In a way, I'm laughing ... because even at what would have been about $4 worth of AS-IS wood for a complete Kullen 5-drawer dresser, I feel like
I paid too much.
Why ... well, in turning the unit over between steps 6 and 7 as per the instructions last night ... oh wait, it didn't make it to step 7. Instead, it collapsed, cracking 3 of the pieces all the way through and damaging a couple dowel holes. Ugh.
It's stuff like this that makes a lot of folks refer to Ikea furniture as "disposible", and view the whole store in a negative manner, no matter how much better any of their other stuff is.
So in light of that, here are a few general pointers about Ikea furniture:- If it's among the lower priced item in the lineup, there's a reasonable chance it's a piece of crap.
- If a good number of the particle boards that make up the unit is unfinished, and any that has a finish is very minimal laminate on the exterior side only, chances are a lot better it's a piece of crap.
- If the said particle boards aren't even 5/8" thick, chances are excellent it's a piece of crap.
The corollary is that if it doesn't fall into the above catagories, chances are decent it'll hold up for a while and prolly even survive a few movings.
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As for what I did with the dresser ... well, I did continue to rebuild it.
- The holes and one of the front narrow pieces was repaired by covering the broken area with glue and packing in mixed sawdust to form back the shape. Essentially, this is no different to how particle board is made anyways, only that this repair area is actually packed to a higher density than the original board.
- The lower front piece wasn't repaired, but is now mounted with a metal L-bracket on the inside.
- The rear broken piece was completely replaced with another piece and doubled up.
- Lots of glue - every dowel and every seam (the only positive with unfinished particle board is that it takes glue very well).
At this point, the boards would break on this thing before the glue will. I just hope that such is more an indicator to the glue and not that this thing is going to fall apart again when I move it upstairs!
