I’m not being hyperbolic. I now hate Ikea with a burning passion.
I’ve never been a huge fan of the furniture for my own purposes. It can look great in other people’s houses, but I’ve never liked it in my own. (The obvious exception being the display cases, though that’s more about affordability than style.)
I’ve also never trusted a company that builds complexes that sprawling. It’s exhausting to even contemplate a trip through that store, let alone actually completing one.
And these feelings were only intensified by my trip there on Friday. They’ve now been solidified into a congealed mass of anger and frustration that can only be described as out-and-out hatred.
Finding my way (there)
I encountered the first problem almost immediately: The phone took me via surface streets.
Now, that isn’t Ikea’s fault. Technically, it’s my own. In trying to be helpful to Tim — who is paranoid about getting trapped on the freeway at rush hour — I had set the phone to “Avoid highways.” And then forgotten that useful fact weeks later when I set out for a place 30 miles away.
I would have gotten to Ikea in 26 minutes via highway. The route I took was 63 minutes, and it even took a bit longer than that thanks to hitting literally almost every single red light I came across.
Again, not Ikea’s fault, but Ikea and that debacle of a drive are now inextricably linked in my mind.
Finding my way (in the store)
This should have been easy. I needed three of one particular item — and I even had its exact location in the warehouse. All I had to do is find where the furniture was kept.
Upon entering the store, I saw an escalator, a sign for the showroom and a sign for the restroom. Nothing else. So I asked at the daycare whether all the furniture was kept upstairs. She, apparently assuming I was asking for examples of furniture rather than the actual pieces, directed me to the showroom.
Thankfully, I grabbed a pamphlet as soon as I got upstairs. Otherwise I would have gone all the way through the showroom before finding out that what Ikea calls “self-serve furniture” was downstairs.
Instead, I’d only made it maybe 1/8 of the way through the showroom (after around five minutes, just to give you an idea of the scope of the place). Frustrated, I doubled back to the elevator. The frustration was exacerbated by a sign in the elevator about ordering online and picking up in store. That option wasn’t mentioned any of the times I did a test checkout to find shipping fees. *
Thus I got off the elevator somewhat agitated and very ready to get my furniture and go. Instead, I was at the beginning of the marketplace.
I furiously (in both senses of the word) navigated the section, constantly trying to spot the next sign so that I could stay on the path — because this store is ridiculous enough to have a path — and decrease the amount of walking I was having to do. Even so, I almost missed the turn for the furniture section. I would have if not for a helpful fellow customer.
If you’ve never been to an Ikea, you might think I’m blowing the walking out of proportion. So know that I was walking at a brisk pace whenever people weren’t in front of me (and scooting around people whenever I could) yet the marketplace still took me around 10 minutes to get through.
Even if you vastly underestimate how brisk my pace was, this means I walked at least — at least — a quarter mile to get through the marketplace. And that’s not including the 10-ish minutes I spent walking partway into, then back out of, the showroom.
All of this because one employee misunderstood my question — and because there were no friggin’ employees in the showroom or marketplace to ask.
Getting out… or not
Still, I did eventually find the self-serve furniture section. Then I panicked because I didn’t see any flat-bed carts.
It turns out that they’re right by the entrance to the section. Which I might have seen if there had been more than one. Instead, I only found the damn thing because I happened to turn back to the wall where I came from. There was a huge sign on it pointing out the carts section. Just to be clear: The signage was on the wall you can’t see as you enter the section. Brilliant.
Still, I tried to be grateful that I’d gotten a flat-bed cart at all (since they’re seemingly in short supply), and I pretty easily located the display case boxes. I clumsily hefted the three heavy boxes onto my cart, thought about how I really needed to go back to working out if 30-lb boxes gave me that much trouble, then went to the checkout line.
The lines were relatively short, but it still took me at least 10 minutes to get to the front. At which point I was told that I had the wrong boxes.
