(no subject)

[rivka]

This afternoon curiousangel and I took our very first trip to Ikea.

We were shopping for a china cabinet (we picked this, only with solid white doors on the bottom half), and a wardrobe (we picked this, only goodness it was a lot cheaper, so who knows what special options the version in the picture has - ours will have a closet bar at the top and open shelves on the bottom). We also got a bunch of things we weren't shopping for, as I understand frequently happens at Ikea: a folding stand that holds a laundry bag, a lap tray, a bag of 100 tea lights. (They were $1.99! How could we not get them?)

We didn't bring anything home but the little tchotchkes. They were out of the wardrobe frame, and we didn't think we could get the china cabinet into our car. We'll have to try to bribe or coerce fourgates into taking us out there in his van.

I had heard things about the Ikea shopping experience before, but was still surprised by how different it is from a normal store. When you come in, you pick up a map of the store which has space on the back for a list of the things you're considering. They also supply flimsy plastic measuring tapes and tiny pencils. You follow a predetermined track through the store, winding around a hundred or so little room groupings of furniture and larger areas filled with, for example, fifty different couches all lined up in rows. You make notes on what you like, and at the end there are big shelves lined with boxes of furniture parts. Hopefully you remember what you wanted and where it was.

Everything is customizable to a fault - you can mix and match this wardrobe with these doors, these internal dividers, shelves or drawers of these types, these finishes, these handles. And that's just one of twelve different customizable wardrobe bases, all of which can be combined in different ways. The price tag itemizes the pieces involved in any given floor display - you have to be good at adding and subtracting to figure out what your customized version will cost. We got pretty dizzy towards the end, and had to sit down in a child's room display to go over everything we'd seen and figure out what we were still thinking of buying and what it all cost.

Halfway through there's a cafe selling Swedish meatballs with lingonberries. curiousangel wouldn't buy me the gravlax plate.

It was fun. Dizzying, but fun. All those options... I could easily see Ikea taking over our house.

Comments

Ooh, IKEA!

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I love IKEA. (Yes, according to some people, this makes me one of the plastic types depicted in the first minutes of Fight Club. I don't care.)

Why wouldn't curiousangel buy you the gravlax plate? The cafe at IKEA is one of my very favorite places to grab interesting cheap food.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Ah, welcome to the world of IKEA! Renovating our house would be much more difficult if it weren't for the way that most of our old furniture comes apart with an Allan key.

I love that meatballs plate with the lingonberries.

[wcg.livejournal.com]

Wow! I look forward to seeing it all.

[eeyorerin]

Heh, two glowing posts about Ikea in a row on my friends list. :)

Allan and I had rather an Ikea Christmas -- both my aunt and uncle and Allan's sister and her girlfriend gave us the cheese grater with attached basket, and I got a nifty lacquer tray and a juice pitcher. And then there was the Julmust. Um. Yeah. Julmust.

[geekymary.livejournal.com]

The problem with Ikea is that you see this beautiful furniture upstairs, and then you go downstairs and get a box.

When you open this box at home, you get a bunch of pieces, some little cranks, and picture instructions on how to turn the bits that are now littering your floor into the beautiful furniture you saw at the store. It's not always easy.

And yet, every time I go through Ikea, I look at how cheap everything is, and how lovely, and...I have to remind myself that I have to put it together.

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

I was planning to put the tea lights on some sort of multiple-level candle holder in one of our nonfunctional fireplaces. I think if we put mirrors behind them, it'll be very striking.

I was impressed with the marketing savvy behind the whole concept of the IKEA store. You can't just run in, look at one thing, get it, and leave. You get to go through the whole winding racetrack, and you get to see all the little sample "rooms", so you have to see how these pieces would actually work. It isn't like a normal furniture store, where you walk past about a zillion pieces just plopped in the middle of the floor, and you have to imagine what it would look like as part of a room; no, here they give it to you in living Technicolor, and it looks good, like a room you'd actually use and enjoy.

