Ikea Experience

Well, I have just had my very first Ikea experience. For those of you familiar with Ikea you probably can identify with that statement. Ikea is not just a store it is a destination...a total experience.

One of my current clients is furnishing a new office. Ikea offers some great solutions to accomplish this. Their style is clean, sleek, modern and hip. Luckily my client had already had several Ikea experiences so she was my guide. We followed the arrows on the floor to the areas that had what we needed. We debated and disussed. We found lots of great furniture. There were so many options. We wrote lists of parts and components. Then we took a break. It was time to eat.

Eating at Ikea is also a fun experience because most of the food is Swedish inspired! Even the soda. It was great. Swedish meatbals, almond cake, pear soda. They also had wraps and salads and mac and cheese!

We took the time to go over our choices and make some decisions. I did a layout to scale to see what would go where and then off we went again. After reviewing our selections it was time to go down stairs to the accessory department. OMG What fun. After another hour and 2 shopping carts later we were ready to approach the warehouse. Yes, warehouse. That is where you find that each and every component to the furniture has a row and shelf where it is located. You must get a cart ....flat bed cart....and then load boxes on top of boxes. We needed HELP! Luckily a very helpful Ikea-man was there to save the day. He located many of the things on our lists and filled the first extended cart full of boxes, we found some more. By the time we were done we had 5 carts full!

One thing my client had concern about was that everything would be in stock and...guess what.... it wasn't but it was due in that night somewhere between 1 am and 5 am and would be available the next morning.

We sprinted through check out in about 15 minutes and then it was on to the delivery desk to set up delivery.....for another 45 minutes.

My first Ikea experience ended just 8 short hours after it began. How can that be? Well, you have to go to Ikea to have your own experience.

Yes I did go back the next morning and basically zipped through the warehouse, check out and delivery desk. I celebrated with a tour through their little grocery market called Ikea Food, purchasing a few treats.

What's my take on Ikea as a resource? I think it is great. The look is great. The prices are great. Delivery is great. And they assemble...yes everything is KD or Knock Down and has to be put together. There is a service separate from the store that you can contact to assemble which is helpful. If you are decorating on a budget or even just want to add some fun modern touches Ikea provides alot of possibililties.