The thread about Random IKEA Experiences

It seemed a good idea, and actually went a bit better than I expected. I took the child with me and we just played in some of the "rooms" and I measured a few things to give myself something to think about (the answer is "maybe"), and of course saw yet another book shelf that I like but did not buy. All told, we got our of there for just under $15.00 including lunch, which I am told is a miracle of some sort, but there you go.

I will say that I love to put things together, and my power drill/screwdriver makes it all too easy to volunteer my services.

Lunch, though.... It always seems a good idea, and then I end up feeling stuffed but not so much nourished. This time I had a chicken wrap (most of) and brought home a box of lingonberry juice (and saying "lingonberry" always reminds me of The Big Lebowski). I was thinking the wrap would provide the right amount of protein/lettuce/etc. Not so much.

And your random IKEA experiences?

Oh Dear God, the Ikea experience.

I suppose that it must not be SO unbelievably horrible for most people. The last few times I went, I was with a compulsive shopper, and the experience was unbelievably stressful. Imagine the worst argument you could ever have with your spouse over money, in public, and then having her buy the crap anyway and not speaking to you the entire trip home (2 hour drive) except for her to tell you how awful you are for not letting her spend the way she thinks she should (remember now, all that crap still got bought and it's in the back of the van, so it's not like letting her spend the money shut her up, you still have to listen to her bitch about how you DIDN'T let her buy it).

Then when you get it all home she does nothing with it. Doesn't assemble it. Doesn't even have room for it. Some of it may get taken out of the box, but it never gets assembled unless YOU do it, which you will after you've tripped over it a dozen times and you realize that the hardware is getting lost because she only made a half assed effort to do anything about it and left the bits all over the house while talking on the phone. So if you don't put it together it will have been a TOTAL waste of money. Actually, it was a total waste. You'll sell it at your next garage sale for $2.

Yeah, we're getting a divorce.

After my divorce is final, I may go into an Ikea just to leave empty handed.

And yes, Lingonberries remind me of the Big Lebowski too. :)

Do I sound bitter?

A bit. Sorry. Though I will say that it is likely that IKEA contributed to my divorce as well. No compulsive shopping, but imagine going to IKEA with someone with severe ADD who likes to wander off.... He was too big to fit into the shopping cart. I like going with the kid a lot better. :p

Mostly we look, we play, maybe we buy something, but not generally.

When my friend helped me move and I did buy a passel of furniture for my apartment, he was amazed that we were in and out and on the road in about a half hour flat. The thing is to know what you want, where it is, and have the cash money ready. Done, furnished, and I put it together within a couple of days.

My apartment is spiffy. So spiffy that my ex-mother-in-law found nothing about which to complain, aesthetically. She was a bit disappointed, I think.... heh.....

I wish I had an Ikea near me. I was lucky enough to get a Jerker new in the box off Craigslist a few years back; unfortunately they have since been discontinued. It's a great desk and I love it dearly. (On a computer forum I used to spend a lot of time on, there was a whole thread where people posted pictures of their setups on Jerkers.)

I know many people who have been kicked out of IKEA for playing hide and seek, photo scavager hunts, social experiments etc.. so much fun. I even know a couple who go on dates there, granted, they have two kids, and are rather eccentric to begin with. I like it, but then I'm all about the DIY

I have never been to an IKEA store, but I have found flatpack furniture in general (and IKEA desks in particular) to be so flimsy that they border on useless.

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Originally Posted by jockeys

I have never been to an IKEA store, but I have found flatpack furniture in general (and IKEA desks in particular) to be so flimsy that they border on useless.

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Ikea seems to have two grades of furniture. Flimsy and pricy. The more expensive stuff seems to be pretty solid and I've been happy with it, but they lure you into the store with the very low prices on the flimsy stuff.

They seem to have invented a type of particle board that has a very high content of air. Seriously. I think they use some sort of foamy glue so the particle board is very much lighter than you'd expect, but it's also much weaker. Progress!

Yup, the flimsy stuff is crap. Went through 3 beds in a matter of months. Luckily their warrantee is good though.

I like em mostly for the small things. Plates, pillows, kitchenstuff, cd racks etc. They're good value for that kind of thing.

