Seats For Dining Table

[Ries]

Ikea is disposable furniture. All the "wood" pieces, which are sawdust and glue with wood print plastic laminated on, are very short lived- I have had to completely rebuild several pieces, as they cannot be taken apart and moved- they are good for one use, period.
Their cheap chairs are equally crappy- their twelve dollar chairs are plastic, and will crack and crumble with time.
Interestingly enough, Ikea sells a chair that is a similar knockoff of the Arne Jacobsen design- and, in the USA, it costs almost exactly the same amount the Mercado Libre version costs in argentina.

So- people miss Ikea, not realizing that Argentine prices for similar, or usually, better furniture, are the same if not cheaper.

Really- the antique furniture available here is really well made, and incredibly cheap.
Why would you want cheap metal tubing and plastic stuff from china instead?

 

[French jurist]

Those Ikea stories remind me of the beginning of Fight Club.

Like Ries says (does not apply to Tilda since living far away from Bs As is a different story), antique furniture costs less, for a better quality and you can resell for the same price or more.

I was at an auction this evening for 45 mins (Sarachaga) and the stuff being sold was incredibly cheap. Came to buy 1 painting, finally bought 2, but almost bought 60 plates of vintage porcelain (2000 pesos), a 150 years old clock (sold for 120 USD, would be worth 3x more in an European auction), etc.

@Ries: this auction house will sell a copy (in Spanish) of Georg Kowalczyk book "Hierros artisticos" (cheap price)

 

[Tilda]

Maybe I have to take it back, partly. I miss Ikea's solutions, for storage.

Having lived here for a couple of years now we have started to know people and if we need something done now we either buy the wood (cypress) and have a go at it ourselves or we have a very good, but slightly unreliable, carpenter do it for us.

A stool for 600 pesos on mercadolibre was created for us by said carpenter for 450. So, even though I frequently "miss" them I have found a good alternative here.

 

[Noruega]

I miss IKEA on a daily basis! but then again I have it in my blood.

Also I live in the bush where the choice of furniture is very limited.

I always say that IKEA is the mother ship for us Scandinavians! I miss it... All my IKEA furniture were quite durable. In DC, I bought mainly second-hand IKEA furniture: someone had already put it together, and I could pick it up close to my place instead of getting a Zipcar and go to the suburbs. But I think I miss all the little stuff from IKEA more than the furniture: linens, lamps, frames, kitchen stuff... Their 365+ line has nice, white flatware at great prices, for instance.

 

[ajoknoblauch]

I miss IKEA on a daily basis! but then again I have it in my blood.

Also I live in the bush where the choice of furniture is very limited.

I can't stand IKEA, even though I (a Swedish-Norwegian-Danish-Finnish-American) am sitting in one of their office swivel chairs at the moment. My Argentine wife loves it, though.

 

[camino no tomado]

But I think I miss all the little stuff from IKEA more than the furniture: linens, lamps, frames, kitchen stuff...

Exactly. Their furniture does not seem as durable as it once was and I outgrew mine shortly after uni--save for an iron patio set and a now ancient bookcase that won't die (despite being taken apart and put back together a dozen times). I guess they don't make MDF like they used to.

But for housewares, IKEA is still awesome. And their kitchens have become pretty good too (even recommended by Consumer Reports).

 

[fifs2]

IKEA just uses the furniture as a side business. The real IKEA value for the cognoscenti is in the Bilar, pepparkakor, senap sot/stark etc

 

[syngirl]

I found a website for chairs and tables. Desillas.com It's like buying directly from a distributor instead of a retail store. They have photos of many styles of chairs. Select the one you want and pay with Mercado Pago through your bank account or credit card or cash at Rapipago.

I happened to see the Silla Jacobsen that I wanted to buy in a furniture store on Belgrano where I went to sit on it to confirm it was the one I wanted to buy. The store price was 400 pesos more per chair than the price on Desillas.com

I paid cash for the chairs through an account on Mercado Pago with payment made at Rapipago. I arranged delivery by phone, and they'll be delivered without charge on Wednesday (12-17 hs).

www.desillas.com

Would love to hear a follow-up review of quality of the product you received

 

[Tilda]

IKEA just uses the furniture as a side business. The real IKEA value for the cognoscenti is in the Bilar, pepparkakor, senap sot/stark etc

Obviously I know enough of psychology to recognize that part of my attraction to IKEA is the feeling of going home for a couple of hours. In Brisbane we went Lucia in the IKEA store with the Swedish Saturday School. That was quite sentimental.

 

[Ries]

In the USA, my favorite IKEA item is the Swedish Meatballs.