
How Ikea's Billy bookcase took over the world - sohkamyung
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38747485
======
bane
I don't buy much IKEA furniture, very little of it survives even a single
move, and for the price you can find plenty of furniture that does. So it ends
up not being a great investment, except for a few very specific, highly
optimized pieces.

I have 6 Billys and my parents have something like 10. When I worked at a
small startup and needed to fit out some field offices, I bought two things
from the store, a Galant desk and a Billy bookshelf for each employee. Two
Galants turn into a reasonable conference table. The employees loved both, a
simple sturdy desk that doesn't dictate function and a highly customizable
wall, they quickly became filled with all kinds of personalization. Cost per
employee? something like $250.

They lasted for years and when the startup finally sold and closed up, the new
owners didn't want the furniture, so we asked around and found a battered
women's shelter who had just placed a woman and three kids into an apartment.
They had been living without any furniture at all. Suddenly our reception
couch turned into a living room couch, our Galants turned into their dining
room table and our extra chairs turned into their dining room tables. Desk
lamps became living room lamps and torches lit the bedrooms. Billys became
impromptu wardrobes in all the bedrooms. After the move, all they needed were
some mattresses, but they at least had an apartment full of other furniture.
But I came away impressed at the general versatility of the furniture. Nearly
a decade later, that family still has their Billys.

Billys basically get out of the way and turn into walls with storage. I've
never bought the accessories (doors, etc.), but all the ones I know turn into
curio cabinets as much as bookshelves. Nobody really cares much about what
shelves look like, they care about what's on them and in that sense IKEA
nailed it.

I also have a handful of other shelves from various manufacturers and it's
very weird how they get things wrong and how optimized a piece of furniture
the Billy is. It's weird to get so passionate about such a plain looking piece
of furniture, but it's really kind of perfection of form.

~~~
mcv
Your first paragraph seems to contradict the rest of your story.

It's absolutely true that some IKEA stuff is very low quality. Like the Billy:
the shelves of the wide Billy sag when you put too many books on them. But
IKEA also has higher quality furniture from solid wood. More expensive of
course, but also sturdier. They're designing for various quality/price points.

I once had a really sturdy IKEA desk, either Galant or its predecessor. It was
strong enough to stand on with two people. Unfortunately its successor sagged
with a single person leaning against it. I loved that desk, but my wife didn't
like it and felt it was too big.

My main problem with IKEA is that their beds are only 2 meters long. They've
got really comfortable and affordable mattresses that my wife loves, but due
to my height we have to shop for more expensive brands (which are supposed to
be better and more comfortable, but turn out not to be).

~~~
freehunter
>Your first paragraph seems to contradict the rest of your story.

That's intentional. Most of it is junk, except these specific items.

------
computator
There's a disconnect when I look at the price of good furniture compared to
products that are insanely more complicated (laptops, smartphones), heavier
than furniture (motorbikes, snowblowers, lawnmowers), as bulky as flatpack
bookcases (big screen TVs), and need to be shipped even greater distances than
furniture (all my examples would be coming to the U.S. from Asia).

Furthermore, furniture has much less regulation than electronics and motorized
things (so it should be cheaper), furniture needs much less capital (a new TV
manufacturing facility would cost hundreds of millions of dollars), and
designing a new piece of furniture needs a tiny fraction of the engineers and
programmers that any new laptop, TV, or smartphone would require.

I think that good furniture in general is still grossly expensive and I don't
understand where the money is going.

