In April of 1981, I was rolling through the aisles of a fascinating store in Freiburg im Breisgau, in (West) Germany. I’d moved to Germany on the day of Reagan’s inauguration, and after some months in a residential hotel I was moving into my own 12 square meter (129 square feet) apartment. I needed to furnish it, and my German friends had pointed me to this new store on the edge of town, a Swedish firm called IKEA.
I loved the stuff, and still do: the simple clean Scandinavian look has always appealed to me. It had other advantages: it was cheap, it could be broken down and packed if I decided to take anything back to the States with me, and it was cheap.
When I eventually came back to the US and moved to North Carolina, there was an IKEA store built between Richmond and Washington DC, a feasible drive in itself and also something I drove past fairly regularly, as my grad school was largely funded by DARPA and similar agencies. I’d almost always at least stop in and buy some elegant unnecessary plastic objects, kitchen stuff, a lamp, and eat in the cafeteria which specialized in things like Swedish meatballs and smoked reindeer brisket.
So, IKEA finally decided to build a store here in the Denver area, in Centennial. (James Michener fans: the town of Centennial, Colorado, is named after the fictional town of Centennial, Colorado, from Michener’s novel about Colorado history, Centennial. The fictional Centennial was roughly 50 miles north and roughly corresponds to the town of Greeley. Don’t say you haven’t learned anything today.) I was anxious to look it over, plus I’ve just moved into a house and need more furniture. Specifically, I wanted a really simple, round glass-topped dining table, and I was willing to bet IKEA would have it.
My mother decided she wanted to see it. (Insert sinister foreshadowing music here.) She’s 76, has great trouble walking due to hip troubles, has breathing troubles, is nearly blind, and has a continuing assortment of leg injuries from walking into things and/or falling.
This makes the IKEA trip into an Adventure. I checked, and IKEA does provide wheelchairs; I informed my mother we were getting a wheelchair. I get her in my car, we drive to IKEA about a half hour away, arriving at around 11AM.
Now the adventure begins: the store has so much traffic that there are temp workers in orange tabards, directing traffic with orange plastic wands into the parking lots.
Outlying parking lots.
The temp workers don’t know how to get to the Handicapped spaces, but they all either think they do or they don’t want to cope with the increasingly annoyed middle aged man driving: they direct me hither and yon and say “Oh I’ll radio ahead,” although to whom was unclear. We finally find a parking place close enough that Mom says she can walk that far. Park, get her out of the car. Start walking.
Surprise: the big sign that says ENTRANCE is just directions. The actual ENTRANCE is probably 200 years further through the parking garage — which is half-empty, there apparently being a special privilege sticker for garage parking that I don’t have. Um, 200 yards further, Freudian slip After several rest stops, we finally got into the ENTRANCE — which was actually the elevator lobby below the actual ENTRANCE.
There was a quotation above the elevator: “Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch’intrate.” It’s now about 11:30.
Up the elevator, and having now walked further than she probably has in years, Mom was ready for the wheelchair.
I’ve been driving past the new IKEA on I-25 pretty regularly and you can tell from the highway it’s always jammed. I like IKEA and used to shop there when we lived in California. My wife and I had been joking it would probably be October before we were brave enough to try to go there. After reading this I’m not so sure
Golly I hope it gets better by then. I think — I still want that table — the answer is to show up at about 09:45 with running shoes, quickly buy the table and bed, mark them for delivery, and then get the hell (heh) out.
Skip the whole process and buy the thing online.
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/search/?query=glass+top+table&pageNumber=2
service as the main industry in the USA?
then our industry comes from hell, with less style than a Hollywood Satan, longer lines and a sales clerk who would rather talk to someone who MIGHT come to the store than those who are trying to check out.
answer – Amazon Prime
Fellow Denverite here! We had to do some shopping for my daughter in college who is moving into her first house, and we discovered the best time to shop is about 8:30pm. In and out without too much fuss.
Fellow Denverite here! We had to do some shopping for my daughter in college who is moving into her first house, and we discovered a good time to shop was about 8:30pm. In and out without too much fuss.
Noone goes there any more. Its too crowded.
The thing that’s always amused me, and aroused my curiosity, is how they devise all those goofy names for everything they sell. They can’t sell that saute pan for $2.99 without it being called something unpronounceable except in Swedish. Somewhere around here I have a bookshelf that was christened “Billy” before it was sold to me. No one could tell me why. I’ve always imagined a guy sitting in a bar in Sweden, alone. A girl walks up and sits next to him, decides he’s a likely looking guy and alone, and they wind up conversing. She asks him what he does for a living, and he tells her he’s the one who names all the furniture at Ikea. And she picks up her drink and moves to the other end of the bar…
Weirdly, one of the experiences of Ikea, for me, is that you can get cloudberry jam (normally not available outside of Sweden) there. Ours also has (last time I was there anyway) an elderly greeter who’s actually Swedish.
I read an article on that in German years ago. The gist was that they have people whose job it is to make up names that
1) sound Swedish
2) aren’t really Swedish because they don’t want to annoy Danes and Norwegians
3) sound “friendly”
4) and, when pronounced in Swedish, sound close to some associated word is as wide a collection of languages as possible. Thus, eg, the “Klubbo” table.
Can someone please explain why IKEA’s now-legendary computer desk was called “Jerker?”
I can explain. “Jerker” is a male Christan name over here.I am not sure if the new , global IKEA would have chosen it today.
“Yerker” doesn’t sound near as funny.
Considering the popularity of Internet porn ….
The product names are based on a system the founder Ingvar Kamprad, (IK in IKEA) came up with. Ingvar has Dyslexia so he found that naming items after places and things worked for everybody. Here’s the naming convention (from Wikipedia):
Most of the names are Swedish in origin. Although there are some notable exceptions, most product names are based on a special naming system developed by IKEA.
* Upholstered furniture, coffee tables, rattan furniture, bookshelves, media storage, doorknobs: Swedish places (for example: Klippan)
* Beds, wardrobes, hall furniture: Norwegian names of places
* Dining tables and chairs: Finnish names of places
* Bookcase ranges: Occupations
* Bathroom articles: Scandinavian lakes, rivers and bays
* Kitchens: grammatical terms
* Chairs, desks: men’s names
* Fabrics, curtains: women’s names
* Garden furniture: Swedish islands
* Carpets: Danish place names
* Lighting: terms from music, chemistry, meteorology, measures, weights, seasons, months, days, boats, nautical terms
* Bedlinen, bed covers, pillows/cushions: flowers, plants, precious stones
* Children’s items: mammals, birds, adjectives
* Curtain accessories: mathematical and geometrical terms
* Kitchen utensils: foreign words, spices, herbs, fish, mushrooms, fruits or berries, functional descriptions
* Boxes, wall decoration, pictures and frames, clocks: colloquial expressions, also Swedish place names
For example, DUKTIG (meaning: good, well-behaved) is a line of children’s toys, OSLO is a name of a bed, BILLY (a Swedish masculine name) is a popular bookcase, DINERA (meaning: (to) dine) for tableware, KASSETT (meaning: cassette) for media storage. One range of office furniture is named EFFEKTIV (meaning: efficient, effective), SKÄRPT (meaning: sharp or clever) is a line of kitchen knives.
I am Swedish and as far as I know all these names are Swedish ( a few Danish and Norwegian ) but there are probably some Swedes who are not so familiar with all of them. Sounds odd perhaps but IKEA searches and finds names of faraway, small Swedish villages and places, old strange Christian names, botanical names , verbs and so on.Sometimes they put together two Swedish words and the result sounds strange even to Swedes. I think that they nowadays, when IKEA is such a big global company, make sure that the name can not be misunderstood or is “sensitive”. I find it a little amusing when I realize that foreigners have to deal with names like “Brunkrissla” and “Glasört” ( botanical) and “Blåmes” ( a little bird). Oh, to hear a Chinese pronounce this ! “Billy” is the popular bookcase that they have sold for many, many years. They probably just liked the name, hardly anyone is called Billy over here.
“Billig” means cheap/inexpensive in Norwegian, but sounds like “Billy” if Billy were pronounced in English by a Norwegain speaker (“beelee”). Maybe that’s where the bookcase got its name. We had one once and I always thought of it as our “cheap” bookcase, even though it was actually very nice. Unfortunately, it went with my ex husband when he left.
According to Wikipedia:
IKEA products are identified by single word names. Most of the names are Swedish in origin. Although there are some notable exceptions, most product names are based on a special naming system developed by IKEA.
* Upholstered furniture, coffee tables, rattan furniture, bookshelves, media storage, doorknobs: Swedish placenames (for example: Klippan)
* Beds, wardrobes, hall furniture: Norwegian place names
* Dining tables and chairs: Finnish place names
* Bookcase ranges: Occupations
* Bathroom articles: Scandinavian lakes, rivers and bays
* Kitchens: grammatical terms, sometimes also other names
* Chairs, desks: men’s names
* Fabrics, curtains: women’s names
* Garden furniture: Swedish islands
* Carpets: Danish place names
* Lighting: terms from music, chemistry, meteorology, measures, weights, seasons, months, days, boats, nautical terms
* Bedlinen, bed covers, pillows/cushions: flowers, plants, precious stones
* Children’s items: mammals, birds, adjectives
* Curtain accessories: mathematical and geometrical terms
* Kitchen utensils: foreign words, spices, herbs, fish, mushrooms, fruits or berries, functional descriptions
* Boxes, wall decoration, pictures and frames, clocks: colloquial expressions, also Swedish place names
Someday things will calm down there. When it does, you’ll be able to get in and out with no problem, provided you go during the work day. (Well, the wheelchair will never be really easy to deal with, but that’s universal.)
By the way, how can you have a piece about IKEA without a reference to troubadour Jonathan Coulton’s song about it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyeynCnXMoo
Easy: I’d never heard it. Thanks.
Geflar! (Actually they’re IKEA cookies, but pronounced with the right emphasis and conviction it sounds like it could mean … almost anything.)
I’m hesitant to reveal this closely held secret, because it could easily backfire and bog down my next (rare) trip.
Don’t tell anyone, but with the exception of brand-new stores, back-to-school season and the Christmas holidays, the best time to shop at IKEA is a non-holiday Monday morning.
The Tuesday morning directly following a Monday holiday should be divine shopping time.
Ooh, excellent thought.
Perhaps it sounds like a contradiction, but your story is an instance of the following law: Convenience can be an ordeal.
Or, as they say in global warming circles, HARRY_READ_ME.TXT
Heck with it; there’s a Target 4 minutes away. I don’t like the Socialist layout of the store; you have to go through the store in the exact order they’ve decided you want to go, instead of you getting to choose. The instructional diagrams are useless, too. I never buy anything I need to assemble.
Years ago, before they came to the US, I was in Hong Kong and saw a store called IKEA and decided to see what it was. Two steps inside the door I realized ‘this is just a another nondescript contemporary cheap furniture store, let me out’. They don’t tell you, but two steps back are not permitted! I was trapped! They made me run the gauntlet of the entire horrid place. Surrounded by tasteless prefab mass produced crap – everywhere. Stephen King himself could not have devised a more terrifying scenario. Shortly, I linked up with a half dozen other shaking, terrified, disoriented people desperately trying to GET OUT. One woman was weeping hysterically. It didn’t work. She was forced to do the maze. I don’t know if she ever made it out. When I saw some daylight, I scrambled over several displays and made my break for it.
Oh yeah? Well I furnished an entire apartment out of the IKEA in Beijing.
But that was nothing. I’m really too damaged to talk about it, adjectives fail, etc., but after IKEA, go shop at the Beijing Carrefour. And take your groceries home on a bus.
My first experience with IKEA (back in the ’80s) I came in, turned around and came back out — breaking the turnstile as I did it. It amazes me that fire codes allow them to build a store that doesn’t have a clear, quick way to exit.
I have it on good authority that the Church will shortly declare customer-assembled furniture to be a device of Satan.
(Well, if it doesn’t, it certainly should!)
I always go in the opposite direction of the arrows because I enter where the cash registers are. Sometimes I get looks that could kill but I don’t let that bother me. The best place in IKEA is the little market adjoining the area where the cash registers are. I pick up cookies, jam, chocolate and some frozen items. The store featured in the (very funny) article seems way too complicated as compared to the one in the SF Peninsula, CA. Someone should forward the article to the store manager in Colorado.
Ha.
I think everyone should buy a few IKEA furnishing at some point just so they learn to appreciate items that are made properly.
