IKEA - a Swedish word meaning...

In My Humble Opinion
1

From personal experience, IKEA is a Swedish word that translates to “Out of Stock and discontinued!”

Last year, we bought a dining table, several chairs and a china cabinet from them. To round out the room, we also wanted a buffet. When we arrived at the appointed slot in the warehouse, said slot was empty. Eh, they sell a lot of stuff, so they’re just out of stock and it’ll be back in a week or two. We check back (called, rather than drove) in two weeks. Still out. Another two weeks elapse and we call again. “I’m sorry, but the Leksvik buffet has been discontinued.” AUGH!!

Fast-forward to a month ago. We’re there with friends who’d never experienced the Enormous Blue Store. They’re almost overwhelmed at the place, but despite that, they still manage to find a nice TV stand and some kitchen goodies. Hey, that’s a nice bedframe! Looks good and sturdy, mates well with the rest of our bedroom furniture (not difficult as about half of it is from IKEA.) Ask a rep to “book” it so we can buy it. “It’s out of stock. Looks like we should have it in five weeks.” Gahh…

Three weeks later (yesterday)…
We stop by the other IKEA store in the area and make some shortcuts to get to the bedroom section in three minutes after entering the building. IKEA veterans will know what I mean about shortcuts and will agree that we did well.) Find a sales rep and ask to book the bedframe.

He didn’t even have to punch it in. “Halden was discontinued.” WHAT!? A month ago we were told it would be back in stock in a few weeks, and now, rather than deliver any, it’s gone forever? Such is life in the land of Scandinavian medium-density fiberboard. We look around and find a similar bedframe. Goes with the furniture? Yup. Right size? Uh-huh. Not sure how to pronounce its name? Of course. Hunt down the sales rep to book it…

“It’s out of stock. We should have it in four weeks.”

2

This is a bad time of year to shop IKEA, as it’s the changeover of their product line and an amazing number of people order furniture as holiday gifts or to spruce up their homes in advance of holiday company.

At the end of January, they’ll be aching for your money and will have a glut of product. Try back again then.

(For the pedantic amongst us, I’d share what IKEA really means – it’s an acronym – but I’m not that much of a nerd. Really. Oh who am I kidding, I certainly am. Ingvar Kamprad – the founder’s name – Elmtaruud – his farm – Algunaruud – his home province of Sweden. )

TeaElle, sister-in-law of an IKEA US East high muckety-muck

3

I’ve yet to have the IKEA experience, but tons of Clevelanders drive several hours to Pittsburgh to shop at that store. So I was amazed when I heard that instead of opening a store here, IKEA is building a second store in Chicago.

Why???

If people will drive hours to get to IKEA, surely they can drive from one side of Chicago to the other, and IKEA would be better served by opening a store midway between Chicago and Pittsburgh…say, Cleveland? People in Chicago already know about IKEA…we are untapped potential out here!

I don’t know why I care, though. I’m too poor to buy furniture, and my taste runs more to sleigh beds and antiques. But I’ve heard about these cookies…and downtown Cleveland needs a unique store to kickstart our revitalization! If only they’d listened to me about The American Girl store…

4

What kind of store is IKEA? Is it a department store, or a discount store? They don’t have them in this part of the country…it took me forever to figure out it wasn’t a gas station :slight_smile:

5

IKEA is largely furniture, with a good amount of kitchen utensils, lighting and plants thrown in. Not sure if they have it on the web, but they also do kitchen and office design.

See for yourself: www.ikea-usa.com

6

IKEA is a mega-gigantic Swedish furniture retailer.

You enter the store, go on a winding path through the displays of merchandise, and end up in the warehouse, where you pull your desired products off the shelves, load them on large carts, and advance to the exits. The products are packed flat; you assemble them yourself at home, using the pictorial instructions and supplied allen keys.

The store is well-known for its Scandinavian-minimalist wares, peculiar product names, and child-friendly design (they don’t mind if you ‘test’ the beds, for instance. Prices range from the top of the low range to fairly expensive. There is a restaurant where you can have Swedish meatballs, and at the exit you can buy Swedish food.

There are four IKEAs in the Toronto area.

7

For the ultra-pedantic: it’s spelled Elmtaryd and Agunnaryd, and the latter is a small village (about 500 inhabitants or so) rather than a province. My mother and brother works at the (original) IKEA store in Älmhult, Sweden.

8

I miss IKEA lots. There aren’t any in FL. Poo.

Wanna know the Swedish word for ‘bra’? It’s “holdsemfromfloppen”… :smiley:

9

Bizarre.