EDIT: I have an example: I have a Sharp 60-inch TV, bought in 2011 for
$1319.99, and weighs 92.6 pounds or 42 kg according to the spec sheet. I also
have a dining room table bought the same year for ~$1200 and which weighs less
than the TV. Considering that the TV is literally a _million times more
complicated_ than the table and that the raw materials of the TV
(sand->silicon->ICs, petroleum->plastics) have undergone vastly greater
transformation than a table (wood, glue, iron->nails), why isn't the TV much
more expensive or the table much cheaper? Both are commodities and both are
made on assembly lines.

~~~
Freak_NL
It's the economy of scale; complexity is mostly a one time upfront cost. Once
you've figured out how to efficiently make a hundred TVs at a time, you know
how to make a million.

For a TV most of the materials and components are either plastic (and thus
light and cheap) or generic silica based stuff that is produced in batches of
millions at a time (electronic components) in the blink of an eye. The most
expensive parts of a TV are probably its screen (complexity) and the copper
wiring (cost of material).

With a wood table the production of all parts takes much more labour, and high
quality wood furniture is usually made of parts that have exact measurements
and specifications for that particular model of table. Wood is also a live
material; no two pieces are alike (this holds true from the unprocessed logs
to the finished table legs). Lumber also needs time to acclimatize, so the
whole resources to product cycle takes a lot longer (increasing storage
costs).

Also, unless you are Ikea, a globally operating corporation can sell a lot
more TVs than dining tables.

~~~
computator
Lots of global companies make TVs (LG, Samsung, Philips, Toshiba, Panasonic,
Sharp, Sony, ...) but it seems that "there are no real Ikea competitors in the
world, period."[1]

So why aren't there more globally operating corporations selling furniture?

Could there be an opportunity for a higher-end (better than Ikea) highly-
automated global furniture maker to take away market from thousands of small
local furniture makers all over the world?

[1] [https://www.quora.com/Who-are-Ikeas-
competitors](https://www.quora.com/Who-are-Ikeas-competitors)

~~~
Freak_NL
Perhaps a combination of much more variation in both models and regional
tastes. TVs get replaced a lot faster than good quality dining tables too.
Come to think of it, there really isn't that much of a variety in choice of
TVs (a few sizes, perhaps a curved screen or not) compared to dining tables —
the latter are much more personal in taste.

------
johncoltrane
\- Anecdote -

A while ago, a coworker was excited to move to another flat but there was a
little something that was going to be complicated: books. He and his
girlfriend were both avid readers and their two already impressive collections
fused years ago into a massive beast. As we were discussing the "problem", I
asked him for a ballpark estimation of the number of books to move, expecting
something like "1000 books", but he replied after a couple seconds with "about
12 or 15 Billies".

~~~
hueving
One thing I lament after switching to ebooks is the lack of books. Sounds
silly, but I think a wall with shelves of books was quite nice looking and
colorful.

~~~
aedron
I am happy to not have to store books in physical form. They are heavy, take
up loads and loads of space, and do not keep well. And that's not even getting
into how impractical they are to actually read (or search) compared with
e-books.

And still, something is missing in the home. A book collection might be the
most personal touch a person can have in the home. Some of it is vanity, you
want to show people what you read, but somehow it is also delightful to
casually look over all the old gems and sometimes get the urge to pick one out
to read again. This doesn't really happen in the same way with the Kindle. I
guess it's the same with record collections vs. digital distribution.

~~~
ciupicri
How can physical books be impractical to actually read compared to e-books
when text looks so much better on paper than on screen?

~~~
rahimnathwani
\- require an external light source \- forget the current page when closed \-
no search feature \- highlights require an additional implement and are hard
to erase

------
huac
> Ingvar Kamprad "is said to fly economy and drive an old Volvo. This
> frugality may help to explain why he is the world's eighth-richest man -
> although the four decades he spent living in Switzerland to avoid Swedish
> taxes may also have something to do with it."

~~~
hackuser
That struck me too: Are there leading modern entrepreneurs who are as non-
materialistic? I recall hearing of several in prior generations.

(Also, sometimes those stories are merely marketing, and they have a personal
chef and private jet too.)

~~~
headmelted
It's fairly well known that Warren Buffet still lives in the house he bought
in the fifties before he got ultra wealthy, but I was watching a documentary a
couple of weeks back where he was explaining that his choice of breakfast at
the McDonald's drive-thru window is dictated by the market closing price the
day before. That's hardcore... and a little eccentric probably.

Found it:

[http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/becoming-warren-
buffett](http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/becoming-warren-buffett)

~~~
tekklloneer
That's not really that eccentric. If I lost a few million dollars on opening,
I'd probably want hashbrowns with my mcmuffin.

~~~
paublyrne
I'd probably skip McDonalds and find an early house.