But I dislike going there with my wife. We always end up with more stuff then I wanted. Although since my wife is cheap like me we never spend out of our budget.

I have been to an IKEA once. I hated it.

I like do it yourself. I never liked painting by numbers though.

IKEA does have good stuff, but it's more pricey. However, it is still a lot cheaper than 'real' furniture, and it is at least pretty functional.
Usually we have a pretty good idea of what we want, and then just go in to look at it in real life and buy it.

Walking round Ikea is as close to soul destroying as you get. In the UK, the experience goes something like this:
- get caught up in Saturday traffic trying to get into the middle of nowhere in an industrial estate
- fight for a parking space
- great, I'm already in a bad mood and have yet to set foot inside
- be blinded by the blue and yellow signage, ugh.
- walk into the main entrance, battle with a thoroughly unsatisfactory trolley with wheels that have been set to go in opposite directions
- shout at the kids
- start the long mile walk along those poxy plastic walkways, following the people ahead of you like automotons, stopping every so often to pick up another kitchen object you really don't need or measuring something you only have in inches but everything else is continentally metric
- shout at the kids
- feel bad for shouting at the kids when you realise you've lost them, then double back against the flow of sheep to find them jumping up and down on a bed in some random room
- shout at the kids
- get to the end of eternity only to realise the item you wish to pick up from the warehouse is out of stock, despite being informed it wasn't
- you can see the item, tantalisingly close, but a few pallets up on the racks and are told they will get it down perhaps next week
- start climbing the damn racks like a monkey with your wife calling after you...at this point you just don't care anymore... must... get... that... item...
- feel smug for a nanosecond, then look with horror as you join a queue longer than at Wembley when England are playing
- your soul is nearly gone, only remains to pick up a plate of Swedish meatballs which tips you over the edge as you realised you've just overpaid for a load of bulls' testicles or whatever constitutes the meat in them
- Shout at the kids
- leave the family with the oversized items by the exit while you pick up the car and swing it round to load up, except there's a huge queue for that too.
- back at home, unpack the furniture and realise you are missing pieces, or some are chipped or damaged and you CANNOT face going back to that place :cry:
- shout at the kids
- eat, bath, go to bed, wife will not talk to me.

IKEA is truly the seventh level of Dante's hell. I hate it.

I only have two things from Ikea:

- two very old Billy shelves for the books that my former brought home with old books he sold.
- the food kitchen furniture (yes I have two kitchens, cause one is for soap alone) that I bought on eBay without knowing it came from Ikea originally.

Been there once but i did not like it.

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Originally Posted by majurey

- eat, bath, go to bed, wife will not talk to me.

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So it's not all bad. :roflmao :roflmao :roflmao

Saturday afternoon has to be -the- worst moment to visit ikea.
If we go, we leave the kids with their grandparents, and we come in early in the morning.

So far we haven't had damaged furniture yet.
The coffee at our ikea is great, and you get free refill.
The food is not bad and pretty cheap.

The only thing that is truly abysmal are the hotdogs. They are mushy and have less tasted than watery cardboard. And that is -with- the substance they insist is mustard on top.

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Originally Posted by joesixpack

Ikea seems to have two grades of furniture. Flimsy and pricy. The more expensive stuff seems to be pretty solid and I've been happy with it, but they lure you into the store with the very low prices on the flimsy stuff.

They seem to have invented a type of particle board that has a very high content of air. Seriously. I think they use some sort of foamy glue so the particle board is very much lighter than you'd expect, but it's also much weaker. Progress!

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we may have different ideas of "pricey" but when I blow nearly 300 bucks on a desk, I think it ought to be strong enough to hold my freaking monitor up without bending, no matter how clunky the monitor is. I pawned the desk on some other unsuspecting student and built the strongest desk ever made: from cinder blocks and a large, solid-core, oak door.

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Originally Posted by jockeys

we may have different ideas of "pricey" but when I blow nearly 300 bucks on a desk, I think it ought to be strong enough to hold my freaking monitor up without bending, no matter how clunky the monitor is. I pawned the desk on some other unsuspecting student and built the strongest desk ever made: from cinder blocks and a large, solid-core, oak door.

