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0 pointsresource_waste2y ago0 comments

Back in 2012 I furnished a home with Ikea furniture.

Yes I hate them.

You'd spend $60 on a book case and spend the next 4 hours trying to understand what the instructions mean and how to build it. You also needed a partner to hold corners together.

Now today, the furniture instructions are better and instead 16 different weird fastener, there are 8.

Its a frustration thing. Ikea didn't really do anything but be low cost. We blame Ikea like we blame Walmart for having drug addicts.

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illiac7862y ago

I think this every time I built something ikea, then I build something from another brand and I discover a new abyss, then I go back to ikea. It's a cycle.

vundercind2y ago

Yeah I don’t get the complaints about IKEA instructions. They have the best furniture-assembly directions I’ve seen.

They have a lot in common with old LEGO set instructions. Maybe people who hate them didn’t do a bunch of that as a child?

Aeolun2y ago

I have a really hard time understanding people that don’t get how to assemble furniture of that kind in general.

Instructions or no instructions, there’s only so many ways you can put a bunch of planks together.

kayodelycaon2y ago

I know these people. They aren’t stupid. Many of them just aren’t good at visualizing things they haven’t done or been shown before.

They may know X should go into Y but the task is so unfamiliar or counter to how they think that they hit their working memory limit before it makes sense to them.

Impatience just makes that worse.

IKEA’s instructions are extremely helpful in this case.

Gigachad2y ago

Probably poor spacial reasoning skills. Didn’t spend enough time playing with Lego or sticking wood blocks through shaped holes.

KerrAvon2y ago

I'm with you -- I've assembled a lot of random stuff recently and I wish everyone had instructions half as good as IKEA's.

rsynnott2y ago

Yeah, I’m not particularly handy (I break out in a cold sweat whenever anything requires more than trivial assembly), but I’ve never had any issue with assembling Ikea stuff.

nytesky2y ago

Agreed, self assembly is terrible but IKEA is generally the least terrible.

adaml_6232y ago

I love IKEA instructions and construction. I honestly get a buzz from the puzzle. If I have to construct more than one of an item then I'll compete with myself on speed and efficiency.

askvictor2y ago

It's basically Lego for adults (which was more exciting until Lego pushed its market into the adult demographic).

Which is actually part of Ikea's brand identity. When you put it together yourself, you feel closer to the furniture than if someone just plonked it at your house. OTOH, if you hate that kind of thing, you'll never go back, but I guess they have an assembly service these days.

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