~~~
jacobush
what's an early house?

~~~
ajayh
It's a pub with a special alcohol serving licence that allows it to open
earlier than normal pubs.

------
sien
The series that this is from '50 Thing that Made the Modern Economy' is really
excellent. There is a podcast for it. I can't recommend it highly enough.
Harford is also going to write a book on the subject.

It even had a pretty decent episode on compilers.

~~~
ascorbic
+1. The one on the Haber-Bosch process is heartbreaking.

------
erikbye
Living in Norway I've had my share of Ikea products... My feeling towards Ikea
is that their products are cheap, flimsy, and bland. I have a few of their
products in my home now, but they'll definitely be replaced with something
better; why I got them in the first place, considering how I feel about Ikea
products? Cheap.

As for my books I wanted something more sturdy and went with what's just known
here as a "Bombay bookshelf". Got it used, don't know which company produces
them; unsure if it's related to the Canadian company.

[https://s1.postimg.org/l6f3izmkf/bombay.jpg](https://s1.postimg.org/l6f3izmkf/bombay.jpg)

There's actually an Ikea dresser in this photo.

~~~
Symbiote
I have too much Ikea furniture because, after moving to Denmark, it was the
easiest way to buy everything I needed in just a couple of trips. My table
seems to be good quality, but the sofa and bed are disappointing. I didn't
like any of the coffee tables (sofaborde) so I have the 299kr "Lack" until I
find something better.

It was difficult to find a shop selling better furniture than Ikea, except for
the designer furniture stores in the centre of Copenhagen -- and I'm not ready
to spend over 5000kr on a concrete-topped table.

~~~
ashark
> It was difficult to find a shop selling better furniture than Ikea, except
> for the designer furniture stores in the centre of Copenhagen -- and I'm not
> ready to spend over 5000kr on a concrete-topped table.

Same in the US. The options are: Ikea, Ikea knockoffs that're worse but
somehow more expensive, tacky, bulky furniture that's poorly made and ~2x
Ikea's prices, and then the high end that starts around 5x the price of Ikea,
minimum, and goes up from there.

The semi-disposable nature of Ikea kinda fits modern US housing construction,
anyway. It's odd to have a table that'll last 200+ years in a house that's
gonna need significant cosmetic replacements (nothing's real solid wood so
repairs/refinishes are right out) in 10-15 years, major renovation in 20-30
years, and will likely be torn down in 60 or fewer.

~~~
mortenjorck
A perceptive assessment. You've got Ikea, which is generally quite tasteful,
and then you have the likes of Target furniture, which is also tasteful yet
somehow makes even the lowest-tier Ikea pieces seem rock-solid in comparison.
You can step up to Art Van and get agonizingly milquetoast design for about
1.5x Ikea prices, or fiddly, baroque Arhaus for 2x.

Then you jump up to the likes of Restoration Hardware, in that 4-5x Ikea
range, with the real vintage aesthetics Arhaus is hamfistedly aping, and after
that, the ironically-named Design Within Reach which matches Ikea's minimalism
with maximum durability at what seems like 10x Ikea prices.

I would say the one thing you've missed is Crate & Barrel, which is in maybe a
2-3x Ikea range and tends to have very tasteful design along with across-the-
board durability.

------
pella
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IKEA_effect)
_" The IKEA effect is a cognitive bias in which consumers place a
disproportionately high value on products they partially created."_

------
pingec
> whereas in Slovenia you can get them for less than $40 (£31).

That's interesting as there is actually no IKEA store in Slovenia yet and I am
not aware of any other store stocking IKEA furniture here...

~~~
esra
Seems to be the common confusion between Slovenia and Slovakia.

~~~
smcl
It's understandable - their names in their respective languages is "Slovenija"
and "Slovensko" which is relatively similar. Tougher still is discerning
Slovenia and Slovakia in spoken Czech or Slovak - "Slovinsko" vs "Slovensko"
\- though context tends to help here :)

~~~
yoz-y
Fun factoid. Staff of Slovak and Slovenian embassies meet each month to
exchange wrongly addressed mail. [http://www.slovak-
republic.org/slovenia/#politicians](http://www.slovak-
republic.org/slovenia/#politicians)

~~~
vidanay
I have heard something similar about Austria and Australia

~~~
smcl
There's a lot of t-shirts sold in Vienna tourist shops with kangaroos on it -
they seem to have embraced it :)

------
michaelbuckbee
Interesting article, mostly it's about the processes behind the manufacture
that allow them to hit their particular price/quality point.

