Argos Flat Pack Furniture.

deadlion

Anyone any first hand experience of the quality? Particularly...the Winchester range of Bedroom wardrobes and chests. Since I cant see any on display ( as far as I know????) I don't want to buy unless I'm assured that the build quality is good. Hate to see flat pack assembled where doors don't align, drawers are out of synch and the finished product looks a bit cheapo...unlike the photographs in the catalogue. Have used Ikea flat pack and think the build quality is pretty good (imo)....does anyone have an informed view on the comparative quality of flat pack from Argos against Ikea??? Thanks.

Simon_Wallace

We've just replastered our bedroom, getting a new carpet today and popped to MFI & IKEA and couldn't see anything we liked. So we had a look at the Argos catalogue and decided on the Manhattan range. Looked good for the cash.

2 days later we were in Homebase getting some paint and we saw they sell the Manhattan range. Quite honestly I wouldn't have it in the garage, magnetic catches (always a sign of poorly designed furniture, the hinges should be keeping the door shut) which had to be yanked hard to open the door, back panels you could shoot peas through and generally very cheap and nasty looking.

I'm off to IKEA for my Pax wardrobes tonight, much more flexible in what goes inside. Soooo glad I didn't take the risk of buying the Manhattan without looking at it.

That's my experience, I hope it's useful to you.

Cheers
Simon

shelly

I can only comment on living room flat packed furniture at the moment as we have this in our living room now. We got a coffee table, TV unit, bookcase and display cabinet. It was the St Austell range. I really like the furniture as a whole but have a couple of gripes. The back of the bookcase is flimsy and thin, not much thicker than cardboard really. The same thin stuff is in the bottoms of the drawers.
Saying that though, we are moving pretty soon and are getting our bedroom furniture and dining table and chairs from Argos unless we see something in a store in the meantime. So they can't be that bad

TimDJ

We bought some a couple of years ago, can't remember the range. It is awful - we have now replaced it with something else as nothing lined up, very flimsy and just looked cheap and nasty. It's now acting as storage space in the garage!

Paddymcc_2

I bought it to furnish an apartment i bought last year.

The quality is DIRE. I bought a matching chest of drawers and wardrobe and it was a total mess. Im pretty competant at building flat pack stuff and building the wardrobe took almost half a day. Tiny little bits of wood because they were too cheap to have full pieces.

AVOID AT ALL COSTS

Then having said that i seen a bed in argos i liked. A beech bed that looked like it was floating with a nice headboard. Argos price almost £300. Ebay price £80 same bed both brand new but the ebay bed was missing a little light fitting which looked pants anyway. The bed is actually pretty good quality.

Also got another single one for the spare room. Argos price £90 Ebay price £40.

Jakaru

Excellent, I'm not alone!

Re-doing the spare room where I keep my computer last week, needed a new desk, and some sort of Display cabinet, bookshelves etc. Only big desk I could find that wasn't Too big to go in the alcove was from argos - so I bought it (Beech laminated MDF, the usual). Looked nice in the catalogue, and very practically designed (theres some rubbish out there).

JEES it was hard work to put together! 26 (!) pieces of wood, many looking alike, and not labelled well enough to really tell them apart. 2 of the pieces had the laminate badly adhered - 2 of the pieces took damage just from fitting the thing together!

Got it done eventually, but having been unable to match the colour of the desk to the bookcases etc in the argos catalogue (all the Beech products look a different colour in the pictures!), I took a piece of the desk to Ikea the following day.

I then realised how Naff a beech veneer the desk was. Though Ikeas stuff is still a laminated MDF, its thicker MDF, and better quality laminate, and just has a nicer Finish overall.

To make it worse, Ikeas Beech is VERY dark and orangey (beech really should be pale...) but their Birch finish is just a bit Paler than Argos beech! So now I have bookcases etc in Ikea Birch, and a desk in Argos Beech...

After putting together the Ikea stuff (a very large glass doored display cabinet, a small doored cabinet and 2 tall cd towers) in less time than the argos desk took, I couldn't beleive I'd wasted so much time on the Argos desk. The quality of the Ikea stuff was just Superb. Every aspect of the way they were made was excellent - and they look marvellous.

