Just bought some chairs a few days ago and they had a new addition: a hollow piece of plastic you could slide the hex key into to form a proper handle when screwing the wood screws that really “bite” into the wood. I hope it catches on, it’s a good idea.
Basically yes. Also, there are probably too many regulatory hurdles for them to become a car rental agency in order to provide a service almost no one needs. If they did need to rent a car they would do it the normal way (car rental agency) and if they wanted a van or a trailer they would do that in the usual way (U-Haul truck/trailer rental). Even in New York City, the US city with the least car ownership, 45% of households own at least one car.
And IKEA packages are designed so that they are easy to transport in small cars. I’ve brought everything home from IKEA (except my couch, for which I rented a van) in a 2-door Hyundai Accent hatchback, one of the smallest cars available for sale in the US!
There’s one IKEA right in NYC proper, not terribly well served by public transit, and honestly, the easiest thing would be just to call a cab for most people. Zipcar is a popular service where you can rent a car just for an hour or two. Since my car got smashed in a tornado (really) we used Zipcar for our last IKEA outing. I pick it up and drop it off right on the street in my neighborhood.
Ahh, you guys rock! So much good advice in this thread!
My mom is having the grandkids over all day and for a sleepover tonight, so we’re getting ready to drop off the kid and borrow her minivan. Our cars are way too small - I drive a Hyundai Elantra and my husband drives a PT Cruiser. If I didn’t know we were looking for big stuff, my Elantra could fit a ton with the booster seat out and the back seat down, but we’re just going to take the van. We’re going to the IKEA in Woodbridge (we live in Richmond), so even if we don’t need the space, it’s good to have it.
I went onto the website and saved a bunch of stuff last night, so I’m going to take my tablet so we can use that to keep track. I have a few different styles of the same items, so we’ll see what they have in store. And thanks for the tips about the bags - we have enough Trader Joe’s bags to take.
And thank you for the measurements reminder! I learned my lesson with that when I ordered a cubbie bench online for the front hallway - guess what’s now at the foot of our bed? :smack:
Headed off now - thanks for all of the replies - can’t wait to check out IKEA and see what all the hype is about!
BTW, I have both BEKVAM kitchen cart – which at $59 is of astounding quality for the price – and I also have FÖRHÖJA which is a bit less sturdy and more narrow making it not tremendous as a cutting surface – but works really well as a place to put appliances, and the drawers are nice.
Also the pot rack they sold was too big for my space. I got a GRUNDTAL towel holder from the bathroom section and some hooks and BAM mini hanging pot rack, only 15" wide for ten buckaroonies.
If you buy furniture, getting a second cover is a great idea. We got a nice sectional couch with a second cover. When one cover is removed for cleaning, we just put the other one on.
If you use tea-lights (little candles) we always buy a few bags. Dirt cheap.
Nearest IKEA to the Nashville/Bug Tussle area is Atlanta.
So, I get no IKEA. 
I’m going to Ikea today!
Love that place, truly.
I live in a pretty small space, and Ikea has a lot of things designed just for me!
The Ikea we go to in Schaumburg, ILwill do same day delivery to anywhere in “Zone 1” (which includes the city of Chicago and Evanston, where we’re at, for a flat $59. That’s for as many items as you want delivered. Not a bad deal at all.
They also have a partnership w/ Enterprise and will rent out vans/trucks if you want to do it yourself.
Also, Ikea really prides itself on packaging everything in flat boxes so that it’s easy to transport. Even if you have a small car, they’ll help you tie down their big flat boxes onto the top of the car (Free twine!) and it should be a breeze to get home.
No, the German IKEAs don’t rent the cars themselves, either - they cooperate with Hertz or Europcar or other rental agencies, so that several cars of different sizes are waiting in the parking space, and there’s a counter from the car rental company to fill out the paperwork.
And when my mom went to buy a couch with an over 2 m, 20 kg. steel frame, which no way could fit into her three door VW Polo, we went to the counter of the delivery company and arranged the delivery there (they have different zones based on distance, too).
I guess what Yanks consider small is different from Europe - more people here will have small cars because of parking space, and comfort is less important if you don’t routinely drive 5 + hours.
Not many cars have roof holders, either.
I just keep thinking of that famous IKEA commercial with the VW beetle (can’t find that version, but there are (similar ones) another one (“It fits!”)
New IKEAs are now connected quite well to public transport - but I couldn’t imagine spending 50 or 100$ on a cab for an IKEA purchase!
When we bought our kitchen and bathrooms and bookshelves from IKEA (and dear god, that was a nightmarish day) there were some things we picked in the show room, some things we pulled from the warehouse ourselves, and some things we had to write up a ticket to have IKEA pull for us.
Because we had so much stuff, we paid for delivery. They hire a third-party freight company to deliver outside of their “zones”. They pulled out a pallet and had us stack all of our stuff on it–and we could throw on anything we wanted. We’d thought we were going to have to fit a lot of stuff in our car, but they were happy to let us put whatever on there, so we did.
This was the Bolingbrook IKEA.
We are lucky in Montreal…two IKEAs! One on the South Shore and one near the airport. Rather convenient. The one on the South Shore is bigger.