You'd have to be a track star to get all the way through in a short period of time, too. They have all the neat little "we bought 'em in quantity from China, so we can offer 'em for damn near nothing" items scattered for impulse buys, too. Also, note that they don't spend vast amounts of money on staffing -- the whole thing is geared for self-service, even though there are information booths scattered around the place. When we finally wanted to ask a question, we had to work to find a staff member instead of having a salescritter getting into our personal space, and we never had any staff person trying to sell us anything. I did see a staff person giving someone a fairly detailed explanation of some options once, though.

It reminded me a little bit of a Saturn dealership, to tell you the truth.

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

When you open this box at home, you get a bunch of pieces, some little cranks, and picture instructions on how to turn the bits that are now littering your floor into the beautiful furniture you saw at the store. It's not always easy.

See, the thing is, I get into stuff like that. To me, that's a goodly chunk of the fun. rivka can just hand the box over to me and say, "Call me when it's time to decide where we want the assembled pieces", and my reply is "Sure thing, love."

I know others may not share my kinks, but as long as they leave me to my enjoyment in peace, it'll all work out fine. :)

[rivka.livejournal.com]

curiousangel is extremely skilled at putting disassembled furniture together. Fortunately for me.

[geminigirl]

I wish I had known you when I moved into this place. Most of the new furniture came from Ikea, and while the bookcases, microwave cart, and entertainment center thingy were no problem, the bed frame gave me so much trouble.

I do have a desk that's waiting to be assembled though...had planned on getting to it during the time off, but being sick sort of usurped that.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

How about this? curiousangel will come down and assemble your desk and I'll keep you company while he does it. Then you'll repay us with latkes.

DIY kinks

[mamatiger.livejournal.com]

Heh. I can't say I *enjoy* the DIY aspect, but I do love the low cost of furniture you assemble yourself. I just dropped a ton o'cash at Target myself (no IKEA in my town, alas) for: a TV stand and microwave stand (both "nice" quality); a 4' tall bookshelf (also nice); five separate pieces of stackable cabinets & drawers (cheaper stuff); and one of those spring-loaded shelf dealies for over the back of the toilet.

I went into full-out DIY mode by designing a hutch for my desk -- 41" wide X 55" tall, 3 shelves. Cost $50 at the lumber yard. And by god I got the shelves *level*! (I should really finish the raw wood somehow, but I'm putting *that* chore off....)

Your choices are very pretty indeed! Sometimes I like looking at elegant furnishings and pretending I have the kind of home those things would fit into. :)

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Every piece of furniture in my place that wasn't left by the prior tenants came from Ikea.

I *heart* Ikea.

[geekchick]

You can't just run in, look at one thing, get it, and leave.

I can, but I don't like to. =) On our last trip there, we already knew what we wanted and where it was and headed straight down to the warehouse area. Not nearly as much fun as poking around all the kitchen gadgets and the stuffed animals. (They had stuffed bats, eeee!) =)

[geminigirl]

That might work. Since I did say I would make latkes. And if I can get all the things I want, I'll make chicken soup too, but you have to promise to take some of it home if I do.

[lysana.livejournal.com]

My first trip to IKEA was a deliberate visit to their cafeteria with a walk of their sales floors as a secondary concern. I enjoyed seeing how the stuff all fit together, complete with the square footage. I also liked their sampler plate, which let me have salmon as well as Swedish meatballs with lingonberry preserves. When the quantity of stuff in my apartment reaches human levels again, there are one or two pieces I saw which will come home with me for sure.

[trinker.livejournal.com]

Over the years, I've learned where the shortcuts are...

(And yeah. I love assembling stuff from IKEA. This is why, when I moved out from the residence I shared with my ex, I had ridiculous numbers of allen wrenches.)

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

Be careful. At our local Ikea, the delivery charges outweigh any cost saving compared to simply ordering the same items at our town-centre department store (which delivers for free), and the customer service is poor to non-existent. The items we bought eventually arrived several weeks late, taped together with no additional packaging so that the tape took the finish off with it, and the deliveries were done by sub-contractors so that trying to sort it out became a blamefest.

[zerbie.livejournal.com]

a bag of 100 tea lights. (They were $1.99! How could we not get them?)

There's an Ikea pretty close to us, and me and all my friends have been there. We all have the bag of 100 tea lights. :)

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

Wah! You went to IKEA without meeeeeeeee!

