The correct way to assemble Ikea furniture is to apply wood glue (PVA or polyurethane) along every joint, in every screw hole, on every dowel, and along the edges of every backing board.
For extra points you can wipe polyurethane along any raw particle-board surfaces to seal them, like those on the bottom of a vertical unit.
It's about five minutes extra effort and $0.50 worth of glue for something like a large Billy bookcase.
This basically turns the entire piece into a single composite structure. It's incredibly durable. You cannot disassemble it to move but you can move it whole many, many times without anything breaking.
I have had to take a large sledgehammer to an Ikea entertainment center that I'd glued.
Walmart garbage does not respond the same way to this treatment. The Walmart (or Wayfair) particle board is a wooden oatmeal cookie. It crumbles from within regardless of how the joints are treated.
As far as I can tell, a lot of the more recent IKEA stuff we've bought is using that "wooden oatmeal cookie"[1] and honeycomb cardboard junk. I think some commenters are underestimating how much their materials have changed.
We've even have an older version of a shelf unit that is nice, solid pine, and gone and bought the current version and the current version has changed to that wooden oatmeal cookie[1] crap.
This is a worrying article because they had already seemed to previously squeeze all the quality they could have of their products.
In the past most of their table tops were solids, with only the cheapest ones being hollow. As they phased out those original tops and replaced them with identically priced updates, the vast majority become cardboard honeycomb filled.
When you're selling $200 cardboard filled table tops, I'm not sure how much more blood you can squeeze from the stone.
One thing I've kinda admired about IKEA is that they are super straightforward about what materials their products are made out of. Literally everything on their website says exactly what it's made of. If you want stuff that lasts longer, you buy the stuff at a higher price point that's made of solid wood, if you are on a budget or don't care about the longevity of it, buy the stuff made from particle board or compressed cardboard. It's not so much that the materials have changed, it's that people are buying the lowest end products and then complaining that they aren't as good as the higher end ones, when IKEA sells a whole range of different quality products. And honestly, their lower end products are usually cheaper and better made than the equivalent versions from other retailers. Those cheap IKEA bookcases are far superior to similar versions from Walmart or Target despite being essentially identically constructed.
I have a desk that's just a large Lack, and while it was too weak to hold up my monitor arm + 32" screen (yes, it was a dumb idea), it looks barely damaged after re-gluing the trim.
Wood glue is nice for Ikea stuff still made from reconstituted wood grain products. Unfortunately, they are starting to use a lot of the cardboard mesh hexagonal filler that doesn't respond well to glue at all. I used bondo to glue some of that stuff together, but its not very practical.
Ikea does sometimes use that low quality particle board for some things but at least they seem to be intelligent as to what materials they use where. Whereas Walmart just sells things entirely made of that shit.
I would do this, but I've misread or not carefully paid attention to Ikea instructions on probably half the items I've built. If I was unable to disassemble and undo my mistake the savings from buying IKEA else vanish.
I've noticed this with my wardrobe I bought from Ikea.
I have had to order replacement drawers and had issues with having to reattach it often, until I just glued it all down and now it's lasted and is completely stable.
For extra points you can wipe polyurethane along any raw particle-board surfaces to seal them, like those on the bottom of a vertical unit.
It's about five minutes extra effort and $0.50 worth of glue for something like a large Billy bookcase.
This basically turns the entire piece into a single composite structure. It's incredibly durable. You cannot disassemble it to move but you can move it whole many, many times without anything breaking.
I have had to take a large sledgehammer to an Ikea entertainment center that I'd glued.
Walmart garbage does not respond the same way to this treatment. The Walmart (or Wayfair) particle board is a wooden oatmeal cookie. It crumbles from within regardless of how the joints are treated.