Like usDownload our FREE app for Android and iOS in the appstore! Ads from our premium advertisers. Your ad here Latest items. View our latest itemsFound Items for sale in Malaysia - Page 1 of 31474Last week, I moved to London but my furniture stayed in New York. Saying goodbye nearly drove me crazy. I have lived in New York on a tight budget for the past three years. I bought most of my furniture at an IKEA store in Brooklyn. Slowly, I built up an apartment that could have been sponsored by the Swedish company: I bought a bed, a couch, a rug, and, later, other items such as small, indoor trees and a high bar table, stools sold separately. But then an opportunity arose to move with the Journal to London. I took it, knowing I wouldn’t be bringing much of my furniture with me. I told my friends that I would just donate everything to charity and start over in England. I calculated that shipping the stuff would be more expensive than buying it new. Little did I know that most charities in New York don’t accept furniture.

What’s more, some have very specific prohibitions on furniture from IKEA. Originally, I had wanted to give as much as possible to Housing Works. It’s a charity where I like to shop that uses revenue from things like used books and furniture to help people living with HIV and AIDS. But when I went to their website, I was surprised to find that under a list of items it does not take, Housing Works includes “IKEA furniture (with occasional exceptions).” “That’s weird,” I thought. Yet because I had a lot of other charities on my list, I moved on. Then my situation started to feel more serious. I kept getting the same message from charity after charity. Goodwill said no furniture. So did a lot of smaller places in Brooklyn. A veteran’s charity didn’t have anyone available to come to my neighborhood. I felt almost saved when The Salvation Army said yes, but really started to worry when a representative told me the charity couldn’t pick anything up until mid-May, two months after my flight was to depart.

This was a problem. There was no way my landlord would rent my apartment full of used IKEA furniture. And paying a junk disposal company would cost hundreds of dollars my budget couldn’t support. ” into Chrome and hoped for the best. My brother and his girlfriend recommended that I make my listings as non-creepy as possible. For instance, they advised against listing anything as “free,” since when people see that word online, they tend to think that there is a catch, like an axe murderer waiting on the other end. Within a few hours, a couple from Malaysia responded to my ad for a $30 IKEA sofa. A young woman from Long Island who said she had just moved to Bushwick with her boyfriend took the $15 bar table, stools, and whatever else I could load into her car. A young man who said he had immigrated to the U.S. with his parents from Uzbekistan took the $90 queen bed, and helped me carry it down all four flights of stairs. I gave everything to all of them for free. It’s all I had wanted to do in the first place.

I don’t mean to demonize the charities I wanted to help. When I called Housing Works, William Gover, vice president of merchandising and production, told me that I shouldn’t have so quickly written off the charity’s “with some exceptions” policy on IKEA furniture. They do take stuff they can sell. Yet he did add that IKEA furniture can be hard to move more than a couple times as it tends to fall apart. And he mentioned that it’s hard for the company to make a profit selling IKEA products. Density Of Vinyl FlooringTo do so, Housing Works has to sell it used for less than it costs to buy new, which doesn’t amount to much given IKEA’s generally low price point.Sphynx Cat For Adoption The Salvation Army told me that limited resources sometimes affect the speed of pickup.Lassie Dogs For Sale In Northern Ireland

And Michael Meyer, Goodwill Industries International’s vice president of donated goods retail and marketing, said he was really sorry about what happened to me. He said that furniture-donation policies vary from location to location. In places like New York, where space comes at a premium, he said it can actually be more expensive for charities like Goodwill to accept furniture. It’s costly for individuals to pay for junk disposal. It’s no different for charities when furniture doesn’t sell, he said. For its part, IKEA said it was “disappointed” to hear that some charities don’t accept the company’s products. “We believe that when assembled according to the assembly instructions, our furniture is durable and can be moved again and again,” Tracey Kelly, IKEA’s U.S. corporate communications manager, wrote in an e-mailed statement. While getting rid of my furniture drove me a little nuts, I am glad that these pieces of my New York life ended up where they did, strewn amongst people just getting started in the city.

Charlie Wells is a news editor for The Wall Street Journal based in London.Join our Facebook group. under Design, Green Interiors If you’re on a budget but still love the look of modern design, IKEA is a popular place to find that affordable furniture fix. But could you imagine yourself going “vintage modern” by purchasing second-hand IKEA products? Just a few days ago IKEA launched a new program in Sweden that offers used IKEA pieces online, and they intend to extend this idea to other foreign outlets. Peter Agnefäll, CEO of IKEA Sweden told the daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter, “It is about taking an environmental responsibility for how our products are used in the longer term and making it easier for our customers to do their part for their responsibility towards the environment.” We’re not too sure about the quality and life span of most IKEA furniture, but we do appreciate the gesture as the big-box company tries to reduce waste with a more sustainable business venture.