To be fair, the Ikea prices on Some things is high - but overall, they compare well to the cheaper argos stuff on price anyway.

I'm now comtemplating ditching the cheap looking argos desk completely (looking at it every day is annoying me!), and replacing it with a Glass one to avoid the Beech/Birch colour matching problem (the ikea desks weren't nice unfortunately...).

Problem - all the Glass desks that look suitable seem to be in the Argos catalogue.... oh dear...

vertical_fool

I started putting it together, the quality of the material was terrible. The dowels would not fit, the edges would not fit, it really was terrible.

I didn't even dismantle it, I took it back part made. I was disgusted with it.

Although I got my money back no problem, that was the best part of the service.

Vertical

thepange

We decided to go for a new king size nordic pine bed frame and mattress package from Argos a few weeks back....................NIGHTMARE!

Although we are very pleased with the quality of the mattress, the bed frame was an absolute headache to build. Took about 6 hours over two evenings to make up due to very shoddy materials. Badly drilled holes, loose fitting dowels, flimsy metal fastenings, some that broke when tightened, screws that were bent. One of the pine slats has already broken due to there being a great big knot right in the middle. The only positive thing i could say was the instructions were actually well written, shame about the actual bed.

I'm just hoping we dont have to move house in the near future, as there is no way it will be dismantled. Its in that room for the rest of its life!!

I've made up quite a lot of flat pack furniture from Ikea, B&Q etc, and have had nothing like any problems experienced with this one. I for one will not be buying anymore flatpack stuff from Argos!

deadlion

Thanks to all of you who took the time to provide such detailed replies. You've helped me no end to make up my mind ......I'll be giving the Argos flatpack a bodyswerve! In fact, thanks to Simon Wallace who alerted me to the fact, I visited Homebase and saw some of the Argos range on display. My word, that was shocking! The doors were hanging off some items where the hinges had dislodged, the backings were off a few, and nothing "hung together" so to speak....it looked just dreadful. Almost felt compelled to draw the Store manager's attention to the fact but what the hell......I don't get paid his salary. Thanks to you all once again. Much appreciate your time and advice.:T

Simon_Wallace

Jakaru wrote: »

To be fair, the Ikea prices on Some things is high - but overall, they compare well to the cheaper argos stuff on price anyway.

I'm now comtemplating ditching the cheap looking argos desk completely (looking at it every day is annoying me!), and replacing it with a Glass one to avoid the Beech/Birch colour matching problem (the ikea desks weren't nice unfortunately...).
QUOTE]

I hope I'm not starting to sound like an IKEA salesman here, but I got a superb PC desk from IKEA. Nothing underneath (I hate it when they suggest you have a printer underneath, that's where my feet go), and a shelf that was strong enough to take a 26" TV, a DVD player, Telewest box, VCR & Canon MFP. If you're restricted for space it may not fit, but have a look at the incredibly unfortunately named JERKER (£80 and available in birch). You could jump up and down on the thing and it wouldn't mind.

Sorry if that was a bit off-topic

Cheers
Simon

Jakaru

Simons made me realise I should clarify my 'No desks at Ikea' thing.

I have a wierd size space to fill (I built my last desk to fit it from scratch, it was easier!) of a maximum 1340mm. I need it to fill as much space as possible, and have as many drawers, shelves and just general storage as I can get (I hoard!). (I too like Big desks with leg-room, but in this case, I'll be using the desk little enough to put Storage over Usability!)

Most desks go from 800-1200 wide, and then take aleap up to 1400+. The 1260 etc (perfect size! like the Jerker ( http://www.ikea.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10103&storeId=7&langId=-20&productId=25905 ) tend to be simple desks lacking in storage etc. So I was quite chuffed to find: http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/6211532.htm - Exactly what I needed.

(To be fair to argos, ther desk is put together quite well from a design point of view - and I do like the layout of all the shelves etc, even the printer shelf isn't in the way of my feet too much. Its just cheaply made!)

I must confess - wish I'd bought the Jerker now - and in fact may well Do so this weekend! The add on shelves the website lists would be a vital purchase though!

(The ikea big corner desks that have storage etc look ok on the website, but looked a bit Naff in real life.)