Anyone who has not been to IKEA....
Posted: 09 Jan 2022 21:32
Do not go, unless you want to be subject to the same methods put upon rats in a laboratory. Closest IKEA to me is about 45 miles each way, on account of me being out in the desolation.
First visit most likely my last... been renovating a few rooms. All the furniture was either really crap hand-me-down stuff, or in the case of one room "wicker" which the cats systematically destroyed. So, new floor, new ceiling fan, paint on every surface, one wall paneled in cedar, cedar molding throughout, chair rail, made a headboard and a desk for the room, but, called it quits with dressers and such. So a trip to IKEA since they have some solid wood, unfinished pine furniture, which I can modify and customize a bit and add the finish of my curvier half''s choice. She'll let me just put some PU on it, and let the pine amber and age darker (whew).
You get there, and its a free for all parking. Just grab whatever you can see open. Trust me. Get into the place, and there nothing but some samples, kiddieland, and an escalator up. That's where the fun begins. Once you're on floor #2, there's no way down except by running the maze. The floor layout zig zags thru all the modernistic furniture, both cheap, cheaper, and a bit more expensive. Probably 95 percent of what's offered is laminate on MDF. I don't mind pine if its cut well and sturdy. So you go all thru the maze, and nothing is grouped. You want the matching dresser to the nightstand? You'll have to find it, someplace, maybe behind the faux bathrooms. Every suite has a faux crapper and vanity. I felt like dropping trou and dropping a nice deuce in one of 'em. Anyway, there's furniture, but no salesman, no sales kiosk, just... nuthin. I'm trying to figure out how to actually BUY this stuff. I start grabbing snap shots with my phone.
Well you get thru the maze and at the end is a restaurant stack/bar. A leisurely pace in the fairly warm store took an hour too traverse all thru the place, with its long and winding road of basically... lowest end stuff. The idea is to wear you out, have you and the missus sit down for some Swedish viddles and discuss what you liked and didn't so you can make your mind up buying it. Cleaver.
Right next to the eatery, the staircase down. I don't know how they do this trick. I could find no wheelchair access anyplace, and no emergency EXIT signs anyplace. I dunno... At any rate, you get into a big warehouse section, now on a lower floor winding road. And since I snapped pics, I've got the price, and bin location of everything of interest. Grab a cart and head for the bins. Now you gotta sign into their system or you can't actually "buy" from them. Personal info? REALLY, for cheap ass furnishings? I faked it. Grab the items, head for the checkout and... they're charging prices over sticker price at the checkout. I ask... why is the sticker less than the cash register? Oh no, they say, its correct. No... its not. Well you can go get the sticker and bring it here, they say. I say, well I got a picture of the damn sticker, so make it right. They wanted to verify the time stamp on my phone's image. Ruthless. But I got the price I expected.
Whole IKEA experience... damn near three hours. Almost all of that marching thru the maze.
As it sits, it ate into my Sunday gun-time to the point that I didn't get a thing done otherwise.
First visit most likely my last... been renovating a few rooms. All the furniture was either really crap hand-me-down stuff, or in the case of one room "wicker" which the cats systematically destroyed. So, new floor, new ceiling fan, paint on every surface, one wall paneled in cedar, cedar molding throughout, chair rail, made a headboard and a desk for the room, but, called it quits with dressers and such. So a trip to IKEA since they have some solid wood, unfinished pine furniture, which I can modify and customize a bit and add the finish of my curvier half''s choice. She'll let me just put some PU on it, and let the pine amber and age darker (whew).
You get there, and its a free for all parking. Just grab whatever you can see open. Trust me. Get into the place, and there nothing but some samples, kiddieland, and an escalator up. That's where the fun begins. Once you're on floor #2, there's no way down except by running the maze. The floor layout zig zags thru all the modernistic furniture, both cheap, cheaper, and a bit more expensive. Probably 95 percent of what's offered is laminate on MDF. I don't mind pine if its cut well and sturdy. So you go all thru the maze, and nothing is grouped. You want the matching dresser to the nightstand? You'll have to find it, someplace, maybe behind the faux bathrooms. Every suite has a faux crapper and vanity. I felt like dropping trou and dropping a nice deuce in one of 'em. Anyway, there's furniture, but no salesman, no sales kiosk, just... nuthin. I'm trying to figure out how to actually BUY this stuff. I start grabbing snap shots with my phone.
Well you get thru the maze and at the end is a restaurant stack/bar. A leisurely pace in the fairly warm store took an hour too traverse all thru the place, with its long and winding road of basically... lowest end stuff. The idea is to wear you out, have you and the missus sit down for some Swedish viddles and discuss what you liked and didn't so you can make your mind up buying it. Cleaver.
Right next to the eatery, the staircase down. I don't know how they do this trick. I could find no wheelchair access anyplace, and no emergency EXIT signs anyplace. I dunno... At any rate, you get into a big warehouse section, now on a lower floor winding road. And since I snapped pics, I've got the price, and bin location of everything of interest. Grab a cart and head for the bins. Now you gotta sign into their system or you can't actually "buy" from them. Personal info? REALLY, for cheap ass furnishings? I faked it. Grab the items, head for the checkout and... they're charging prices over sticker price at the checkout. I ask... why is the sticker less than the cash register? Oh no, they say, its correct. No... its not. Well you can go get the sticker and bring it here, they say. I say, well I got a picture of the damn sticker, so make it right. They wanted to verify the time stamp on my phone's image. Ruthless. But I got the price I expected.
Whole IKEA experience... damn near three hours. Almost all of that marching thru the maze.
As it sits, it ate into my Sunday gun-time to the point that I didn't get a thing done otherwise.