One item that jumped out me: "Look at Gyllensvaans Mobler: compared to the
1980s, it is making 37 times as many bookcases, yet its number of employees
has only doubled. Of course, that is thanks to all those German and Japanese
robots."

~~~
johansch
A bunch of photos showing the manufacturing process:

[http://www.gyllensvaan.se/galleri.htm](http://www.gyllensvaan.se/galleri.htm)

(I imagine Google Translate would work well on these pages.)

------
kqr2
I prefer IKEA’s Tunhem Bookcase which is unfortunately discontinued. It is
deeper and the shelves are thicker which helps prevent bookcase sagging.

[http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/vinyl-record-
shelf/](http://kadavy.net/blog/posts/vinyl-record-shelf/)

[http://www.woodbin.com/calcs/sagulator/](http://www.woodbin.com/calcs/sagulator/)

~~~
mcv
They have many other bookcases available. Billy is merely the cheapest.

------
pier25
There's no IKEA in Mexico, and I really miss it.

Anything here with a decent design almost falls into the luxurious range.

Sure IKEA has some cheap stuff, but you can also get better products by buying
their more expensive products. I bought a couch 10 years ago that I later sold
to a friend and he is still using it. We had some Kallax (expedit) in our
previous office bought in 2004 and are still being used by someone.

~~~
aedron
In Pakistan, IKEA furniture is an imported luxury good. There are fancy high-
end boutiques selling IKEA furniture in the most upscale consumer markets.

In the mean time you can go to the crummiest street workshop and buy gorgeous
handmade furniture with woodwork that you will never see in the West, sold for
a pittance. It really boggles the mind.

~~~
pier25
> In Pakistan, IKEA furniture is an imported luxury good. There are fancy
> high-end boutiques selling IKEA furniture in the most upscale consumer
> markets.

Same here. Of course you pay double or triple the price you'd pay in Europe or
the US, so it defeats its purpose.

> In the mean time you can go to the crummiest street workshop and buy
> gorgeous handmade furniture with woodwork that you will never see in the
> West, sold for a pittance. It really boggles the mind.

There are a lot of street vendors with handmade furniture here, except that
those are pretty rough and plain ugly.

Another problem is that Mexicans are usually short. If you are above 6' like I
am then most furniture will feel small. Usable, but small.

------
bigtex
I just wanted to chime in and say I hate buying furniture from Ikea. I think
they have have a few decent items, and the real wood bookcases looks sturdy
but most of their stuff is laminated MDF. I have a real wood changing table
that they unfortunately discontinued years ago that has held up well over the
years, except for the drawer rails. Ikea doesn't sell replacement parts for it
and it is a custom size, so can't go to Home Depot to find a replacement.
Thankfully I was able to find a site that seems to specialize in Ikea
replacement parts and it was almost an exact fit. I only plan on buying used
furniture or making my own in the future.

I was in the market for a large dining room table and looked at their
offerings, and with the table and benches was over $600. I went to Craigslist
and there were several wood workers who could make you a farmhouse table out
of quality, furniture grade hardwod for that price. Ended up fixing the
antique dining room table I broke during the big move and using that instead.

------
jccalhoun
I've never been to an Ikea. Until recently there wasn't one in my state.
Because of this I'm always amazed that so many people seem to have this
fascination with it.

~~~
ghaff
It's set up to be something of an experience. I go to my local (but not
conveniently nearby) one every couple of years or so and there's definitely
entertainment value to the whole thing.