-J

[ailbhe]

Contrariwise, we found that delivery was expensive but that the furniture was still cheaper than it would have been at the local department stores (which didn't stock what we wanted anyway), and everything arrived ok. Mind you, we knew that you have to pack your stuff yourself for delivery, so we did that carefully before queueing up to request delivery. Also, our stuff arrived on time and the delivery people called us to check we were in to accept delivery that morning.

Delivery is expensive enough that if what we have will fit in a car, we get a taxi home instead of the train, because the taxi costs about the same as delivery.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

You didn't say you wanted to go! If you were able to stand Michael and I talking about storage for 2 1/2 solid hours, you would've been welcome.

Maybe you can come with us when we go to pick up the furniture?

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

For us, at least, the two closest IKEA stores are both located in the midst of suburban shopping areas with easy access to freeways, and we have a friend with a van, so we won't be dealing with delivery issues. As I recall, the delivery charge that I saw posted in the store was about $70 US, which would be significantly more than cabfare, and would actually be expensive enough that I'd consider renting a cargo vehicle if I wanted to carry everything myself.

I'm now suffering a headache at the idea of having to rent a U-Haul in order to get all my purchases home. Ow, ow, ow.

[ailbhe]

Cabfare is at least 40 UKP from our nearest IKEA to our house - about the same as return train fare for two plus lunch. Neither of us has a valid driving licence. We're 25 and 29 years old and have only needed a licence once, as far as I know, and even then we found friends willing to help with the driving when we moved house.

If I had access to a van and a driver, my IKEA trips could get DANGEROUS. There's only so many allan keys I can store, even if I do sell off the furniture as soon as something more interesting enters the catalogue...

[elusis.livejournal.com]

I do not have an Ikea. I also do not have an H&M or a Sephora.

It's enough to make one feel as though one doesn't actually live in civilization.

[therealjae.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's okay. I was kidding. (Mostly.) Though I do love IKEA. :-)

-J

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

Our place is almost entirely decorated in IKEA. I'm not a huge fan of their stuff, but I like it passably enough, and it comes apart in pieces which make it eminently compatible with our narrow stairs and sharp turns-at-the-top.

The largest IKEA in North America is right near here, which is where we shopped for our current place. My brain was a fine slurry by the end. I lost my ability to discriminate about an hour and a half before the end of the journey. "What do you think of thi--" "Whatever." We gave up eventually and went back another day.

[mittelbar.livejournal.com]

I wonder what costs are involved with offering decent shipping.

I'd thought about a bed frame, but have stopped considering buying anything large at this time. Too much hassle figuring out how to get it home.

Fun looking, though.

[fourgates.livejournal.com]

One potentially non-trivial benefit of assembling your own furniture is that you may be more likely to be able to get the item into the room in which you'd like to use it. This seems particularly helpful in many Baltimore row houses, which typically have tall, narrow stairwells.

[fourgates.livejournal.com]

You are, of course, welcome to use the van. I'm planning to use it after work through Friday, though, because I still have a few things to get out of storage and I need to finish that this week or pay for another month's rent. Might you be able to give me a ride to/from the airport on Friday/Sunday? That would save me $27 for parking, and you could just keep the van for the weekend. You could park it at the NCB if needed. If you'd like to have help loading/unloading things, we might be able to do it immediately after work on Friday.

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

I can certainly handle shuttling you to and from the airport, but since some of our things were on back-order, they aren't expected to be back in stock by this weekend. We'll let you know as soon as the stuff comes in, though.

[geekymary.livejournal.com]

That's true. My house does not have small hallways, but I do have small transportation.

Last time we went to Ikea, my husband and I were seeking bookshelves. We figured we'd buy two and stick the boxes in our Camry.

We found ourselves in the As-Is section and found three bookshelves. Two were floor models and apparently scratched (not that we could see) and one had a hole in the backing (which could easily be replaced). They were all assembled, and much cheaper.

So I borrowed my dad's SUV, and we drove all the way home with two (assembled) bookshelves sticking out the back and one tied to the front. Normally the trip home takes about an hour. It took two because we took back roads and every time we stopped, the glasses we bought slid along the bookshelves and slammed against the side. And we were freezing.

We got everything home OK, though, and three bookshelves were sufficient to hold all the books that we had designated for that room.