The Swedish motif is to distract you from the fact it’s mostly extremely crappy Chinese constructed garbage with a few swedish made items tossed in sparingly.
Everything I’ve bought at Ikea has failed aside from some spice jars.
It’s a good idea if you know, for sure, you will be throwing your furniture away. Otherwise, run like hell.
I haven’t been to IKEA in years – the nearest one is a good 90 minute drive from here on a good day – but they were very popular in Toronto when I lived there, so much so that there are now four of them (unless they’ve built more since) in the Toronto area. Your vivid picture of how large they are brought back some memories, let me tell you
I haven’t checked in years but IKEA used to let you shop from the catalog and arrange delivery. They also had a website where you could buy at least some of their stuff. (The last time I looked, they only had a small subset of their products online but that was a long while back.)
I’d say catalog shopping or buying online would be your best options unless you really want to go back in person.
IKEA won’t sell things out of its online catalog (or at least nothing I was interested in ordering); the website directs you to the store listing (the nearest one is 5 hours’ drive away…). It is just as hard to do anything quickly there as at the one you described, but it has been there longer and the staff will actually TELL you how to get from Point A to Point H without having to also go through Points B, C, … , G. But Target and Wal-Mart DO have their charm, at times….
It may well be that the Canadian stores work differently than the American ones.
I just made a brief visit to ikea.ca (the website for IKEA in Canada) and saw an option to look in my shopping cart. I didn’t actually attempt a purchase but I have to assume that if they give you a shopping cart, you will be able to pay for the items in the cart online.
It’s possible that the online catalog only offers a few select items though, rather than everything they carry. It looks a bit skimpy to me given the huge number of items they typically have in a store.
http://www.ikea.com also has a shopping cart, and will allow me to order SOME things (I just checked); I do not know why it would not let me order the things that I had been looking at (mostly tables), as it WILL let me order some objects that would be larger and more expensive to ship than a table. Apparently I was just interested in the wrong things….
I live in Southern Colorado. My wife and disabled daughter had to go to Denver for a doctor’s appointment. When they were done they decided that they would drop by the IKEA, which had been open two weeks. They had gotten a briefing from a niece and her husband who were part of the maelstrom camping outside for the two days before it opened [org!]for the freebies being given away. The reason they have all those plastic wand trolls running around playing with cones, is that they opened the place before all the roads and parking was done. All the signs and arrows, which were finished, will refer to the place if it ever gets finished as designed. Right now, they have no relationship with reality.
Your description matches what they saw. Although their description of the Child
HostagePlay Area had more of a hint of the fight scene at the end of Blazing Saddles, it seems correct.We get the IKEA catalogs online, and they look interesting. Being foodies, the menu at that cafeteria [and the cheap prices] have attracted us. But now, I think I will stick to the catalog. I used to work for the state, and have seen too much ambulatory stupidity inefficiently trying to order me around already.
Thanks for the funny read. Your conversation with the beleaguered cafeteria checkout girl reminded me of a conversation I recently had at the Galeries Lafayette in Paris. After passing by lines of Japanese tourists with their full-sized luggage (I guess this is what they do before heading out to the airport?) waiting to get into Louis Vuitton and Longchamps, and being handed a photocopied English directory pamphlet because they were completely out of the real ones, I asked the information desk clerk, “Is it always like this?” She sighed sadly and said “Oh, you should have seen it last week during the sales.”
I built two Ikeas in the ’90′s. Originally, all went well. It was a union job, so I waited until they went home, at 1:30, brought my stuff in, and by 5, we’d done 10 hours of union work. So far, so good.
Until they approached the opening. As they stocked the shelves, my transit time from work to potty went from 2 minutes to half an hour. After a couple of days, we realized: they never want you to leave! What had been a straight path across the floor became a trip through Alice-in-Wonderland. Even when you got there, you weren’t quite sure you were there. I got kind of claustrophobic, like I got trapped in a maze.
As they filled the “Kiddie Pit” with 3 feet of colored balls, we wondered how many children would simply be lost in there. It was a fiasco from start to finsih. You could sense that single mothers, yuppies, college students, and other clueless simpletons were the target customers. You know: price of everything, value of nothing. A fool and his money… you get the idea. We wondered who, in their right mind was designing such a stupid, anti-American place. Then, we got to meet the designers. They came from “Europe”.
You know the British rioters? Decked out in piercings, spiked hair, and leather? Looking like they just came down off a trip, or not? Black people with blonde hair, white girls with no hair? That’s who designed this crap. A walking United Nations freak show came to the meeting, and all us old contractors stopped worrying. They were never going to question what you did. They don’t even know how buildings are built. As long as they had a kiddie pit filled with balls. To scare children.
I still don’t know how many children have been lost there. How would you know? But I made tons of money on extras. You know. Things they never even considered, but were painfully obvious to us stupid white men. Surprising, no?
Kinda like Washington, D.C. under Obama.
I always enjoyed the IKEA (and McDonald´s) plastic ball pit as a kid, fantastic fun. People usually are able to dig out the kids in one piece.
Charlie M. and all others who are scared of Ikeas.
There are ”secret paths” shortcuts all through the showrooms and other floors.
You just have to get off the arrow pointed path and look with your eyes.
I have been to four different Ikeas.
They all have these shortcuts.
It’s true, they do have shortcuts. It takes a lot of faith to find them, but they are there. Of course, you may not know where you are when you go through them, and in fact, they may take you backward instead of forward, so beware.
Yeah. And at the local IKEA here in Ohio, they routinely stack the short-cuts with “Specials” effectively eliminating at least half of the quick paths and forcing you to take the long route.
Not if you’re navigating the floors with a wheelchair.
I think what everyone is missing with the advice about shortcuts is that we were actually there to look at the damned (heh) furniture, and show the store to my mother. And after the exercise of getting her there, she was gonna see the furniture by God.
You are of course correct. I have observed the same, it isn’t difficult at all. People tend to be too distracted to see the various signs I guess.
Now if they only had them at The House on the Rock.
When I lived in Ann Arbor, Ikea opened a store in Canton, which is equidistant from Ann Arbor, Detroit, and Toledo. I went exactly once and never returned–for many of the same reasons Mr. Martin mentioned.
I now live in Colorado’s Front Range, about 40 minutes from the new Ikea. I learned my lesson back in Michigan and do not plan to go there, either.
I went to IKEA only once. When I saw that all their furniture was compressed sawdust with veneer , far heavier than wood, I never went back. Someone once told me the reason all their furniture is sawdust is
that they cut down their forests hundreds of years ago, and never replanted.
That’s not true. Because I’ve seen Swedish lumber products for sale. In _Chicago_.
(Go figure.)
Comedian Mike Marino has this superb (if obscene) take on IKEA:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGM4XQ0IRQY
Speaking of videos, there’s a neat scene in The Wire where McNulty tries to assemble some furniture he bought from IKEA and completely fails to get it together. I think Kima has a similar experience in another episode. Unfortunately, I can’t find those clips on YouTube or even tell you which episodes they occur in….
Nan G. is absolutely right: nobody has to follow those arrows on the floors. Think of them as suggestions, not police-state requirements.
For the next few weeks all Ikeas nationwide will be overflowing with college students stocking their dorm rooms or off-campus housing. If you want to go before September 15, try to arrive exactly when the store opens on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.
Obviously if you work in the mornings, that won’t be possible, but it’s your best chance. Your second-best chance is the first half-hour they’re open on Sundays, even before Sept 15 because — surprise! — college students stay out late on Saturday nights and don’t get to stores at 10 AM on Sunday mornings.
As for the food, it smells good, looks good and the prices are good but it is about as unhealthy as it gets. For all Ikea’s vaunted “caring” about the environment, they sure don’t extend that same degree of “caring” to their customers’ cholesterol levels and extra poundage. They’re kind of like PETA only for the environment. Which reminds me, if you’re planning to buy small objects, bring your own bag(s). They’ll charge you 59 cents for their cheapest bag and they no longer provide free plastic bags. Or paper bags. Or any bags except the 59 cent bags.
Finally, don’t go at all before checking whether the item you want to buy is even available at the store nearest you (or least far from you.) You can do it on the Ikea USA website by finding the item and then putting in the zip code of your Ikea and the site will tell you how many of that item they currently have in stock. Unless it’s a huge number, like 500, I still call ahead and ask for the Information Desk and ask them to eyeball the exact item (you have to give them the item number which is on the website (or the paper catalogue.)
Without this absolute assurance that the item is there, you will relive Charlie’s experience, albeit without his mother.
This friendly comment is brought to you by 20 years’ experience as an Ikea customer. Talk about a lost youth. In my case, it was a lost middle age, but who’s counting?
@Gloria Tucci
“Finally, don’t go at all before checking whether the item you want to buy is even available at the store nearest you (or least far from you.) You can do it on the Ikea USA website by finding the item and then putting in the zip code of your Ikea and the site will tell you how many of that item they currently have in stock.”
Not only that, but the website will even tell which row and bin your piece is in. I just re-did my home office with an IKEA modular desk system. I just kept adding pieces to the “shopping list” on the website. When I printed it out it told me where every part was located. I went in off the loading area and trough the checkout backward, grabbed my stuff and was out in 10 mins. I broke free of the maze!
Yeah, the secret is that there are shortcuts through the store. Find them, and cut down on the frustration.
And yup, IKEA is pretty much unmatched value when it comes to furniture.
Annnnd, did you get goodies dispensed from a machine in the wall when you figured this out? See, the people who built Target are capitalists. I walk in and go to the department I want, without figuring out “the secret” of escaping in a timely manner. Maybe it’s because I’m from the Midwest and was spoiled by Meijer, but the Socialist mindset of the store designers annoys me.
Thank you, the damn lack of bags is exactly why I stopped shopping at Ikea cold-turkey. I didn’t know about it until after I’d paid for everything when this smug teen bitch gave me the “I don’t give a shit” look and droned “The bags are not free” twice, first when I asked where are the bags and again when I said “WHAT”.
I was restocking the new house after we re-built after a total loss to fire. I had lot of small, loose items. Plus their frozen meatballs. Well I refused to buy any bags, (Fuck you Ikea) and shoveled everything into a heap on the flatbed trolley, trundled out to the parking lot and shoveled everything into the back of the car. Thats the last time I ever went there. Socialist, progressive control freaks!
My, my, is such language really necessary? I live in CA and we have entire towns that outlaw shopping bags provided by the stores. A 59cent Ikea bag is a bargain, it will last forever for all your other shopping adventures. Get a grip.
You might want to get your Stockholm Syndrome treated.
IKEA is the hip urban left’s Wal*Mart.
Great tale of a pilgrim’s progress. You handled it well.
Sometime much earlier I would have just driven THROUGH the store to pick up my mum.
Even with the short cuts, you can’t just pick out something, walk to a cash register, pay for it, and leave the building. There’s still the maze to be negotiated to get to the warehouse area, and the quarter mile trek through the warehouse itself. They seem to have more damned little rules than Gibbs does at NCIS. Does this say something about national character? Do Swedes like to be herded around?
I have bought some nice things there but I really hate going in the place.
I have learned (identical UK experience) IKEA is solely for bookcases bought on line (and don’t forget the extra shelves you will need).
This family likes IKEA stuff, and we’re not hip or urban. It’s good looking, usually, and affordable, that’s all. I’ve had some issues with some of their engineering, but am generally happy with our purchases.
After the newness wears off, IKEA becomes less intimidating, and can still be a fun trip, especially if you don’t buy anything.
On a good day I have a bad sense of direction. So my one trip to Ikea was like having a blindfold put over my eyes, spun around, and expected to hit a pinata. It was at least half an hour afterwards before I could navigate again. Good thing my niece was with me or I would still be driving around the parking lot.
IKEA, aka the Rattan Death March.
Hilarious!
I thought that was more Pier One but I love the line.
LOLOLOLOLOLOL!
Which taught you what I’ve known (and as a “fan” so should you) for 20 years or so and that is: never visit an IKEA store on a weekend afternoon.
If you MUST go there on a weekend, be sure to arrive just around opening time, and be done and out the door again around 10AM at the latest.
Their success in many places has outpaced the local infrastructure, including the size of the stores and parking lots, and those were designed with success in mind.
The main problem is the massive number of people (at least here it is) who go there not for shopping but for a day out.
Entire extended families roam the stores, blocking aisles, spending sometimes hours in the restaurant and display areas, without buying anything.
It’s got to be effectively a theme park rather than a furniture store, despite there being no rides.
Hi Gloria. I use to follow the arrows too. But then when my wife and i said one day – lets see what they say if they catch us off the path. When they did not do anything to us once we were off the path we were like “why do they have the arrows in the first place?” Just when we thought we would be rebel’s lol. We still love to shop at Ikea.
Apparently nobody told you the rule:
NEVER go to a new IKEA within a month of its opening.
Taking a mobility limited person to IKEA within a month of opening means you deserved your punishment, sinner!
What I remember about IKEA are the parking spaces. I took my husbands truck and the parking spaces seemed to be designed for little European cars. I got stuck in my parking spot until the people next to me left.
There is an Ikea about five minutes from my house. I’ve come to dread going in there and try to avoid it. Even though the furor of the grand opening has long died away, I find it’s nearly impossible to navigate through the store. There are in fact short cuts, if you can spot them, but otherwise the goal seems to be to lead you through every inch of the store, twice, before you can try to escape. Every time I go I get the feeling that there is a nice piece of cheese at the end of the trail, if I can only find the end of the trail.
The food is indifferent, at best. It’s great virtue is that it’s cheap, but it tastes cheap.
Speaking of cheap, so is the furniture, again in price (relatively) and quality.
The instructions are nearly useless, in any language.
Fortunately my mother never expressed a desire to go to see what an Ikea was like. She couldn’t walk more than about 50 feet at a time, and it would have gotten ugly quite quickly.
It appears, Mr. Martin, that you were too focused on the mundane aspects of the IKEA experience at the expense of the spiritual benefits, which are supposed to make you feel better about yourself for having shopped there. We will experience this self-satisfaction on a much larger scale when we all are using high-speed rail, taking advantage of bike paths, and living in compact, walkable, sustainable, diverse, “smart-growth” communities with cheap Scandinavian furnishings. IKEA is preparing us for that day. I suggest that you and your mother go back on a regular basis until you get the hang of it.
This is a very important aspect of the IKEA experience… similar to the way I feel driving a hybrid…;-)
IKEA isn’t what it used to be. They’ve changed or replaced may products with such cheaper versions that it just isn’t all that interesting any more. The wonderful EFFECTIV desk system is gone, as is most anything in the beech veneer (and what remains is in a washed-out imitation version), BILLY bookcases are a flimsy imitation in limited colors, etc. The last remaining standout item is the POANG chair, and that is now been cost-reduced.
One of the great things about IKEA was that you could buy a system item and then add to it later, but now you can’t — they’ve dropped so much.
And of course, it all comes from China now.
I went to the same store last week. Here are my tips in case you decide you really want that table. Take the Dry Creek exit from I-25 and turn south at Chester. There are road signs you can’t miss. Mark down the letter and number on the parking pole closest to your car. Sign in as an IKEA Family Member at the computer terminals that are in back of escalator going up to the showroom. This move gets you a free cup of coffee and makes your checkout faster. Get there at 9:30. The store opens at 10 but the cafeteria opens at 9:30 so you can enjoy your free cup of coffee and a Swedish pancake while looking at the floorplan leaflet. On the leaflet notice the teeny tiny dots crossing the trail. Those are your early exit possibilities in case you go into overload or are in a hurry.
From my experience I saw a tremendous number of employees that I suspect are riding the light rail from Denver. The kind of people we all keep talking about finding employment for. My husband said that someone told him that IKEA manages their pricing by using local fabricators to cut shipping costs. I would love to know if this is true. If it is, then even more Coloradans have work. Someone else told me that the store doubled their projected first two weeks sales and has extended the use of parking people way past expectation. More work. So thank you IKEA.
All in all I was impressed. I saw an opportunity for young families, especially with young kids, to have decent quality items at very low prices. I bought a set of six beverage glasses for $6.99 that can’t be beat for quality. I will definitely go back – not weekly – but if you take a deep breath and look over the whole picture, it’s a kind of brilliant.
Oh, I haven’t stopped loving the furniture, and that Salmi table is just waiting for me. I just thought the experience, um, could have been improved.
Some day I hope to be well-off enough to not have to assemble my furniture. Please, God.
I remember my first purchase of pre-assembled furniture, in 1992. It was a cheap oak dining room set. The furniture company delivered it inside my house and everything! I felt like the Queen of Sheba.
Colorado has a chain of furniture stores called American Furniture Warehouse. The vast majority of their stock is pre-assembled, in a huge variety of styles, lots of name brands, the prices are reasonable, and they deliver. I bought a sofa w/matching chair and ottoman for under $1000 and a bedroom set for my daughter, also for under $1000. The only catch is you can’t special-order–things come in a few colors–but there’s such a wide selection overall that it’s not a problem. And they have all their stock on display, so you can fondle and try out to your heart’s content.
Next time I need any kind of furnishing, I’m off to American Furniture Warehouse–NOT Ikea.
I really like American Furniture Warehouse. The guy who runs it reminds me of my grandfather, and until the ink faded I had a picture of me with my arms around the neck of one of their tigers. But a lot of their furniture runs heavily to ornamentation and makes me think of my grandmother.
If you think it’s hard to buy something at IKEA, try buying hundreds of items at once to furnish a business. Since I live 5 hours away from the nearest IKEA, my trips involve a U-Haul trailer and a very long day. Last month, when I opened my second location, I spent 8 hours shopping and buying and loading the trailer.
And you know what? It’s completely worth it. The $3000 worth of stuff that I got there would have cost me at least twice as much anywhere else, and then it wouldn’t have looked as good.
While there is an Ikea 15 miles from where I live, I have never been to Ikea. I have perused the Ikea catalog. Area stores that sell inexpensive Mexican pine furniture provide good alternatives to Ikea. Put a coat or two of varnish on the raw Mexican pine, and you have a good-looking piece of furniture at low cost.
Granted, such furniture doesn’t take to moves as well as Ikea furniture does, but I am not moving.
IKEA is a utterly souless experience. Almost everything is white or expresso, no curves, no flow, function over form, a boxy chrome socialist proletariat paradise.
I’m a Crate and Barrel guy. IKEA is a little too Nordic hive mentality.
Ditto. Only Crate & Barrel USED TO be inexpensive. My mom took me there to stock up my dorm room in the early 80s. Marimekko bed coverings, stoneware plates and cups. I still have the stoneware and my nephew has the bed coverings, which still look new after nearly 30 years. Those were real values.