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And also quite likely the ugliest :D At least it had a ready made port for the cords to go through! As long as it works though, I guess that's what is important.

I'm in the Ikea sucks camp. That furniture looks like it belongs in the 2001 spaceship. Fortunately, I've only been twice, with two separate girlfriends. Both had fun. I was miserable. Now I'm really never going back.


"I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."

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Originally Posted by jockeys

we may have different ideas of "pricey" but when I blow nearly 300 bucks on a desk, I think it ought to be strong enough to hold my freaking monitor up without bending, no matter how clunky the monitor is. I pawned the desk on some other unsuspecting student and built the strongest desk ever made: from cinder blocks and a large, solid-core, oak door.

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Their stuff must have gotten flimsier or pricier, or both. I had a desk from there that was pretty sound. It was made of that light particle board, but I think it had some sort of steel beams in it to give some structural support. My first wife was a graphic designer, and she had a monitor bigger than my TV. That desk held that and a metric ass-load of other stuff. It was quite a marvel, really.

Cinderblock furniture is the very best, though. Milk crates make really good furniture as well. The best desk I ever threw together was made with a couple of salvaged metal two drawer file cabinets and a solid core door. Worked great, looked great, and the price was right. For some reason, my second wife thought it looked bad. I think she just wanted another excuse to go to Ikea, though. I should have seen the writing on the wall then.

I have a foam mattress that is pretty good, way cheaper than the others I've seen, and not the "mold to your body, trap you forever" space foam. that and just the springy wood base, I'm too cheap for a real bed, and for someone that moves frequently its a good thing. also didn't feel like spending much on a bed when i already know I'll be needing to buy a bigger one in the indeterminate future. I'm of the thought that no brand is a guarantee I'll like something, so I just decide what I want, and go buy it, where ever I find it.

I live about two miles from an IKEA...furniture is to small for someone 6'3", 235lbs, but the meatballs are good.
Only go there about once a year...

Mac

Ikea is everything that is wrong with the world today. People unwilling to do the work, buy overpriced garbage, because either they are too impatient to wait, save and buy real furniture or because they are too dumb to know they are buying particle board garbage. That being said, it does work great for short term buyers. Like college students.

But that being said, congrads to who ever started it. He recognized a market and exploded onto it.
and they do good job marketing, ever been on their stairs, then you see the floor, with a giant add on it saying 5 million people walk on this flooring every year, you can buy it for X a sq foot. That is brilliant!

Got caught up in Ikeadom this weekend. Had planned a weekend of cleaning up around the house. Then somehow we ended up at Ikea...did we need more storage? Ended up making more of a mess because I had to move stuff around to make room for the new furniture.
The SWMBO even demanded a new bedspread because apparently the old one was too dark and was darkening my mood. Here I thought I was annoyed because I was spending too much money on useless stuff.

I don't know what people expect from furniture nowadays.
Mine were antique when I got them and still are (doing pretty well).
But anytime I take out my trash I see that new stuff beneath the garbage cans, looking totally wrecked.

We bought 2 drawer cabinets for the living room. They cost 120 euros apiece or something like that. They won't last a lifetime, but solid wood furniture that does costs several times more. And with little kids in the house, who bang their tricycles against it, or who get creative with colored markers... some time ago they were coloring the grouting between the tiles with wax-like crayons :cry:

Interesting to read the complaints. :) Ikea is apparently a successful concept. It has a lot of cheap stuff, but also pretty decent stuff that's more expensive. Actually last week I picked up a shaving mirror there for about $6 or something, which I think is a great price and the thing does work OK.

I'd avoid going there at a moment where you might even think it could be busy, because it will be. Mornings are usually OK here.

The desk i got from there has been serving me well.

It is just a big ass table top with 2 legs basically. and metal supports underneath that run across it. Has a cable organizer and a thiing hanging off the side to keep my rig off the floor.

Has 24" monitor. lapop. hones, razors, and other misc items sitting on top of it.

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Originally Posted by Slartibartfast

... and a thiing hanging off the side to keep my rig off the floor.

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Woah! You must have quite a 'rig', dude.




:rofl2: