i just bought a whole crop of Ribba frames - they are really nice and very reasonable. However, the really large ones (27x29) use plexi glass instead of glass, and are a bit rickety, fyi.

Does IKEA pay AT for all this publicity?

I don't think so aladywhoknows. I just think Ikea has the design world by the proverbial cojones. I notice the same thing from magazines like Domino.

I do appreciate this more than, say, Elle Decor or Architectural Digest, whose items within cost more money than I have or will ever make in my entire life. Sometimes one must slum it with the particleboard.

I live hours (almost 5; it used to be 7) from an IKEA and I absolutely love going there. We have purchased tons of stuff for our house for such great prices, and since there isn't a store nearby, plenty of people have no idea where our stuff is from. But if it was down the street and all of our neighbors had the same pendants, yeah, I might get sick of it.

I am sure that Ikea and most other shops or products featured on this website pay for the honour and probably pay extra when a link is provided to their website. To AT's credit though they do seem to do some factual reporting on said items.

I have to agree with the picture frames. My house is filled with them. They look fantastic and they are cheap.

Another great thing - dish towels. Speaking of which, I need to buy more since I have recently used all mine for paint rags.

I bought a bunch of milky white plastic letter trays for my office - $1.99 each. They look great, stack and were the perfect price.

*/Actual conversation between my partner and I, after spending 2 hours in Ikea debating the merits of various shelves, finally in the warehouse section./*

Me: The ones we decided on are out of stock. I feel like crying.

Partner: I just saw a woman crying in the next aisle.

Me: Maybe we should have a fight instead.

Partner: OK. I saw the fighting area. It's in the kitchen department.

If you don't like Ikea, why keep talking about it? It seems that not a day goes by without mentioning it (on nearly every AT site and usually multiple times). All the catalog shots as of late were a step further toward making the site a front for Ikea.

It's a known quantity. Wouldn't AT be doing the readers a better service by telling them about something new?

Personally, I'd rather you trolled Amazon or some other major on-line dealer for stylish deals and brought them to our attention. It's a lot more useful to tell us about the best needles in a haystack then to point out what is easy for us to find on our own.

Hmmm... three of the eight good things are cheap, plastic items that will need to be thrown away in a year. How is that good?

I think the best thing I have ever bought at Ikea are my kitchen cabinets and a close second is the Expedit bookcase. The cabinets are built to last and I imagine the Expedit will last many years.

I think Ikea's hand's on format actually allows you to get a pretty good idea of what has the durability needed to survive at home and what's going to fall apart. If you just shop the catalog, you miss it, but if you pay attention in the store to what still looks good and what has wobbly legs, slouchy cushins, scratched finishes, etc. you can usually have good luck.

I do, however agree that the lighting and all the little bits and pieces are the best! Grundtal wall hooks are one of my current favorites at $1 a piece. Great in the front hall and bathroom.
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30061247

AT should do a no-Ikea month. No house tours filled with Ikea, no "here are my favorite things at Ikea", no "I hate Ikea but---", just no Ikea.

No, I love Ikea.

AT,

Please keep the Ikea comin'!

You don't like Ikea? Great! The supermarket is filled with magazines for you: Dwell, Elle, Domino, Metropolitan Home - the list goes on and on. There's a lot of cool stuff in those mags, to be sure.

But...AT is one of the precious few resources that identifies products for people with normal incomes. They highlight other low-cost companies, too: Walmart and Target to name two. And, just as important, every day they point the way to small neighborhood stores and showcase affordable used items on Craigslist and other venues.

Without the Grundtal shelving rack line and the Lack floating shelf, western civilization as we know it would collapse. Or HGTV would collapse, at the very least.

I purchased the Malm bed and 4-drawer dressers twice. The first time I bought the Beech finish and after 4 years (the bed was still as sturdy as the day it was assembled). I grew tired of the color so I went with Birch finish. I absolutely love it. I don't care what anyone says, I love the things I've purchased at IKEA over the years.

Some of us love it. Others don't.

Keep it coming AT!

Most of our apartment is furnished with IKEA because we're newlyweds, with one still in school and the other about to go back.

Of course I want beautiful, long lasting furniture - but realistically most "real" furniture is over our budget, harder to move, couldn't fit in out little car to take home, and would have to be placed in storage or sold off at a discount when my husband goes back to school.

Ironically in the last four years the only piece of furniture to break was our non-Ikea futon. (Not that I would recommend Ikea futons, I stay clear of their sofas and beds.)

I can understand not liking the place though, because they are pretty damn monolithic.

The last time AT posted about a cute find at Walmart, it seems like they were crucified by people who don't like the company. I'd be hesitant to show anything from there too.