Once you know the layout you can take all the shortcuts and IKEA isn’t so bad. When I know what I need at my local IKEA (Covina, CA) I park by the exit to the warehouse area and go in that way. Very easy especially during the week. But the first year an IKEA is open it is nightmare because the parking demands overwhelm them.
…LOL the entire article. Here in El Lay, the IKEA’s are all multi-story, which only adds to the confusion. I also get the weird feeling that the building’s interior is actually larger than it’s exterior dimensions, as if walking through the front door is akin to entering a portal to another dimension…
We have bought many things at Ikea over the years in Seattle, LA, San Diego, Sacramento and Oakland.
My tips:
1) Never go on a weekend or holiday time if you can help it. If you must, be there at opening.
2) Know what you want from the catalog or online and enter through the EXIT right to the warehouse.
Follow this method, and you can get in and out in 15 minutes without the $2.99 frying pan that you only kinda need.
Also, as far as prices, I have worked in consulting with a number of furniture companies. With Ikea, you get what you pay for. A $100 desk is worth $100. A $1000 couch is worth $1000. When you go to a normal furniture store, the quality difference between a $1000 couch and a $2500 couch can be minimal.
Also, I recently discovered (after we redid our kitchen) that Ikea has fantastic kitchen cabinets, with a 25 year warranty. Custom stuff does not have a warranty that long. Many high end designers in the SF area are now using Ikea Cabinets.
Thanks for a fun story.
I dunno. I’ve never had a problem with Ikea stuff. But I guess I’m just a genius who’s able to turn a screw without stripping it.
Do be aware that Ikea’s design philosophy is that cheap stuff doesn’t have to look like a piece of crap, which means that “this looks nice therefore it is durable and will last forever” is not a metric you should use when shopping there.
Also, a healthy dose of disrespect for authority is useful. “The man said don’t do in that door.” Go there anyway. It’s not his job to stop you, just to tell you not to go there. “But the man! He said don’t go there!” So what? Go there! “But! But! THE MAN! HE SAID!”
Thanks! I am laughing out loud here at your post. I have to take this whole post and thread to work. We need cheering up.
The Ikea in Houston is great. You get what you pay for, parking is ok, the food is cheap, and no one obeys the rules they set up to push you through everything.
Oh, and a three star hotel in Stockholm had the same Ikea stuff I have at home.
We toured a rather expensive “green” home in gold country, CA. It was designed and built by a SF architecture firm. What really surprised me was that the entire kitchen and the bathrooms were furnished from IKEA.
There is no small sense of irony that the epitome of Swedish efficiency and design creates in the Americas a scene of chaos and confusion.
After standing on line at Ikea I’ve had to agree with a more conservative friend of mine that a well armed society is a more polite society. The distribution of firearms along with tiny pencils and tape measures seems appropriate in this context.
IKEA is just Wal Mart for good looking people.
(oops, I see that King Klip beat me to it).
For the ideal IKEA experience, check the catalogue for the item you want. Make sure it’ll fit with your decor. And then head to the nearest Family Dollar, Dollar General, Big Lots or other bargain retailer and pick up the cheap particleboard item without the IKEA hassle. Sometimes they still have IKEA boxes, but, if not, they’ve got the IKEA instructions.
The proper technique to Ikea is to shop online for the big (furniture) items and print a pull ticket for the warehouse of your choice (showing if item is in stock, aisle and bin numbers).
Two words:
Walmart dot com
Actually that’s one word, when spelled correctly.
They have as much stuff (or more) than the old Sears catalog (where you could buy a shoe, a nail or a prefab house…)
They (unlike Ikea) ship single items – don’t need to buy and pay for a truckload.
Prices run from super-cheap to middle of the road, depending. I got a whole wall full of tall woodgrain (Sauder-type) bookcases for twenty five dollars each! – and they actually survived a move from DC to NYC. Coffee table, TV cabinet, smaller shelves, etc, etc, etc. Furnished my whole place. Tons of styles. Lighting fixtures too – a warehouse full of styles (they subcontract with companies that specialize and list their whole inventories).
I furnished my whole apt and outfitted the kitchen and bath just by using my computer. Stuff that got damaged in the shipping was immediately replaced, no charge to me.
I found it easier to deal with one company than going to a million places on Amazon (which I do use – just for individual type purchases).
Sadly, they don’t have a table I like.
I love IKEA but it is a madhouse down here too. This article made me laugh out loud – thanks!
Once you’re familiar enough with the layout of the IKEA here (which has been around for quite a while now) it’s actually pretty easy to get around. You can skip half the store by going through the hallway next to the Kiddie Pen of Doom, and there’s shortcuts that’ll get you past most of the cattle march. That doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t have to park half a mile away if you go on a Saturday, but still, it’s not QUITE that bad once it’s settled down a bit.
We under took to go to Ikea in College Park MD on behalf of our son, who was at work at the time. My experience is pretty much like the one related above, except that neither of us is disabled and we simply parked in nearby suburban Baltimore.
My take on the experience is that Ikea is the round hole into which the square pegs, that are its customers, are pounded until they beg for mercy. I am not sure I would ever go back.
As for the furniture, it is useful and cheap for a kid’s first apartment, but the quality is so miserable that those pieces they have tried to move have disintegrated. Usually stuff they find abandoned on street corners has a longer useful life.
In Austin, if you want to warm up for the Ikea maze you can test your skills on the one at the HEB Central Market on North Lamar. At least if you get lost there you can just yank some produce off the shelf so you won’t starve to death.
Thanks for the laugh – for a minute there, I thought you’d been with us a year ago when we went in search of apartment furniture for my daughter in Tempe, just as ASU was starting fall semester, accompanied by my mom, who needed a knee replacement. But you left out the mobs of Chinese undergraduates.
We live in Denver, and have a house full of IKEA stuff from our trips to places that have them (Billy? We love Billy!). But we’re waiting until October to check out the new one.
General advice only:
1. Get a life.
2. Do not bother with IKEA.
3. Buy decent furniture from decent places – you will be glad you did.
A Rothschild allegedly once said he was not rich enough to buy cheap stuff.
And remember: A sucker is born every five minutes.
That is how money is made.