~~~
fhars
The experience is well documented: [http://www.themorningnews.org/article/the-
non-expert-ikea](http://www.themorningnews.org/article/the-non-expert-ikea)

------
pif
I don't like buying IKEA furniture for two reasons:

1 - With a handful of exceptions, IKEA furniture looks like... IKEA furniture!
It reminds Henry Ford and his "Any customer can have a car painted any colour
that he wants so long as it is black."

2 - Most important, while I appreciate its hack-ability, it's important for me
to get quickly an idea of the budget involved. I understand that there's no
standard IKEA wardrobe, because you can assemble it as you like, but when I
see an exposed example I'd like to know the price of the whole thing as it is.
If I don't know how much it will cost, more or less, I can't decide whether to
buy there or elsewhere, thus I'm not ready to dive into the detailed
calculations of N shelves and X hooks.

~~~
cyxxon
Regarding your point 2 - have you been to an Ikea recently? They always put up
prices for the way it is assembled in the showroom, so you see something cost
€324, of which the main corpus is 156, the added part on the left is 68, etc.,
broken down into the boxes you actually have to buy. So you should get a
pretty good feeling for what your version of the furniture will cost.

Amd about the look, well, that's just subjective taste, isn't it? I actually
like the clean lines of their, and almost everything in my apartment is Ikea.
From time to time I visit other furniture stores, because my girlfriend likes
browsing there, but I never really find anything I would want in my little
world at home. Seems like a typical case of YMMV...

~~~
pif
> Regarding your point 2 - have you been to an Ikea recently?

No, I haven't. Thanks for the update!

> about the look, well, that's just subjective taste, isn't it?

I think I wasn't clear enough. I don't complain about quality/look: what I
don't like is the standardisation! As soon as you see something from IKEA, you
know it's from IKEA.

~~~
qq66
For many, that standardization is a feature rather than bug. I really like
that I can mix and match anything and have it look visually consistent. I am a
big fan of the products although I build them slightly nonstandard (extra lag
screws, wood glue on all surfaces, VHB tape to affix to wall).

~~~
pif
It's called "collection". What I dislike of IKEA is having just one
collection. Take this as an example:
[http://www.lefablier.com/en/collections/](http://www.lefablier.com/en/collections/)

I understand that's a completely different world, but the idea is that you can
have consistency in your whole house without giving up the possibility of
choosing what fits your taste more.

------
jimmcslim
Ikea's Billy and the Vitsoe 606 Universal Shelving System... two iconic
designs in storage/bookshelves.

One I can afford, the other... I cannot.

~~~
vacri
Wow, you're not wrong. A grand for six simple racked metal shelves.

[https://www.vitsoe.com/rw/606/cost](https://www.vitsoe.com/rw/606/cost)

~~~
ascorbic
Whereas IKEA Algot has similar for $65.
[http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S99903788/](http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S99903788/)
I've no doubt the Visteo is better, but 15x better?

------
crispyambulance
Billy bookcases are great if you use them right. Best to get the narrow models
and fix them next to each other with carefully placed wood screws.

This makes super rigid and durable shelves for heavy books and the shelves
never noticeably sag because the span is so short. You can also customize the
heights of the shelves with fine granularity.

The only other bookshelf system I use is the "Hungarian Bookshelf"
([https://www.instructables.com/id/Hungarian-
Shelves/](https://www.instructables.com/id/Hungarian-Shelves/)). You basically
make this yourself with wood. Excellent for the basement.

------
michaelvoz
I dislike IKEA furniture - It never seems to go well, and always in a
different, hard-to-plan-for kind of way. Either the bed frame slats will crack
at an odd place, or the bookshelf will bend under the weight of too many
books, or perhaps a layer of plastic-ish(?) faux-wood will peel off revealing
the flimsy glue pressed wood-ish material inside.

I understand the appeal of well designed, flatpacked, self assembled furniture
- but why does the quality have to be so terrible? Is it so they can produce
and sell at volume? It would be nice to see an intersection of medium/high
quality end furniture that I can buy and assemble like IKEA products.

~~~
unethical_ban
I have had exactly the opposite experience as yours. You describe every flat
pack furniture brand except Ikea.

The only thing Ikea doesn't do superbly (for the price) is padded furniture.
Their chairs and couches are terrible, in my opinion. Their cabinets, though?
Their desks? Great look, and reliable for years. I am proud of my Billy
bookshelf and the books on it in the living room.

