I have a problem with IKEA. Aren't those peaces of furniture made of composite materials and those not so sturdy shelves a sustainability problem when compared to traditional furniture making which is mostly wood glue a protective coat which lasts for hundreds of years can be infinitely repaired in a workshop with some basic tools. And then it it all ends it can became firewood, which ikea furniture can't.
I would say most pieces of furniture sold these days are made of engineered wood [0], if that's what you mean by "composite materials". Aside from easier sourcing, I presume that a big driver of it's use is the fact that it is easier to shape and produce - no having to figure out how it will be assembled using the various sizes of timber available.
The actual solid-wood furniture I have seen is either quite expensive, or (somewhat ironically) unfinished.
All this being said, if you do have the money to spare, spending a bit on quality or better labor practices is good. For example, I bought my bed frame from a company in the UK[1], and was quite happy with the finished product (despite some unfortunate luck with a part of the frame, which I put down to the fact that I ordered during the holidays).
I have inherited a piece of oak furniture and that was assembled at my grand-aunts flat in situ, with wood glue and moves as a single piece, doors, interior and all. It's about 2,50m wide and 2m high and feels like it weigh a ton. Takes three to four people to move. Every time I move, the folks come in, have a look at that beast and take a break. It's definitely more a piece for people that have settled in one place.
There are cheaper, lighter, and softer but less durable solid wood pieces made of pine and similar woods. They don't feel much heavier than the IKEA manufactured wood furniture I have but at least have a decently satisfying grain if that's what you're going for.
This is so true. I've inherited lots of stuff from grandparents that's amazingly high quality wood -- but it's so heavy I can't even get it into my apartment! My parents once spent a few thousand dollars to ship some furniture from Europe to the USA..
Happy to shed some further insight into the world of wood. You are indeed right about engineered wood being easy to shape & produce. The main driver really is all about cost. The reason IKEA's furniture is so cheap is down to how they've designed it which is also purely automated. Their design process will start with "how cheap can we possibly make this whilst having a structural integrity that will be accepted as satisfactory". Which essentially means, it won't last forever, but long enough for a few years. Which we all know and accept, myself included. You could say they are not environmentaly friendly in this regard, however, that's certainly not fair given their excellent sustainability efforts in other areas, such as aiming to be climate positive by 2030 and having a million solar panels on their store roofs.
"Engineered" wood is both high & low quality product, depending on the use. A glue-laminated beam can be as strong as steel in buildings. Composite cladding on facades of buildings can last for a centuries (tbc as we've not had time to see it degrade yet). But then there's the cheap end of laminated, fibre board, OSB, MDF cardboard filled, etc, which is mimicking wood but is far from it. A simple knock or exposure to moisture will ruin it's aesthetic and structure. There's many different uses for different situations.
So engineered wood can be both expensive and cheap depending on how it's made. It's often made from the recycling of wood or sawdust from other timber processing.
So then we have solid natural wood. There's a good reason it lasts for a long time and that's simply because tree's themselves have evolved to stand tall and strong. There's many types of softwoods and hardwoods which I won't go into. But the additional problem with producing at IKEA scale is not only is it more expensive, there is also the natural element of knots, splits, cupping, etc which deform the wood. We might lose 20% (waste factor) of the wood we buy (as we only make beds with 100% solid wood) because it's simply unusable. Even when the wood meets the structural criteria, it can also visually be very different between the same species because of whatever natural environmental influencers happened to that tree. So the whole process of using solid wood is much more challenging, expensive and time consuming to ensure the quality of the product is consistent. The "consistency" is also key for IKEA. However, the beauty and eco-benefits of natural wood are well worth, as well it lasting almost forever. So it's worth the investment for the long term.
I think making things in the way that minimises the impact at production time is the most important thing right now. Population growth is still a thing. Many people are buying furniture for the first time. If you start using hardwood for all furniture it could easily be devastating to the worlds forests.
> And then it it all ends it can became firewood, which ikea furniture can't.
Of course it can. You wouldn't burn it in a fireplace, but then fireplace is very inefficent way to burn things anyway. If you burn it in a trash burning facilities like they have in Sweden, you get the most energy out of it, you can heat local homes with waste heat in winter, and it creates less pollution (fire places are being banned in dense urban areas where I'm from). It's a fairly good solution for the seasonal energy demand in northern areas.
I personally think IKEAs approach is realistically the most sustainable, but they could improve it by improving the recycling/reuse of the wood fibers in their products.
I've used and refurbished old solid wood furniture myself. It's a luxury IMO. There's not that much of it to go around. It doesn't scale. It's not a solution to the worlds problem.
I also think the quality issues of IKEA furniture is exaggerated. I have a cheap TV table I bought as a student 15 years ago. It has been moved around several times. Seen a lot of abuse. I didn't really have a use for it in our new home so I've used it as a tool table while renovating. It still looks fine. A tiny bit bent, but still good. Can probably give it to another student to use.