I bet Olav Thon (one of the richest men in Norway) buys all his stuff at IKEA. I don’t think I will ever be rich enough to buy anything other than IKEA. Maybe if I gave up food…
I wonder if IKEA needs to be staffed by Swedes to work properly. Strict organization without personal flexibility indeed sounds like an inferno. The IKEA I frequent in the Oslo, Norway area is a wonder of efficiency, especially if you go there after 9 pm on a Friday. And when you ask the staff, they reply “absolut” and fix any problem you might have.
Absolute must: Search the on-line catalog then check local availability.
The MARKUS swivel chair I’m using right now had a few gotchas in putting it together, but after I figured out how to get the screws completely bottomed out (awkward, knuckle-buster)on the bracket that holds the back to the seat, I had a serious work chair that I can use all day without wrecking my back.
The less expensive furniture lines are particle board or MDF, but there are still some better quality lines that use hardwood plywood. If you’re shopping for this kind of furniture, it’s better to go to the store and look for yourself. The online catalog can’t really show you how the item fits together, or the quality of fasteners and other hardware.
There’s even some reasonable solid wood stuff to be found if you know where to look.
I like IKEA. Well apart from the the actual going to the place, having to walk round the place, the check out and the assembling.
Are you the Charlie Martin from the old Hal & Charlie Show? I really liked that show and miss it.
BTW: I live in Highlands Ranch. It’s funny that IKEA orig wanted to build that store in Lone Tree, but the city fathers turned it down because the building is blue. Can’t have blue buildings in Lone Tree no matter how much revenue the blue building brings in…
For those not in the Denver area. The cities of Lone Tree and Centennial are suburbs in Denver and are adjacent to each other. The IKEA is on the edge of Centennial/Lone Tree. I’m pretty sure you can see this IKEA from space so the city fathers of Lone Tree still get to see a gigantic blue building, but don’t get any of the tax revenue. These guys are brilliant, maybe they have their collective sights on Washington DC.
Oso, I’m not, but the question comes up regularly — especially since I was winning trivia contests about the same time the other guy was. I used to listen to them when it was Charlie and Barney, on KHOW.
‘Course, we only had crystal sets then.
A friend asked me to drive him to a new Ikea store a few years ago.
As we exited the freeway and the extremely large store loomed in the distance
I remarked, “that’s no moon . . .”
We both laughed at the same time.
Ikea furniture does not last as long as the shopping trip takes. The gas you use up trying to park and get around makes paying full price for furniture seem cheap!
Never again.
Funny article! I made the mistake of going to the Centennial store opening three weeks after it opened thinking the crowds would be considerably smaller. Wrong. I was pretty impressed by how efficiently things moved along, but skipped lunch because of the evident mayhem.
I have been to the Minneapolis and Schaumburg, Illinois stores, and it is actually a fun experience when not so jam-packed. Kind of a cheap furniture Disneyland. But, alas, the manipulations and contrivances wear thin after the fourth visit or so.
I remarked to my wife that she should look around, because it is what progressive aesthetics look like — nothing exceptional, with a numbing blandness. There’s a certain creepiness to the socialist vibe. Pretty much the same feeling you get when looking at a Mussolini show village. Not to say there is no market for their wares. The furniture design is clean and inoffensive, and you get some good ideas walking through the showroom. I appreciate their niche. I just hope it stays there.
Upon re-reading this post, I see it is contradictory in many respects. But I think that is the overall experience. IKEA feels cutting edge and exciting until you realize it isn’t. And I envy their wild success.
Well, that’s really the paradox: I love the furniture, I like many things about the stores, and ol’ Ingvar is certainly good at getting rich for a “progressive”. But boy was this a pain in the ass.
I have no idea WTF half of you are on about. Ikea is a fantastic store for letting your kids develop their sense of style as they grow without having to break the bank as they remodel with each growth phase. Additionally you don’t need “high quality” furniture in all rooms. The room we set aside for kids to play games etc is all Ikea and it looks great and has handled the pounding fine. By the time the kids have outgrown the room is when the furnishings will also die a natural death and the beauty of it is that it didn’t cost an arm and a leg.
Shop smart and Ikea will deliver more than what you paid for it.
Ikea’s the exact same as they were 20 years ago. Once upon a time they were cutting edge. Today they’re just another mindless shopping experience. Love the “socialist vibe” comments. Can’t think of a store that epitomizes the height of capitalism better than IKEA – except maybe Wal-Mart. Big, boxy, and filled with imported cheap tasteless schlock for the masses. But they do have good Swedish meatballs.
The IKEA near Cincinnati is the same lovely 18 mile trek through. I keep thinking I’ll go back there to look for some much needed items but I’m not so sure my patience will hold up much past the first vignette.
Never shopped in IKEA, and after this article I can’t imagine why anybody ever would. It sounds like they have an oppressive and confusing store and parking layout, with Walmart style quality. With all that hassle, why not just go to Walmart? At least at Walmart the store is easy to get into and out of. And if you want slightly better quality, try Target. If you want real quality, at a higher price, try a local independent store.
Wow. 98 comments (now 99!) all about IKEA – and funny as hell.
It isn’t so bad if you know when to go, and remember those shortcuts. Fine if you’re not looking to buy future family heirlooms, but there are solid wood products here and there. I’ve been admiring friends’ aged, honey-coloured, 100% pine pieces now for 30+ years – guess they bought in to the concept early.
Well done Charlie – this is definitely a keeper. Thanks for all the laughs. Hope your Mum has recovered from the experience…
The stuff is junk. The experience is horrible. They block fire stairwell exits with cones, which is illegal. Never again. Once was way too much.
There is a universal economic principal in play here called “The Full Trunk of Stuff” law. In short, if one is wealthy, and drives a Rolls, one can afford a full trunk of stuff from Rodeo Drive. Those who drive Volvos (of any vintage)can afford a full trunk of stuff from Ikea. And those, like me, who drive ’83 Dodge Aries, can afford of a trunk load of stuff on Half-Price Wednesdays at the local Goodwill store.
The law usefully describes the minimum level of economic performance required to provide for social stability.
Another Denverite here. After reading this hilarious account, I think I’ll wait a while before venturing forth to IKEA. I need to get in shape first. Maybe I can plan it for early November if I begin working out ASAP. Should I buy special running shoes?
