Not long ago in downtown Toronto, someone threw out a whole dwelling’s worth of Ikea furniture. Stacked outside an apartment building, surrounding a maple tree, sat an Ektorp love seat, Sultan Hansbo mattress, Tullsta armchair and Malm dresser with five drawers piled beside it. The stuff looked fairly new, but soggy from weathering the rain all night; the medium density fibreboard on the dresser frame had expanded and then buckled. Nobody paid the rubbish much attention. These days, discarded furniture headed for landfill is a common sight on garbage day. Ikea opened its first Canadian store in Richmond, B.C., in 1976, and now counts 12 stores across Canada. It will open its 13th store in Halifax next year. “After 40 years,” the company titled a recent birthday news release, “IKEA Canada continues to inspire Canadians with new product designs for a better everyday life.” We used to buy furniture that would last a century; now many of us buy chairs, tables, dressers, shelving units and desks, and then dump them in a few years or less.
It’s cheap and looks good initially, but when our tastes change, we kick it to the curb. Buying and disposing these non-durable durable goods has become a national pastime and Ikea is helping to fuel it. Canadians love to shop at Ikea. In June, Ikea announced a recall of Malm dressers, some of which had toppled over and killed six toddlers in the United States. About 29 million dressers sold in the U.S. between 2002 and 2016 were recalled, while 6.6 million Malm dressers were recalled in Canada. On a per-capita basis, Canadians bought more than twice as many dressers as Americans. Ikea itself appears to acknowledge in its 2017 catalogue — which at 328 pages landed with a resounding thud on doorsteps across the country this summer — that its furniture won’t last. In one article, Ikea designer Maja Ganszyniec describes her father discarding his old sofa. “It took him almost two days to sort the material for recycling,” she says. “Who has two days to dismantle a sofa?
So most of us just chuck the whole thing away, and that’s not good for the environment. That’s why it’s important for us to design these products in a way that’s easy for you to take them apart and separate the materials once the lifetime of the product has run out.” The article’s headline hints at Ikea’s future: “Furniture made out of paper. Ikea, of course, is in good company in the disposable-furnishings category. Walmart, Sears, Home Depot, Rona and Lowes all sell cheap furniture made of medium-density fibreboard, some of it made in Canada. Walmart sells a desk for $84.97; Sears’ computer desk is $99.97 (some assembly required). The desks are heavy, you can take them apart to move them, but they probably won’t come back together quite as well, so you toss them out and move on. Cities across Quebec are accustomed to disposable furniture littering the streets after the Canada Day weekend, which is moving day in the province. Dilip Soman, who studies behavioural economics, particularly retailing, at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, suggests that Ikea has helped create a fundamental shift in housewares.
“In the past, there wasn’t a whole lot of choice,” Soman says. “Ikea stuff is cheap, simple and modular. In a fairly insidious way, they have changed interior decorating. People are now a lot more in a co-creation way. You go to Ikea and you have your pencil and your tape, and it makes you feel in control. Shoppers will take an inferior product if they feel it was designed for them. When I visited one of my graduate students, I was stunned at how spiffy it looked. I didn’t have the money to furnish a place like that when I was in grad school.” Disposable furniture mimics trends in clothing and technology, and many consumers think that is just fine. “Look at Zara,” Soman says. “Most of their clothes fall apart after 10 washes. You get the sense the consumers say, ‘I am glad that jacket fell apart because I wanted a new design anyway.’ If you use low-cost materials you are not going to get durability, but I don’t think durability is what people want.” This trend has taken its toll on second-hand and antique stores.
The Louvre des Antiquaires, an enclave of hundreds of antique dealers that thrived next to the Louvre in Paris, has closed. People want new furniture, and when they no longer want it, the tables, chairs and beds are not well enough made to resell. Some second-hand furniture shops stubbornly persist, such as Green’s Antiques in Toronto, a glorious cacophony of hand-carved Chinese chairs, vintage telephones and thick oak side tables. Sconces dot its walls and the ceiling drips with chandeliers. A clerk, Daniel Simon, sniffs when asked about Ikea. “Kids buy some shelves,” he says. “It looks nice in the condo, but then they have a kid and the staples come out, and they have to buy another one. Young people are not educated. When you’re 20, you want dazzle. At some point, as Ikea notes, the product’s lifetime runs out. And then the furniture “typically is collected with the same vehicle that collects garbage, and is taken to a transfer station for disposal in the landfill,” says Pat Barrett, who does PR for the City of Toronto’s Solid Waste Management division.