While Ikea and Walmart are both "big-box" stores, I believe that Ikea treats their workers fairly well, and pays their employees enough that they don't need to go on public assistance (while also working full time). I'd love to buy some of the beautiful "design icon" furniture, but can't realistically spend several months mortgage and utility payments on say, a chair... Ikea fills a niche, and if you are a careful shopper, there is plenty there that isn't particleboard and plastic ...

I love Ikea! I'm so glad that the closest Ikea store is approximately a 5 minute drive from my house. I'm always heading over there to see what's new.

The furniture will last for a while as long as you take care of it, and periodically tighten the screws on the pieces. I have no complaints over the purchases I've made over the years.

I like to change the look of my home every so often, and Ikea is an affordable way to do it.

Ikea has run ads and steaming video ads here for a while. Guess it's pay back time for the advertisers. We all know about Ikea, now let's move on to something we don't know about.

I like their food! :)

I'd like to add some things to my "8 Good Things at Ikea":

- Billy Bookshelfs: Reasonably priced shelfs that fit to a lot of different styles. My partner and me are keen readers, so we have to organize about 4 000 books (still growing...), so Billy was the right decision for our living room. We moved twice which them and they are still in good shape.
- Duvets/Pillows: Got the expensive ones, their quality is outstanding, and they are a lot cheaper than otherwhere.

I appriciate their democratic vison of design. I can't stand places that have everything IKEA, but with a little mix and match you can integrate several pieces of their furniture quite well.

totally agree with nicolezh, an ikea home is only nice in the store, but when you place a good furniture iwth an ikea one the crapiness starts to show, and the only way to make them shine is a good mix between good furniture and ikea founds. specially I really like their rugs, the woolen ones and the turkish kilims. they're really beautiful.

;-)

Man you self-righteous types annoy me. If you don't like Ikea and Walmart and Target and all the other companies which have so offended your delicate sensibilities, then don't read posts that are clearly about Ikea. Didn't the capitalized IKEA in the title offer a clue? I have a great sense of style and I love nice interiors. I'd absolutely love to have a home filled with great antiques, but I can't afford it. I have been able to find great items at Target and Ikea that I mix with finds from local thrift stores. If these stores didn't exist, many of us would have fairly empty homes since we couldn't afford to go elsewhere. I know I'm grateful.

NOTHING should be disposable.
It is a meaningless word (throw-away-able? Doesn't that apply to anything?) and a dangerous concept.

We had 5 LACK floating shelves - 3 long ones in the dining room and 2 short ones in the kitchen - and when we sold our condo, the buyers HAD to have them. Everyone we know thought they were in the $200 a pop range. We already have 3 of them waiting to be put up in our new house when we get done with our renovations.

There's quite a few articles on AT I don't even click through because the subject doesn't interest me (I would honestly set fire to the first effing Eames piece I see in real life). I must be alone in my impulse control?

My Ikea BONDE collection will probably last forever (barring someone setting fire to it). It costs a fortune to move, and it looks great after 8 years. My brother offered to buy it from me.

In addition, many people LIKE the simple lines and finishes that Ikea supplies. Not everyone wants some ugly "mid century" metal piece of crap, and not everyone wants a chair carved with angels on it, or a plastic-looking tulip table... I enjoy the warm smooth color of my Bonde set, as well as the low light reflection and how it allows focus on the books before the bookcase.

Following up on cheapo... how is a $0.99 toilet brush any more physically disposable than a $14.99 one other than the impact on your wallet?

However, the $0.99 brushes at Ikea are polypropylene (#5 plastic) according to ikea.com, so they can be recycled at most modern recycling facilities.

When you say 'disposable' do you mean use once then throw away? I use my plate scrubbers for months and wash them in the dishwasher.

Unless there's a toilet brush made out of bamboo and boar bristles that I don't know about, there really aren't any sustainable toilet brushes.

To get to IKEA, I have to drive for an hour and deal with Chicago traffic, so I appreciate hearing about items at IKEA that might be worth all the hassle I have to go through to get there.

Just bought the Kulla ceiling fixture. Love it! Looks great in my kitchen. Most of the furniture and textiles are really chintzy though... The above are great items to get there. I have seen all of them in Italian design magazines.

let us not forget about the awesome hack-ability of IKEA pieces as well. while some of us wish we had the skills of a custom furniture maker, we don't! IKEA provides many components that can be mixed and matched, so it is relatively easy to create and assemble something unique and affordable on a minimal income. i am impressed with some of the IKEA hacks i have seen, most recently the custom jewelry cabinet i saw a few days ago at www.ikeahacker.com, inspired by a mid-century design. fabulous.

Help! Help! The lunatics are taking over the asylum!

Ikea has great rugs, inexpensive curtains & drinking glasses, nicely priced frames and vases, real food for when my blood sugar starts dropping, and a supervised place for my nieces to play when they get sick of shopping with me.

