Putting together IKEA furniture is a fun journey into the human psyche, especially if you do it with a friend or loved-one. That's not to say assembling the flatpack furniture is prohibitively difficult and that you shouldn't do it, but there's a reason furniture is such a lucrative business – so much can go so very wrong when you're forced to assemble the furniture yourself. Most heartbreaking, of course, is when you accidently put pressure on a piece of what you thought was wood the wrong way and the entire thing either bends or outright snaps, leading you to ask: what exactly is IKEA furniture made out of, anyway?
Saving The Environment, One LINNMON At A Time
When you produce as much furniture as IKEA does, using nothing short of the finest, purest oak is going to quickly leave the Amazon Rainforest nothing but a scene out of an early 2000s environmental horror movie. Instead, there are a range of other materials that seek to stretch out how many pieces of furniture can be made from the same amount of wood, including a material known as Medium Density Fibreboard, or MDF. MDF, as opposed to plywood, has a variety of benefits that make it the superior choice for cabinetry and furniture. Normally, MDF is cheaper than plywood, and the surface is smoother, making it easier to get a great result out of painting it, and the internal structure of MDF is more consistent than many other types of wood, allowing for smooth cuts and edges.
One Man's Trash Is Another Man's LAGKAPTEN
The real environmental aid of MDF, though, is the process through which its created. Working with wood creates a large amount of waste, including wood shavings and undesirable cuts that would otherwise be discarded for scrap. MDF is built from that scrap, breaking down residual pieces of both hardwood and softwood into fine particles that are soaked in wax and bound with resin, under both high temperatures and significant amounts of pressure. The resultant MDF material is able to be used to create financially cheap, environmentally inexpensive furniture, the benefits of which are self-evident.
So Why Not Use MDF Everywhere?
Unfortunately, the material isn't without its weaknesses. Primarily, moisture is able to get into the seams of any piece of MDF that hasn't been properly sealed due to its particleboard nature, at which point the material will absorb the water and expand, which can quickly destroy any MDF furniture left outside. As a result, solid woods are more commonly used outside of the home, but inside of the home, there is very little reason to use anything else other than tradition.
Where Can I Getting Some Custom Made High Quality MDF Doors For My IKEA Cabinetry?
Here at Customea, we provide custom, high quality MDF doors suitable for a wide range of IKEA products. For all custom IKEA doors in Australia, click "SHOP NOW" below!