10

IKEA invented the concept of the missing nut. Basically, the idea is that you go to a large, fancy furniture store and spot an entertainment center that catches your fancy. You write a check for $499 and change. Come to find out, what you get is a flat box with bits of wood, a plastic bag full of nuts and bolts, and a leaflet telling you how to assemble it. Twelve hours and your temper later, you discover that Nut #47 is missing. You call IKEA and get an answering machine. You send an e-mail to their Website. In the meantime, the entertainment center must go up. You curse, you call on the dark forces of Bealzebub to haunt the memory of Ingvar and his farm/province/village. The entertainment center leans slightly to the left. Finally, you take a 6-inch nail and drive it into an appropriate piece of timber, which ominously splits. Now, you have a $500 entertainment center, which looks very trendy from a distance, but which leans disturbingly to the left if you get too close to it.

  • PW
    who bought IKEA crap already back in the 70s
11

I feel your pain gotpasswords IKEA no longer carries my couch (not that I needed another) my bookshelves (why not carry $%^&* black bookshelves?) my entertainment unit or my bedroom furniture.
Having said that - all this stuff has been far better than sitting and sleeping on the floor these last few years…

12

Funny, my impression is that IKEA almost never changes their stuff – I bought a set of Billy bookshelves back in the early '90s, and I venture I could get glass doors for 'em tomorrow if I wanted to.

That said, I never had any major problems assembling the stuff. If it was a bit more durable, I’d recommend 'em more.

13

Palewriter, IKEA seems very good nowadays in regards to providing all the parts and hardware - Note that I always do check everything first to make sure that a.) All parts are there, down to the last clip, bolt, or screw (I still don’t know what those ‘cylindrical connection locks’ (which have a slot in them, that when you turn them grabs the end of the bolt and pulls/locks it in)), and b.) nothing is damaged (well, noticably damaged - the flake board edges are always a bit frayed and chipped, but not on any visible surfaces).
Only once was a part missing, and I went right back to customer service and got a replacement (IKEA is quite good this way).

I have also gotten replacement parts for stuff damaged because I was a clumsy oaf, although it is conceivable that I neglected to mention how the stuff got damaged in the first place to IKEA staff.

Some lines are perennials (Billy shelves and Bonde cabinets have been around for a while), and some designs come and go rather quickly.
Still, I like most of their designs (which tend toward the plain and simple), don’t mind assembling them (so I know all connectors/screws/doweling/etc is nice and tight), and think the manager’s lunch special (15-20? meatballs, potato, soup, and unlimited soda) is a great and tasty value…

One thing - some designs are a bit weak, so I sometimes need to add additional support (e.g. L - braces on a cabinet) - I just assembled a multi-level modular storage unit (Kampe?), and added several drywall screws in addition to the two (rather thin) metal pins that were supposed to align and hold the stack units together.

14

Oh. I thought it went like this:

You enter the store with your list of TWO things to buy and a one hour deadline (“We’ll just pop in and out”). You have the: "There’s no point in going through the whole furniture part when I only need coathangers and an oven mit " conversation before spending an hour or so bouncing up and down on sofas, testing out beds, opening and shutting kitchen cupboards etc., because, after all, I just spent an hour in the car to get here, and I could just as easily get those things a five minute walk from my front door.

Around six hours later you stagger out weighed down with bags, and load them with difficulty into the car. Halfway home in the rush hour you remember your list. When you get home (after dropping your coat on the floor, doh!) you go into the final, and WTF? stage of the IKEA Experience: “Why did I buy this? WHAT is it supposed to do? Why would I want to do that? Where shall I put it? (… oh, I know, I can put it over here with the identical objects I bought last time thinking they would come in useful)”.

15

IKEA has certain elements that never change, such as the Billy. They keep these because since they are standard and storage people want to be able to expand. A Billy isn’t going to go out of fashion, it’s as plain as can be. They switch other parts of the range regularly so that every house you go into in Sweden doesn’t look the same. As it is, I can go into somones house and often refer to half the furnishing by name. I think they achieve a fairly good balance of newness and “ah good they still have it”, although I understant entirely the terror of realising they no longer sell the sofa you have been saving up for.

I know you were joking, but you are very close, its BH (bysthållare) meaning literally bust-holder.

I can well believe that has previously been the case, but my experience has been the exact opposite. I have a big bag of mixed parts for all my IKEA furniture as they routinly include at lease one more of everything than is needed. I then use these extras when I have lost a part while dismantling the furniture to move it. Their customer service is great, I bought 4-place set dishware for 10 bucks and then discovered one of the plated had a chip. They offered to trade it for me if I came in with it. I said it was a bit far to be arsed doing that (about a 40 minute bus ride), and they sent it by post instead.