There is plenty to find there besides the furniture (and if you pick the right pieces, they do last).

ikea has some great stuff, many steel based items, PS cabinet didnt make the list?

We also just got a rug thats 9' x 6' for $30 for the living room.

I love IKEA, there I said it.

That70sHeidi, you can not set fire to an Eames piece if you've sat on it! Believe me.

Everyone is getting all uptight about the "disposable" thing. The way I read it, was that you can use them till their trashed and not feel bad about throwing them out since they were so cheap. Yes, it's great to be environmentally conscience, but you also have to be heath conscience as well. Do you really want a bacteria ridden toilet brush funking up your bathroom forever? You can only sanitize the thing so many times!

I have that exact dish scrubber and every now and then I throw it into the dishwasher. There is going to come a time where it's discolored and the bristles start falling out. Then I will (try) to recycle it or throw it away. It was a few dollars for 2 of them for cripesake! What do you want me to do with them? Have them bronzed for posterity?

I absolutely love IKEA. I can and usually spend hours in there just walking around getting ideas. Although my approach to IKEA is like my approach to my wardrobe. Splurge on the classics and staples for a solid foundation and get the less expensive stuff to accessorize. IKEA is great to get all the little things for decor, especially for me since I like to change my environment every few years. However, a good solid sofa would never go out of style. :o)

Love Ikea. I get so many compliments on my gorgeous wooden countertops and my secretary desk fits exactly the space I need it to, hiding away all my messy desk stuff. Hate my Ikea wardrobe, but can't have everything at once, so while I dream about building a new closet, it gets the job done.

@jooly lol my toilet brush is bamboo with a replacable bristle head. Made by Umbra.

i have owned my Billy bookcases for 13 years.. my kid's beds are ikea from my parents house in Germany and are 20 years old. My kitchen chairs are 10 years old. Disposable is as disposable does.

Naturally, IKEA quality isn't going to be as good as high end, hand made furniture, but if you compare IKEA to similarly priced stores, IKEA beats them hands down (especially in style).

We have purchased sofas with washable slip covers from Room & Board (twice the cost) and IKEA (Karlstad) and after several years they are holding up equally well (except IKEA's slipcovers can go in the dryer).

Regardless of where I shop, I rarely like everything I see, so it's a matter of shopping carefully. At least IKEA sells simple and modern design, which would otherwise be unaffordable to most of us.

If you want furniture from IKEA to last longer, glue the joints and the screw holes with Elmer's wood glue as you build, and fill the holes with those little wooden pegs made for that purpose or with wood putty so the funky screws don't show. Stain or paint to match. Of course sometimes it's necessary to assemble and jigger to get the pieces to fit as close to the way they're supposed to as possible. If so, at least back the screws out, put some glue in there, and re-screw. The old "put glue on a wooden toothpick, place in the hole, then screw the screw in" is also a good trick to remember for a tight solid fit when the holes are wonky.

I love my stainless kitchen prep table, best tool I ever bought. I priced the real deal in industrial kitchen stores and even used, they were so very much more expensive and it was going to cost as much as buying a second table to add the middle shelf that makes IKEA's table so functional. Does the IKEA table dent and scratch much more than the industrial one would have ? No doubt, but at less than 1/2 the price and WITH the essential middle shelf, I decided to think of it as my very own David Smith sculpture and cherish the patina. Clean w/ Pledge, btw....no fingerprints, works like a charm, and I don't prepare food directly on it's surface. I also LOVE my wooden spice racks, all 6 of them screwed directly in to the inside of the pantry door. Makes cooking a breeze.

But otherwise, yeah, a lotta dross there. Ya gotta be selective.

On my first trip to IKEA -8hrs away- I bought tons of stuff. but my favorite find was the VÄNLIG Glass sets $4 for a pack of 6. 2 toddlers and a million tip-overs later and they're still in top shape. WINNING!

Simply don't see why it seems to be a question of honour for so many people not to like IKEA. I just love it, and I refuse to be discriminated against by self-proclaimed interior-design experts. Not everybody is into hand-me-down-craigslist-peeling-paint-second-hand-love-it-because-it's-old-stuff. And for those who'd rather go with something new and modern instead of following the mid-century hype, IKEA is just perfect. It's stylish, it's good value, and my BILLYs are still going strong after 25 years.

I also don't get the Ikea obsession, but there is one Ikea item in my home that I would not live without, my Brada laptop support (http://www.ikea.com/ca/en/catalog/products/60150176). It puts my Macbook Pro at just the right angle to prevent wrist-sprain. I borrowed one when I visited my mother last fall and it wound up going into my suitcase when I left. :)

I love IKEA.

I'd like to add another item to "8 Good Things at IKEA".

The Swedish meatballs! :) Yum! Can't beat a cheap meal while spending a Saturday in IKEA.

IKEA is my happy place.