The "new" had worn off, so we went to Ikea today. I've heard so much about these places, but have never, ever seen one.

OH...MY...GOD.

We wandered about for four hours with stars in our eyes and awe in our hearts.

A lot of what's at Ikea is modernist and neither of us like it.

A lot of what's at Ikea is really, really nice and I want all of it. James said he could easily drop $20,000 on just furniture. I don't think it's quite that much, because as furniture goes, Ikea is also not expensive, but it could get up there.

I feasted my eyes especially covetously on what they call a "Billy" bookcase. My main complaint with bookcases is, that unless you pay $$$ like we did with the three 84-inch cherry-finish bookcases in the library (luckily Office Depot had them on sale, but now they don't carry them anymore) is that they're too short. Seventy-two inches high is the norm. Ikea's "Billy" is 80 inches high...and you can buy extenders to put another shelf on top. Aieeee!

They also had a nice dish hutch for only $249. Heck, they had all sorts of hutches for good prices.

The stores also have a plan. You come in at the top. There is the restaurant, where they serve Swedish meatballs (of course) and a few other dishes and some desserts for reasonable prices. Even the drinks are only 75 cents. Then you go through the showroom. They have standalone furniture along with mockup rooms and they tell you exactly how much the entire room would cost, plus how much the various setups cost alone. (I understand a lot of European homes do not have closets, which explains the different and huge wardrobe setups.) They have living rooms, bedrooms, kitchens, kids' rooms, bathrooms (we saw the perfect narrow sink that would be much better in our downstairs bath than the full-size one that is there now), and dens. They also have five "small space" setups: a 237 square foot living space, a 287, a 300-something, a 500-something, and a 734 (or something like that) to show you how you can use Ikea products to live comfortably in a small area.

From the top floor you go to the next, where all the small stuff is: lamps, clocks, rugs, bedding, anything you'd need to complete the house. James found a nice cleaver. Then you go through the warehouse where you'd pick up your large furniture, and there is a "scratch and dent room" and also a little snack bar (since presumably you've been wandering around there for hours like we were and are starved) and a little Swedish grocery store. They sell 2 1/2 pounds of pre-made and cooked Swedish meatballs for only $6.99. (All I can think of now when someone mentions Swedish meatballs is the dialog from Babylon 5 between G'Kar and his guest, Na'kal:

"Breen! You've managed to import breen from Homeworld. How?"
"It .. isn't actually breen."
"But the smell, the taste..."
"It's an Earth food. They are called Swedish meatballs. It's a strange thing, but every sentient race has its own version of these Swedish meatballs. I suspect it's one of those great universal mysteries which will either never get explained or which will drive you mad if you ever learned the truth."

James and I refer to Swedish meatballs as "breen" all the time.)

Anyway...wow.

You know, if you had an Ikea and a Fry's next to each other, with a two-story Barnes & Noble on one side and a two-story Border's on the other, it might be the closest thing to Heaven that will ever be seen here...

(If nothing else, it would be somewhere nice to spend a weekend. Just put a Drury Inn next to it and you're set!)

----------------------------------------------------------------
. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 6:44:00 PM

Comments: Post a Comment