Thanks for making me laugh. I hope you are not still suffering from the nightmares brought on by the PTSD caused by your horrific experience. I loved shopping at Ikea when i lived in California, and have been waiting to visit the store in Centennial. If Colorado Springs hadn’t blown the deal, I wouldn’t have to drive so far to go shopping.
Well, i’ve waited this long and I can wait a little longer until all the shinyness has worn off before i venture up the highway to oooh and ahhhh over all the goodies Ikea has to offer. I’m an avid online shopper but so many of the items I like are unavailable online. I suppose that’s the only thing I wish they’d change about their service… but I suppose they want you in so you can spend more money on all those impulse shopping items.
So if you get over your Ikea misadventure – be sure to go early and definitely in the middle of the week. I know I will.
I can not believe that you had the nerve to take our mother – who does not like to shop – on a trip to a new IKEA within 3 months of opening. You are a brave, brave soul.
Never heard of IKEA until I read this article, thanks for the warning!
At least a dozen good reasons here to stick with my peculiar mixture of Arts and Crafts, Queen Anne, and Early Salvation Army, and avoid Ikea altogether.
I’ve been there a few times in previous lives, and just haven’t found them very interesting. So much cookie-cutter stuff that looks like you’ll just be putting a roof over its head for a while until it goes to Goodwill.
There was a time when visiting the big regional malls in southern California was much like this outing (in other words, not something Mom ever wanted to come with for). No more. Looks like the spending money has relocated to Colorado.
Perhpas this is why:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/world-war-2/8720214/IKEA-founder-was-Nazi-recruiter.html
Here’s my IKEA secret, and I’m sharing it with all you fine people. The best day to visit IKEA is on Black Friday – the day after Thanksgiving. Because IKEA doesn’t have the traditional American post-Thanksgiving Day pre-Christmas blowout sales, most of the people out shopping that day are SOMEWHERE ELSE. IKEA is still crowded, but it’s crowded like a normal store on a Saturday, which for IKEA is pretty miraculous.
I spend my whole year making my IKEA list and drive to Chicago on the morning of Black Friday every year for my annual trip to IKEA on the one day of the year when you can guarantee the least number of shoppers.
Now you know! (Oh, and stay away from the Chicago stores this year, please. Don’t make me regret telling you my secret!)
Yeah, the IKEA turned out great. But a secret is that I helped to plan it about 5 years ago. I met the owners, and presented them with three locations- Denver I-25 and Santa Fe (Still under construction), Flatirons Crossing (where The Great Indoors is; this was around the time that K-Mart and Sears Merged and I thought they would divest The Great Indoors) and also the location where it is today.
You see, I met the former VP of Real Estate for IKEA North America at his store, which was the only franchised store in the USA. His family owns IKEA, and made the pitch. I learned that his son was considering school at Denver University, but he decided to go somewhere else. So the idea was that he could run the store, but he decided to get into a different industry, and I’m sure he’ll be a great success in that industry, much like his entire family is with IKEA.
At the time, I was doing a great deal of travel for a well-known wireless company based in Washington State, and on one occasion, I missed a flight home and had to catch the next flight the following day (on United Airlines). In the morning, I was driving around in my rental car near SeaTac airport and came across this big blue building and learned that it wasn’t a corporate-owned store.
Eventually, I moved to Seattle, met the owners, and they agreed with my plan and said I should share it with Corporate IKEA (This was 5 years ago). I mentioned NREL involvement because I had friends that worked there and interned there. Overall, IKEA agreed as well, so I made sure that Joseph Roth and Doug Greenholtz, the new VP of Real Estate Development. Corporate IKEA acquired the land from the neighbor, Glenn R. Jones himself. The only problem is that when I spoke to Glenn R. Jones, he requested that the store be a Franchise because he saw how Franchising in the Cable Industry worked better for local markets.
My father who works for The City of Centennial and Arapahoe County for over 35 years also greased the wheels to ensure it had all the approvals and also so Jake Jabs wouldn’t find out.
Unfortunately, the Senior Adviser, Ingvar Kamprad is getting up in age and couldn’t make it to the opening like he usually did for store openings in the past, but it worked out okay, and except for a few small accidents, everything is safe.
I hope you like the IKEA and the story, and to the best of my knowledge it’s all true. I still have the maps, and Denver Plans, as well as business cards from this project. But the biggest help was from Governor John Hickenlooper. You see before he was Mayor, he contributed to “Greenprint Denver” which was a book I found at the Denver Zoning and Planning office. His ideas of green energy were included in the original plans, and as a result of NREL.GOV’s involvement, I believe he was able to get the attention of President Obama for the Democratic National Convention out here.
So that’s part of my story. Sorry it’s not written formally, but I thought you’d like to read it. Should you personally want to read what makes IKEA tick, check out this PDF. It’s IKEA’s operational manual: http://www.emu.dk/erhverv/merkantil_caseeksamen/doc/ikea/english_testament_2007.pdf
Lastly, when I met with Bjorn in Seattle he gave me his last copy of the “Testament”, and if you happen to be in Seattle, wish him and his family good fortune and great health, because they went through a lot during the time I was in Seattle.
http://uwmedicine.washington.edu/Patient-Care/Our-Services/Medical-Services/Stroke-Center/Patient-Stories/Pages/Bjorn-Bayley.aspx
All the best,
Jeff
I wonder if there will be this much hoopla when Cabela’s opens their store here in Denver?
Rules for shopping at IKEA (promulgated by a crowd-hating loyal customer):
1. Never go to IKEA on a weekend, a weekday evening, or a payday.
2. Before you go to an IKEA store, go online to IKEA’s website to browse and confirm that the store you’re going to has the items you want to buy in stock.
3. Learn the IKEA shopping process and plan your movements to, in, out and away from the store accordingly.
4. Leave your kids and crippled kin at home.
5. Avail yourself of staff’s expertise and assistance, e.g. have them print out an item list for you with item numbers.
6. Consult the map tables and avail yourself of the shortcuts so that you don’t have to walk a mile through the entire store if you don’t need to.
7. Triple-check the item numbers when you’re pulling them off the self-service warehouse shelf.
8. Use the self check-out facilities.
Follow these simple rules, and your IKEA shopping experience will become far less hellish.
ANother reason not to shop at Ikea: http://www.npr.org/2011/08/25/139957999/in-new-book-details-of-ikea-founders-nazi-links?ft=1&f=1001
Forget that ! Not going there!
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