IKEA Review

First, IKEA is essentially a supermarket for all kinds of furniture.  From the big ticket items (dining room, bedroom and living room) to the tiny stuff (knives, forks, spoons and cocktail napkins), its showrooms are loaded with well made and reasonably priced selections.  

Secondly, IKEA is not an American store.  Its origins are Swedish and so all the brand and item names are Swedish so it takes a little getting used to. 

Third, the layout of each of its stores is very un-American.  American stores are generally linear: aisles are parallel to each other so you can skip aisle 1 and go straight to aisle 10 without wandering through the others.  IKEA's layout is roughly like walking through a maze and there are arrows on the floor indicating in which direction you should walk.  There are shortcuts to the end but in the two stores I have been in they are not that well marked.

Fourth, and most importantly, the furniture is not assembled.  You must put it together and to accommodate customers in more than thirty countries on four continents the directions for assembling the furniture contains no words, only pictures that resemble comic strips.  Assembling the furniture isn't hard but for some items it's not that easy either.  There is a service to have the furniture assembled but it looks expensive.  Likewise delivery, so if you are buying large items bring a large vehicle.     

Here in the United States IKEA is now (January 2008) in over thirty cities and there are more on the way.  If you want to experience IKEA intelligently, plan at least a two to three hour visit to the store.  You can bring the kids since the merchandise on the floor is there for testing: sit on it, lie on it, jump on it, open and close it and play with it (and there is an abundance of colorful kiddies' furniture, infant through pre-teen).

In the two stores I visited the design has two floors.  On the top floor is the larger furniture set up in mock environments: sofas are in living rooms, beds are in bedrooms.  If you select an item you'll note its location in the warehouse where you will pick it up, if you can lift it.  For some selections you will get a ticket so the furniture can be picked up at a separate checkout area.  Furniture is packed so efficiently some of the cartons weigh over 100 pounds.  Large dollies are available for moving the stuff to the checkout registers.

The quality is superior to furniture you might buy in Wal-mart, K-mart and similar stores but inferior to high quality brands like Broyhill or Ethan Allen.  For example, my desk is solid white pine not compressed sawdust.  Likewise the bookcases are all solid pine.  My HD-TV sits on a table with a shatter proof glass top and aluminum tubing for legs.  The cost for similarly priced items at other stores is two to three times what IKEA charges. 

On the bottom floor is the smaller stuff: pillows, rugs, kitchen equipment, gardening tools, posters, lighting, clocks, knives and forks, tea kettles, glassware, carving boards, curtain rods...you get the idea... that you can load into their oversize shopping carts.

Checkout is efficient: you load it onto the counters, they scan it and you package it back onto the dollies and take it to a central loading area.  The very large furniture is delivered to a separate check-out area.

Keep your receipt since returns are easy-no questions asked (I did it once) and another time there was some items missing in the package of nuts and bolts (too many dowels, not enough screws).  I called and they sent me an entire second package.

Each store has a cafeteria and, as might be expected, their Swedish meatballs are first rate and also available for purchase.

For further information and locations check their website at http://www.IKEA.com