Duuuude, I am going there in a week or two!It is my closest store. The original IKEA store, the ur-IKEA!! I am so hyped! I have heard they have the best returns department in the country. Tell yer mom to put aside a Göteborg for me if one comes back in to them! :stuck_out_tongue:

16

I really shouldn’t click on IKEA threads, I get so carried away. I am moving appartments right now, and have found 2 different IKEA bags containing unpacked items. I had to have them at the time, and yet have never used them… a lesson to be learned perhaps.

17

Happens here at Casaflodnak, too; the bottom of our toolbox is covered with a thin layer of odd bits and bobs that were left over after assembling IKEA stuff. When we unpacked my computer desk, I found a little pink candle in the hardware bag, the kind you’d use on a kid’s birthday cake, and we just cracked up. How did that get in there? Did somebody on the assembly line have a birthday that day? Well, as it happens, the desk has a rolling shutter that pulls down to cover the front. The instructions suggested applying wax to the inside of the guide rail to make the shutter roll more easily. And the inner diameter of the guide rail was exactly the same size as the outer diameter of that little pink birthday candle! :cool:

We’ll be hitting IKEA soon to remodel the little flodnak’s rooms. Compared to what the home-grown Norskie chains charge for roughly the same quality, IKEA is a huge bargain for us. And supper in the cafeteria for a family of four beats McDonald’s prices!

18

(maybe this is for the pit, sorry, Z.)

This is really funny to me, an honest-to-goodness confession of what I always SUSPECTED but never really believed.

They array all that stuff, all over the store, light it real nice, shine it all up, and it’s just begging you to buy it. But you don’t need it, but I see people loaded down with it.

I always think, “there’s no way they came here to get those things” (tranlucent cups, some weird picture frame, some odd kitchen appliance) but person after person is just loaded down with crap.

This is my IKEA experience. . . For whatever reason, I’m out in the burbs near it. I still need a bookshelf and a lamp for my living room, so I go in. I walk the “tour” because I know it will lead me past many bookshelves. Every one I see, I’ve already seen in someone elses house, and they’re never exactly what I’m looking for.

By the end of the “tour” I’m starting to get real antsy and claustrophobic and really put off by people’s pleasure in some of these products. I’m completely unmoved by any of the bookshelves and go through the arrays of products down below looking for a lamp. None of the lamps are right and again, I’ve seen all of them in so many other people’s houses.

About now, I start noticing the mindless consumerism around me (no offense, zephyrine, but that’s really just a nasty way of describing what you wrote) and start getting almost sickened. For no real reason – it’s their choice to spend their money unwisely. It doesn’t bother me like I get torn up over it, just like I can’t believe it, or wish I could find a way to capitalize on it, or at least wish that these people would spend the money locally on nicer stuff, that might actually require “taste” to judge, instead of knowing you can get away with it because a billion people shop at IKEA.

Then, I leave empty-handed, and swear I’m never going in there again.

Addendum…

I do have 3 things from IKEA in my house, all utilitarian. A side-table, an inexpensive desk-lamp for a bench in the basement, and a cheese-grater.

That all said, the quality of the IKEA stuff isn’t all crap. My cheese-grater is well-designed (when I saw it, I said, “that’s going to replace my current cheese-grater” and when I got home the old one went in the trash). That medium density fiberboard stuff is nothign if not durable. the lamp we have is kind of flimsy and the lampshade tore around its upper ring though. I think the products are fairly priced.

And some of it looks good, if uninspired.

And, I met a guy in Raleigh, NC once who drove to DC to shop in the IKEA. I think that’s about 5 hours.

19

I used to love Ikea, making a stop there when I was in a city that was lucky enough to have one. (Unfortunately, we Americans aren’t blessed with an Ikea density on the level of Canada and Europe; they’re only in a few large cities here.)

However, when Nebraska Furniture Mart opened in Kansas City, almost all thoughts of Ikea were blown into the ether. An Ikea store could fit into a bathroom of a NFM. Well, not really, but NFM is disturbingly huge; about the size of a large shopping mall.

20

“Fairly priced” is a good description. None of it is what I’d consider “heirloom quality” let alone would I expect it to last ten years.

But, for the here and now, it’s actually quite good for the price. It’s certainly a couple levels better than the RTA furniture sold at WalMart or Kmart.

Just let me buy the items I want before discontinuing them!