanda
Mommy to Zack & Emily

I have a bedroom suit, and some lamps that I bought at Ikea, My bedroom suit is holding up well, they are not real wood but it looks clean and modern, dh and I bought all of the furniture about 3 years ago and it has so far not worn or broken. The only thing is that their beds do not hold box springs and the matresses are not as comfortable, but they are worth the price, I just use my feather bed on top of the mattress. I am moving and plan on getting some more things from IKEA I would recommed Ikea to anyone.

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CaRtEr
April 19, 2008

IKEA is awesome, they have a lot of great stuff and the prices are terrific for the most part.

BUT it sounds like you want REAL furniture and I would not recommend IKEA for that. I think it is more for kids' stuff or college/newlywed things that only need to last for a few years. The items seem quite trendy as well, another reason they won't last 10+ years.

Also, you have to put everything together yourself. The furniture we bought was hard to put together because the holes and pieces didn't quite line up...

We've loved the furniture we have bought from them, but we have only bought the real wood stuff.

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~Vicki~
Mama to Hailey, 4 and Ella, 2

Personally I have never gotten any furniture from Ikea. I have tried to in the past but every time I find something I like in their catalog or online- it is never in the store! My friend however has a lot of furniture from there- the couch was pretty- but not really all that comfortable. The drawers they had are still in decent shape (I believe that they are over 5 years old).

Everytime I go there however, I find something cute for in my house! My last purchase was a lmap!