I lived about 10 minutes from the IKEA in Burlington, Ontario for a few years…most of our living room is IKEA stuff. I’ve also been to the one in Ottawa once with a friend who lives there (that’s a little under 2 hours away from us).
Lots of IKEA in my life 
?? It would be like $20-$30 at the most. If you lived fairly nearby (the Brooklyn IKEA is quite near some of the most desirable neighborhoods in Brooklyn) , maybe like $10. Zipcar is about $11 an hour.
The BEKVAM cart was the one I wanted, but it was out of stock :(. I’m may see what shipping is like. Our kitchen just doesn’t have enough counter space and this would be perfect for cutting veggies and rolling out pastry dough.
So, I had Swedish meatballs and almond cake (we ate first - we were starving!) - delicious! And then the fun began! I think we spent a good 3 1/2 hours there, but it went by incredibly fast. The drive home took an hour longer than usual - 95 was a total bitch. We didn’t buy a ton, but we got some really good ideas on how to redo our living room and our son’s room. We did buy an Expedit shelving unit in black/brown with separator inserts for two of the cubbies so that we can use it in the front hallway for shoes and his backpack. I also found the Dave laptop desk in red - I have been looking for something similar for when I work from home so I’m not slouched over on the sofa all the time.
We also spent an hour and a half wandering around the furniture section trying to decide on an entertainment center setup that we liked. We LOVED one of them (Expedit again, I think), but the section where our TV would go was .9 inches too short, we think. So of course, nothing else looked right. We need to do some measuring and decide how we want to move the furniture and then we’ll decide on a setup - we realized it would be better on our space to maximize the entertainment center rather than just add more bookcases. I’m still hoping if I measure the TV, it’ll fit into the one that we loved :D.
By the time we made it down to the marketplace, we were both running on empty, so i picked up a couple of decorative knick-knacks, some picture frames, and two wooden people I can pose (I have no excuse for those except I wanted to put them in compromising positions when I’m bored.). Now that we have a better idea of what the store looks like and how to navigate, we’ll go back up in a few weeks for the other stuff. But holy crap, even my husband had fun shopping there and he hates shopping ;). We wouldn’t have been nearly as prepared without all of the good advice here, though - thank you!!
If you’re going back later anyway I wouldn’t mess with shipping. You can check the stock in individual stores on the website, so you can be sure of Bekvam being in when you go next. Go to the website page for the item:
On the right hand side it says “Buy at your local store” - select your store from the drop down. It will tell you if its in stock and sometimes, when they expect to get more.
A few more protips:
-If you have small kids in your home or sphere of influence, the IKEA train sets intertrack with Thomas the Tank engine and Brio. Great set expanders for the basics, you can top up with specialist pieces from the branded sets.
-If you lust in your heart for leCrueset enamel cast iron cookware… Senior
-we buy our CFLs there and have never had a dud.
I did check the website, and it’s not available for shipping- so that’s out anyway. They also aren’t sure when it will be in stock again, so I’ll just keep checking back. I work in DC rather often, and the IKEA is literally on my way there and back, so if it comes in, I can stop by on one of those trips. I actually don’t like any of the other ones, so I’ll wait until this one is back in stock.
We loved the kids’ stuff and will probably be redoing my son’s room with a few things, as well as find some baby gear for the next one since they’ll be at least 6 1/2 years apart and we’ve given most of our baby gear to frends or family. I am also completely in love with the POANG chair - I’m trying to find a place in the house where I can justify putting it - my husband had to convince me to get out of it :D. http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/S79825193/#/S99825192
All in all, a pretty productive trip. Today was a good introduction to the wonderful world of IKEA :).
I have nothing to add except to say, I was in the biggest Ikea in Canada yesterday.
The new one in Ottawa is gigantic. The restaurant alone is worth the visit!
I would have no problems furnishing an entire home from Ikea. I love their stuff, and especially their prices.
I had the crepes.
God forbid they don’t give you free stuff with your purchase.
You deserve the wasted time. You are bound and determined to be so lazy that you don’t even drag a bag into the store and use it? For the purpose of proving that you are more important than the people who will be living on the planet 50, 100, or 1,000 years from now?
And then everyone had to re-stock all your stuff because you were too self-righteous about your desire to waste?
I believe that is appalling. Only in America would someone dare brag about such selfish waste.
Wrong. I had stuff delivered to my address in Seattle from Tukwila just a few months ago. They do have home-delivery, at least here. Possibly not in your state, though.
I hated that they stopped giving away “free” bags, but now I shrug and have decided buying a bag each trip is part of the cost of going to IKEA. There are bigger things to complain about in the world than paying 59 cents for a shopping bag.
One thing to kind of keep in mind: some of their lights use “oddball” bulbs, like halogen MR bulbs that have a cover, or “exit light” bulbs. Ikea sells the bulbs at reasonable prices but you can’t just buy them at any random store.
You can… actually… re-use bags. You know that, right?
Some things should always be disposable. Toilet paper. Condoms. Feminine hygeine products.
Shopping bags and sandwich containers need not fall into that category, however.