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I have two awesome cast iron dutch ovens from IKEA. Both of them, together, were about a third of the price of similar pieces from Le Creuset. Also, most of my pots and pans are from IKEA, and they've given me years of great service.
Why the hate on for IKEA? They're not Walmart.
I don't hate IKEA, but I'm depressed every time I'm in one of their "stores" (circuses? Purchasing Festival Arenas? Consumerist gulags?). I'm not sure exactly what it is: the crowds, the imperative to consume, the shitty meatballs everyone lines up for anyway... It's just...discomfiting, a weariness of spirit.
I have an IKEA couch (my first ever new piece of furniture) and a few other IKEA objects that I don't hate, but I think I prefer used furniture whenever posible (fleas and bedbugs make used couches and mattresses a problem). I dislike that everyone's apartment seems to look the same nowadays, and that all IKEA furniture should come with an expiry date. Also: if you move, your IKEA dresser ain't coming with you.
It depends on which dresser.
I looked for reasonably priced dressers that did not need a ton of work done to make them usable and not hideous for the wild girls for nearly two years before picking up a pair at the Ikea in Edmonton (trip there was for another reason). They aren't particle board. They're also not top quality, but median range for kids' furniture is fine. The girls will either take them with them when they leave home or they will be donated so someone else gets some wear out of them.
I prefer to buy used furniture - I have re-upholstered a couch and chair, bought an old, used china cabinet that needed some TLC, same with my dining room table, etc, etc. Sadly, you can't always find just the thing you need that way - and garage sales are labour intensive. Also, some of them should be called "garbage sales".
Ikea also has some really good kitchen wares and toys - including art supplies. I like Ikea just fine.
My kid's rooms are furnished with a mix of IKEA and old stuff from my grandparents. We have a few other IKEA items, including IGGY, my shower curtain.
I've never tried the food.
We go to IKEA whenever we're in Edmonchuck; it's exactly like the one in Nantes, which is the first, and only other one, we've been to. I suspect that Mme. Qa'bong associates IKEA with home.
The tram ride out there is interesting. One of the stops is "Chantenay," as in the carrot variety. On one trip a Gypsy was training her four-year old daughter to panhandle (or whatever they call it) from passengers.
How IKEA operates in America
The one in Nantes is just off Salvador Allende boulevard .... I doubt the one in Edmonton is.
Ikea workers in the US have just won union certification. This is one very nasty company. It is interesting that America is now becoming a destination for sweat shop employers because of its lack of employment standards. Ikea markets itself as a corporation that raises labor standards all along its supply chain through its corporate ethics policy.
It's also good news because Virginia is a right-to-work state.
I fucking hate right to work states. That causes such hardship that I actually applaud my Republican Father in Laws employment standards when he had his own store
If people don't like IKEA (for whatever reason), I suggest that the first thing they do is: Don't shop there.
No the first thing to do is change the laws so that there are actual employment standards and workers rights. Its hard for me to engage in boycotts because I buy less than most people and always look for local businesses that treat their employees well. Ikea is not somewhere I would normally shop so my continuing to not shop there is meaningless in trying to ensure this company does not exploit its workers.
My major issue with IKEA and the corporate consumer culture that supports it is the way it is totally divorced from the local economy and ecology.
In a more sensible world, one might imagine pine furniture in Winnipeg not shipped in from 6600 kilometres away. The fact that this goes unnoted astounds me.
The closest thing Edmonton has to an Allende Boulevard is Roper Road. Not sure where that is in relation to the Ikea.
Ikea founder Ingvar Kamprad's Nazi ties 'went deeper'
Yes, Mr Kamprad had more in common with Henry Ford than being a successful entrepreneur with a "system". But I don't think a boycott would be the best way to make amends for that shameful past - they should commit to funding anti-racist initiatives.
I went to the Montréal IKEA for the first time this week - I had bought their MELDAL daybed (black-painted steel, not fibreboard). http://www.ikea.com/fr/fr/catalog/products/10073977 It seems very solid. Secondhand, from someone I know (but still very new). However the mattress wasn't thick enough, since the Meldal has a metal frame in front too and it hits one's legs while sitting on it or getting out of bed with just their original mattress (which is otherwise very comfy). They had a sale on their foam mattresses this week, and they were much cheaper than anything of similar quality at a furniture or mattress store (I checked several). The mattresses come in a roll so the smaller ones can be carried on public transport or at least in a taxi. I have no car and very, very few of my friends have cars any more (we have an excellent carshare service here, CommunAuto, and several have subscriptions) so that is an important factor.
Yes, of course I arrived when the cafeteria was open before the store. The $1 breakfast was fine and the coffee was simply excellent for cafeteria coffee.They also have very clean washrooms and facilities for the parents of small children.
Of course it is obvious that IKEAs are scrupulously designed by experts in the psychology of shopping, starting out with cute tiny things for children. I did manage to buy just one thing other than the mattress, a packet of Swedish almond/ginger cookies that cost half what the same article by a different brand costs at Jean-Talon Market. Those are a nice thing to have if someone should drop by for tea or coffee, and at $1.29, I don't feel like too much a consumerist sucker.
It was raining heavily and a long walk to the nearest bus stop, which would also involve taking my slippery mattress roll down and up the stairs of an underpass of the service roads of le boulevard Métropolitain (Highway 40) so I took a taxi home, which cost me an extra $20 (I had planned for this).
IKEAs everywhere are on the outskirts of cities, and it is not really safe to cycle to the Mtl one from where I live, although Ville St-Laurent is not terribly far and I've often cycled to other parts of it. I know people in the Netherlands and Denmark who take their purchases from there home with their bicycles, but they have cargo bikes as well as normal ones. Here the need for a car runs counter to their purported green business model.
Moreover, I certainly agree that people in Manitoba should be able to buy pine furniture made from wood from their own province or at least somewhere on the Prairies - but IKEA is certainly not the only villain in that absurdity.
They have been anti-union here in Québec too, but unfortunately they are not alone in that. I see no reason they couldn't grant their workers here the same benefits and rights as their workers in Sweden - they are very profitable.