Dad Jokes

I don't agree with how he's been responding so far, but I've got some Ikea that's over 20 years and 10 house moves (three coast-to-coast) old. One piece has stood up really well.

In general, though, as the son of a cabinet maker's son with no ability whatsoever, I can easily see these pieces are sub-par. Beaver-chow with the cheap veneer throughout, so a drop of water spells eventually doom for them; or just thin, thin real wood.

My mom has downsized recently, and the only pieces of furniture she has now are the handed-down wooden desk and tables and whatnot you'd expect; but they're all 200 years old.

Ikea may last a decade or two, but they are cheap materials that we cannot reasonably expect to last much longer than 2 years or a house move. In that way, they're incredibly wasteful.

In the same sense that cheap fares have driven up the cost of real seats as luxuries and also cheapened the in-flight options and the entire experience of flying, Ikea's cheap goods have pushed the price of real equivalents up into the stratosphere, and has cheapened everything about acquiring furniture to keep and use for generations.