If you want to say that buying long-lasting furniture is significantly better, I think you need to point to a study showing how many resources each approach uses, and the average life-span in the real-world. It's far from obvious that solid furniture is better.
There seems to be a misconception that Ikea is all cheap composite. It's really not true, they cover a wide range, and they have full-wood models for nearly all product categories
Obviously most people buy the cheap stuff, but that's the case of any low/medium end furniture chain really
For example, my most recent purchase from Ikea was one year ago, when I bought a couple of tables made of steel, on which I keep some E-ATX computer cases.
Those steel tables look like they should last more than a human lifetime.
They have pieces that aren’t particle board. These pieces are the lowest quality pine they could find. It’s super soft so it’s very easy to put a dent in and it’s not particularly well protected either so you end up throwing it away after a while as well. Maybe not as soon as the particle board junk but not much later either.
Ikea used to be well made and decent quality 20 years ago. It all went downhill from there and now most of their furniture gets damaged by just looking at it.
It's literally glued together "scrap" wood - which can work fine - but it is also susceptible to "drying" damage - I have a Hermes shelf that is more like a U than a _ now.
> Aren't those peaces of furniture made of composite materials and those not so sturdy shelves.
I'd gladly invite to my study, which is decorated using IKEA Galant (office) furniture. Every item in the set is high density wood composite and tables are built upon steel structures. They would outlast my children easily if they're not abused on purpose.
Or my Kitchen, which is again built by IKEA with high density composite and its workmanship made a good carpenter jealous.
If you want top of the line items in a category, look for "Stockholm" series.
"If not abused on purpose" is the problem - things DO get abused and once engineered wood products start to degrade there's no stopping it.
And if water gets in and doesn't get removed immediately you're in for a world of excitement.
Given that kitchens are remodeled every 7-10 years "on average" paying for solid wood/plywood might not be worth it. But there's a reason commercial kitchens are stainless steel.
Galant is not "engineered" per se. It's so dense that you can drive screws to anywhere on it. It behaves like drywall.
> And if water gets in and doesn't get removed immediately you're in for a world of excitement.
On higher end IKEA furniture there's no hex structure inside. It's filled. Solid. There's no inside.
My kitchen is 8 years old and it has a solid wood counter. I re-oil it occasionally but, there's no degradation whatsoever. It's guaranteed for 25 years so, it's not something flimsy. Again panels and cabinets are not hollow. There's no inside of these cabinets.
Galant is much denser than MDF. It's like a monolithic slab. It's way smoother and has finer grain than standard MDF.
For the table tops, IKEA's Professional Office Buying Guide quotes:
"Tested for tough treatment: The BEKANT desk series have been tested according to the highest standards for professional office use (EN 527, ANSI/BIFMA X:5.5 for desks and EN14074, EN1730 and ANSI/BIFMA X:5.5 for conference tables) and meets our strict standards for quality and durability."
Galant's table tops are rebranded BEKANT recently, however it's the same stuff AFAIK.
I have right in front of me a 20+-year-old Ivar shelving unit which is in its 4th (for some shelves maybe even 5th) location and second country. It still seems pretty stable, although the slides on the Ivar keyboard tray sticks before the tray is fully extended (not a problem, the exposed area gives full access to the keyboard).
Looking at the wood, I suspect it's spruce or pine, with visible joins in the shelving uprights, as well as in the shelves themselves.
A thing I've noticed is that even if built from real wood most chairs are NOT designed to hold the average American - who has grown in leaps and bounds since the 1800s - and once they start to loosen at the joints there's no real saving them.
Yeah, that cheap composite wood is use once and dump. It can’t even survive a move sometimes.
But is it a sustainability problem? No. In fact if I can recycle wood destined for the furnace into engineered wood, it’s better. If I can recycle engineered wood to become engineered wood again, it’s better.
The other benefit of real wood you mention (restoring and finish) happens less in the western world. Here they dump and move on. Sadly.
I've moved my Ikea bedframe at least 4 times now. Including once cross-country. Same with a desk and a couple of bookshelves. Seems to last long enough if you use it as intended.
My ikea side tables were £4 each (called Lack I think, about 5 and a half usa dollars), I could not afford anything more expensive at the time. If you can get me two side tables made from solid wood that last for hundreds of years for less than £10 then I would 100% choose those over the Lacks. In fact at the time, I'd have gone up to £20 or £25 if I knew they were that good quality.
Some of their stuff is indeed composite - cardboard honeycomb structure with thin veneer on top. Others are more sturdy. Pretty much everything they sell will have a low impact on the environment when they reach end of life though.
Anyway, stop buying their $5 tables and get something a bit more sturdy.
Shouldn't they start fixing the world there?