~~~
michaelvoz
Are there other flat pack furniture brands? I did not know this. I had all
IKEA up until I started replacing IKEA with already-built pieces from garage
sales/ furniture stores/ family.

Maybe I have just gotten unlucky, and fallen in the tail end of their defects.

~~~
weaksauce
As a counter point, ikea furniture works well enough for most loads but I have
a chest of drawers and the bottom of the drawers is made from something
similar to a less stiff version of masonite. for clothes it would be fine but
for anything else the bottom of the drawers bends and scrapes the next drawer
when opening. I need to retrofit the bottom to something worthwhile.

~~~
Symbiote
Something like this is a quick fix: [https://www.amazon.co.uk/FIX-A-DRAWER-
Repair-Buckled-Drawers...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/FIX-A-DRAWER-Repair-
Buckled-Drawers-Minutes/dp/B002EWVPQA/) .

> the bottom of the drawers is made from something

In British, we call this "hardboard". I've always assumed it's "hard" in
comparison to cardboard:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardboard](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardboard)

------
lnanek2
Strange, I don't even known anyone who likes Billy. My wife and all her late
20s age friends all prefer kallax:
[http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S99017186/](http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S99017186/)

If you want to use it as a bookshelf, it works fine. If you want to buy the
little cloth cube drawers it works good as a dresser or for storage. If you
want a bed side stand you get 2 cubes tall, if you want a shelf you get 4.

Billy just seems kind of weird and irregular with the varying widths. I
wouldn't want one either.

------
fpgaminer
> The Billy innovations are about working within the limits of production and
> logistics, finding tiny ways to shave more off the cost, all while producing
> something that looks inoffensive and does the job.

The perfect summary of Ikea's engineering.

I got into woodworking recently; designed and built a 50", full-back garden
bench from scratch in redwood. The project gave me a more keen awareness of
the wood that surrounds our lives. I've ruminated on everything from
sustainability of wood to the pros/cons of engineered wood products like those
used in most Ikea furniture.

When my wife and I bought a headboard for our bed, one of those cheap
bookcase/headboard combos bought online for $150 shipped, I couldn't help
myself from wondering whether this boxed slab of wood and glue was an
engineering marvel, or an abomination. The odor, the comically insufficient
assembly instructions, the chipped off veneer and color matching marker. Was
it all worth the cost savings?

I once thought that engineered wood products like those used in these cheap
flat pack were stronger than natural wood. A lot of that furniture felt
lighter to me. In fact, engineered wood products _can_ be stronger, and get
used in building architectures that would not be possible with natural wood.
But the stuff used in cheap furniture is MDF and that weird, coarser particle
board. My limited research showed MDF as being weaker than most natural
softwoods, in terms of strength to density. The lightness of the furniture
comes from simply designing the products to use less wood.

Ikea furniture, as this article discusses, is optimized. The least amount of
substrate is used to achieve the goal. That's not a bad thing; it's a thing to
be admired. But you could do the same thing with natural wood, and the end
result would be lighter.

The odor, caused by binding resins used in the engineered wood, is also an
indicator of off-gassing formaldehyde. I figured, the stuff being used
couldn't be that bad or they wouldn't have been able to sell it for so long.
The answers I found were unclear. Formaldehyde _is_ bad; it's a carcinogen,
and as it off-gasses from these materials the concentration of formaldehyde in
the air slowly rises throughout the enclosed space; throughout your house. The
more formaldehyde containing products in your home, the higher the
concentration. It's a potentially significant health hazard. There are
alternative resins that don't contain formaldehyde, but they aren't commonly
used.

The most important thing about this cheap furniture, I figured, is that it's
good for the environment. The optimized design reduces the use of wood to a
minimum, and the engineered wood can make optimal use of trees since it just
needs chips or sawdust. I grew up in the 90s where it was common to joke how
every piece of paper you wasted was killing a tree. The implication being that
wood products are a scarce resource that we need to preserve and use as little
of as possible. We all needed to be good caretakers of our planet. Recycle,
cut down less trees, and boybands. It was the 90's.