“It’s included as one of the materials that we don’t have secondary uses for.” Toronto tried taking furniture apart in a pilot project a few years ago, but “there are limited markets for the components,” said Jim McKay, general manager of Solid Waste Management Services. The city continues to dismantle some fold-out couches to recycle the metal. McKay suggests that the industries producing these products need to be held financially accountable for end-of-life management. Ikea’s new catalogue offers “the low-cost dream wardrobe” and ideas for “refreshing the rental.” Plus, for $4.99, Ikea now offers a pulled salmon sandwich in a sourdough bun — which can go in the green bin if you don’t like it. But given the caprice of the average Ikea consumer, let the rallying cry go up: Bring on the paper furniture! At least it, too, will be recyclable.Access low cost flatpack furniture assembly services Airtasker is a trusted community marketplace for people and businesses to outsource furniture assembly tasks, including IKEA and flatpack furniture.
Find local services or hire flexible staff in minutes - online or via mobile. Trusted assemblers in Australia IKEA & Flatpack Furniture Assembly Services Whether it’s IKEA flatpack, Beds, Tables, Chairs or Couches. Airtasker has hundreds of talented furniture assembly experts who are ready to help. Our Furniture Assemblers love unpacking the flatpacks, getting the tools out and putting together all the nuts and bolts required to have a stylishly furnished home or office. Our Furniture Assemblers assemble Furniture from companies such as Fantastic Furniture, Nick Scali Furniture, Bunnings Furniture, Officeworks Furniture, Domayne Furniture, IKEA Furniture &Furniture Assemblers on Airtasker are extremely handy, have their own equipment and tools, and are flexible to your needs. Prices for tasks range depending on how many items of furniture you have, and what type it is. Make sure you check our Furniture Assembly Price Guide for help with determining the best price.
When creating your furniture assembly task, please be descriptive about the tools or equipment they might require, any other information that might make the quote more accurate. Typical furniture assembly costs: Furniture Assembly Price GuideSimple$25 per itemChildren’s Chair, table, or high chair Laptop tableSimple Table Top & Legs (VIKA)Office chair, Dining chair, bar stool, stool or bench Step stool or step ladderCupboard or Wardrobe Mirror Installation Simple Storage Systems (Per Section) (ALGOT)Coat & hat rackShelving unit or wall shelf Sun loungerSmall$40 per itemBookcases / EXPEDITBridging shelvingFRAMSTÅ panelFree standing/glass door cabinet Single Chaise SofaTV benchWork Desk or computer desk, GALANT DeskDrawer unit or filing cabinetDining table or bar table Drop leaf table or gate leg tableKitchen trolleyBed single, double or queen (No headboard)Bedside tableChest of drawersDressing tableHeadboardMedium$65 per itemSofa-bed or futonBureau WorkspaceBuffet or sideboardVÄRDE Unit, UDDEN or free standing islandChest of drawers (Large 6+ Drawers).
Bed single, double or queen ie MALM Bed Assembly (With Headboard)Baby CotDUKTIG Childrens Play kitchenLarge$90 per itemBed single, double or queenDay bedLoft bed or bunk bed (MYDAL, STORÅ or SVÄRTA) Wardrobe with Sliding Doors (ELGÅ system)Free standing wardrobe PAX Wardrobe system (per frame)STOLMEN Storage system (Per Section)Gazebo See Assembly Instructions from popular retailers below to give you a better idea of the work involved in assemblying your furniture. Freedom Furniture Assembly Instructions Fantastic Furniture Assembly Instructions Flat pack furniture or Ready-to-assemble furniture (RTA), is a form of furniture made allowing the efficient supply chain of furniture, reducing cost and making it extremely easy to transport. Furniture is provided as individual components and shipped together with assembly instructions for the customer to put together. Retailers like IKEA have brought this concept mainstream, and have made stylish furniture accessible and cheap.
Furniture Assembly has become a skill in its own right, and services have emerged supporting the increasing amount of flat packed furniture that are being sold. We've put together a great range of furniture assembly tips to help you put together your new purchases or help choose the right furniture assembly service or expert on Airtasker to come and help. Furniture assemblers on Airtasker are located across Australia including Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. IKEA Furniture assembly tasks recently completed: Assemble 2 small glass IKEA cabinets for me Needing someone to put together 2 glass cabinets for me that I just bought from IKEA... ... Assemble IKEA kids wardrobe Need someone to assemble an IKEA flat pack kids wardrobe, no shelves - I have started assembling already! Assemble some Ikea furniture - today I am looking for someone to assemble: 1. Ikea bestaburs tv cabinet 2. Ikea bjursta dining table 3. Kmart dining set (1...
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