As my ruminations stumbled over this mantra of the green movement it occurred
to me that wood ... is a sustainable resource. We can always grow more trees,
right? I see so much household wood being replaced by engineered wood and
plastics. But plastics are non-renewable! We can't grow more oil. There's
ultimately no consequence of "wasting" wood. Just throw more seeds on the
ground and let the complex nano-machinery of life assemble a brand new piece.
It costs nothing but time and land (which we have plenty of). The discarded
piece of wood becomes food for the next.

Certainly wasting wood increases costs. Engineered wood is cheaper because it
can use the table scraps of sawmills. But cost wasn't the concern in this
trail of thought; it was the environment. From an environmental perspective,
we should be using as much wood as we possibly can, and enact laws that
require all wood products to be sourced from trees grown for that purpose. We
can take advantage of this beautiful renewable resource and ensure an
explosion in tree population. Our air will be fresher, more carbon will get
locked back up in solid material, and the reduction in plastics consumption
will dump less carbon into the air.

At the end of my adventure I decided ... this kind of furniture is not for me.
Natural wood products are better for the environment, lighter, look better,
last longer, and are less toxic. The only thing against them is cost. Whether
cost matters or not is a different question entirely. For me, I'll sit on my
redwood bench out in the sun and smile.

~~~
Terribledactyl
They have solid wood options, but you have to hunt for them. Also, they tend
to up the price and it's "fancier" looking.

Your comment makes me wish I had the space to get back into woodworking, but I
just bought Ikea today because it fits into a small car and apartment easily.

~~~
fpgaminer
> Your comment makes me wish I had the space to get back into woodworking, but
> I just bought Ikea today because it fits into a small car and apartment
> easily.

Yeah, I wish the hobby was more accessible. It's relaxing in a strange way.
The work is hard and laborious, but I find a sense of peace, almost like
mindfulness, when I'm standing over a piece of wood licking the sand paper
back and forth, or concentrating on my brush strokes trying to make every
movement better than the last. And then you have this physical object in your
home. For all its faults and imperfections, it's still a monument of
accomplishment. It reminds you every day. That's so different from software
which doesn't have that same sense of object permanence.

I know hackerspaces exist, and sometimes they have tools related to
woodworking. But I've never had one near enough to me to be worthwhile, and
the thought of starting one in California where land is so expensive and
interest so sparse ... So I had to wait until buying a home before I could
have the opportunity to work with wood again.

~~~
rfrey
It's quite accessible if you don't look at too many woodworking magazines. You
can do everything to a very high standard with chisels, planes and a few saws.

You're not in it for speed or economy, so why not? In many cases, for one-of-
a-kind items, hand tools are even faster than power tools. And the mess left
behind is shavings that sweep up nicely, rather than dust that gets
everywhere.

I had a very nice shop in a spare apartment bedroom when I was single, and
built a few celtic harps, a guitar, several bookcases, and some cabinets,
doing most of the work after neighbours were asleep. No complaints about noise
or dust.

------
WhiteSource1
I moved overseas and needed a bookcase that wouldn't break the bank but also
that I knew I could trust. (I have lots of books).

I grew up with our basement library as Billies and knew that I could trust
them and also when I got more books over time, that I could just buy more of
the same and not worry about mismatching.

------
fakename
I quickly filled the shelves of my Billy with small paperbacks that used very
little vertical space.

I started scouring the as-is section for a spare shelf, in hopes of fitting a
few more books into the space.

After a few searches with no luck, I hit google for a recommended Ikea hack,
and was pleasantly surprised to learn they actually sell extra shelves:
[http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20265301/](http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/20265301/)

~~~
nitemice
There are various websites dedicated to Ikea hacks, such as [1]. I've always
wanted to try one, but they often seem to be more work than they're worth.

[1]([http://www.ikeahackers.net/](http://www.ikeahackers.net/))

------
kriro
Still looking for a board game friendly bookshelf from one of the major
chains. Depth is the problem, need roughly 30cm of usable depth. I'm currently
using IVAR but it's more of a temporary solution. I own about 4 Billy for
books they are decent but not great. One thing in their favor is that you can
easily add another one. I'd also like it if IKEA would report the usable depth
of the shelves in addition to the total depth.

~~~
rhizome
As a record collector, I feel your pain. For depth I'd look at the Galant
shelves. Even the shallower upper units are 40cm deep, and it's wide enough
for games in the way that Expedit wasn't.

[http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S59184629/](http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S59184629/)

~~~
longwave
The open backed Kallax units are the ideal size for storing 12" vinyl, and the
vertical dividers mean you don't have too many records leaning on each other.
They are also good for larger items that need to overhang the back of the
shelf a bit.

~~~
masklinn
I really like Kallax, there's something really neat about your storage being
composed entirely of cubes of 33 (or 1 cubic ft cube in freedom units).

------
IanDrake
>although the four decades he spent living in Switzerland to avoid Swedish
taxes may also have something to do with it.

This flies in the face of what we've been told about socialism. It looks like
rich people _do_ leave the country to save on taxes. Wow, who'd have thought.

------
Magi604
Another Ikea superstar is the Lack table (the small square one). Sturdy,
functional, easy to assemble, cheap, stackable (using glue), comes in
different colors, can be easily disassembled and tucked away when not needed.

~~~
schwap
Also almost the exact width (between the legs) of a server rack -- hence the
"Lack Rack"[1]

[1][https://wiki.eth0.nl/index.php/LackRack](https://wiki.eth0.nl/index.php/LackRack)

------
krzyk
Strange, I always thought that Expedit (now transformed to uglier Kallax) took
over the world, not Billy.

For my taste Expedit looks nicer and there are many hacks that involve it.

------
Overtonwindow
An interesting article but very fluffed up. Especially in the latter 2/3rds. I
would have liked to have learned more about the manufacturing methods.

------
ensiferum
IKEA and other similar sell that furniture that is optimized to be 80% of
nothing. I say that again, the biggest part of the finished product is
nothing.

so what that does mean? It means that if you take a proper durable furniture
and compare it with the IKEA counterpart the IKEA furniture has 80% of the
matter replaced with nothing. ;-)

Buy once, assemble once then throw it away since i'll fall apart.

~~~
jclardy
I don't disagree, but is there really a problem with that if you get the
design you want for the price you want? If you are talking something like a
couch, then yeah you will have problems. But I have an Ikea table I use as a
desk that is just laminated particle board with metal legs and it has served
me just fine for the past 7 years (Along with going through two moves.) It is
no longer my main desk, but it still functions and looks fine.

I'd say a majority of furniture in anyone's house gets very little actual wear
and tear. Couches, chairs, beds - sure. But coffee tables, end tables,
nightstands, bookshelves, tv cabinets, tables? Does it really matter if they
are almost never touched (more then moving around small trinkets on them?)

------
erikb
Where is it common? I think I've never seen one, not even in Ikeas.

~~~
Two9A
I believe that's the point: you never notice a Billy, it turns into part of
the wall. You can build a wall of storage with shelves in various places, and
it's fully extensible.

~~~
erikb
That was actually quite funny.

------
234dd57d2c8dba
Nice native advert.

------
Kenji
>I’m Glenn Fiedler and I’ve been a game developer for the last 15 years.

If he is in the scene for so long, he should know about the timing problems in
browsers: The JavaScript VM can schedule your game any time it likes and it's
pretty much impossible to get consistent framerates across all browsers. As
someone who has developed a variety of JavaScript games - I will not do it
again until we get more powerful and accurate timers.

There are still many obstacles for good JavaScript games.

~~~
onion2k
To be fair to browsers, it's impossible to get consistent frame rates on
_anything_. That's why games rely on the delta between frames instead of
constant values.

~~~
Kenji
Obviously, I know about deltas. That doesn't fix visual stuttering because
frames miss.

------
hoodoof
I have bought several of these things. They fall apart. Truly disposable
furniture.

~~~
chadcmulligan
I've never had a problem with them, have a couple in the spare room. Did you
put the backing board on them?