Apparently, each case came in two boxes, which was indicated by stickers with the numbers 1 and 2. Yes, I had seen the stickers, but the ones I saw had different color dots next to them. So I assumed the numbers were a shorthand for the color of the case. Because not everyone speaks Ikea!!!!
Help! I need somebody
As the cashiers politely explained that I’d need to go back and get three more boxes — and make sure there were an equal number of 1s and 2s — I started freaking out. I’d barely managed the first three boxes. Now I’d need to get three more and somehow get them all into the car?
That’s when I started crying.
I don’t mean that I got misty-eyed. No, at least three or four tears escaped and made it about halfway down my cheeks before being wiped away. All while the five or six people behind me watched. Whee.
They found someone to help me get the extra three boxes onto the cart. The employee from the self-serve furniture section — yes, one for the whole sprawling section — also came over and helped verify that we had all the sets correct and accounted for.
Then I for some reason ended up back in line, this time waiting closer to 15 minutes to get to the front. But at least afterwards I got the boxes loaded in the car for me.
Muscling through
The good news is that I did figure out the directions issue on the way home. So the drive took under half an hour this time.
The bad news is that I had to get the boxes into the house myself.
Theoretically, this was better. If Tim had been there, he’d have wanted to help and probably would’ve thrown his back out. In reality, it meant I had to contend with six boxes that I could barely handle individually.
So I lugged — there’s truly no other word for it — each box into the house. I slid each one out of the trunk so that it was at hip level, gripped it to me, then waddled into the house. I then set each one down in the living room (since there was no way of carrying them all the way into the office), making two stacks of three.
The plan was to push the stacks across the tile, into the office. But when I tried that, it was like something out of a slapstick routine: My knees worked furiously in place while the boxes didn’t budge. I ended up having to squat down and push the boxes forward until I was on my knees, then get up and do it again.
I felt pretty pathetic at the time, but later I found out that each box weighed either 37 lbs or 44 lbs. So not only had I toted more than 240 lbs from the car into the living room, I was trying to push at least 100 lbs in each stack.
On the one hand, it’s nice to know I’m stronger than I thought. On the other, what the hell kind of company makes a basic glass box that, when packaged, weighs more than 80 lbs?!
So yeah
I hope you can see how all of those things add together to a serious hatred of all things Ikea.
To recap: It’s a complex maze that you can easily accidentally be sucked into. Once in, you won’t find any apparent shortcuts. And even if you circumvent the showroom, you’ll be trapped in the marketplace. All of this without any employees on the floor to help you out — at least on weekdays.
In short (too late), this is a place without any regard for someone with even the most minor physical limitation.
And yes, I know that people with disabilities can simply choose to avoid the store (paying ruinous prices) or avoid the company’s products altogether. But those are two pretty crappy options for a company that tries to seem so user-friendly.
So yeah: I. Hate. Ikea.
Have you ever been to an Ikea store? Did you love it or hate it?
* More than $90, in case you were wondering. But hey, that was for either one or three of the cases. So… Nope, still ridiculous.
Jennifer says
I hate it too. For all the reasons you described! Years ago when I was outfitting my first apartment and Ikea was a necessary evil (living in a new city before craigslist) I knew the “route” so it wasn’t horrible. Now they change the routes all the time and it’s so frustrating to find the correct boxes you need OR they aren’t in STOCK. So not only do you spend all that time navigating to find what you need, they don’t have it.
That being said I have gotten some good basics for a good price, but Ikea is usually my last resort. Also didn’t know about the order online for instore pick up. Their delivery fees are crazy!
Abigail says
Yeah, the delivery fees are absurd. Especially since it was $90ish for one case *or* three cases. Uh, no. I guess it’s designed to get people to buy more to amortize the cost but… No.
I will say that Ikea has an option to check stock online, which I appreciated. If after all that the case hadn’t been in stock, I’d probably have had a full scale meltdown.
Yet Another PF Blog says
I have mixed feelings about Ikea. I like the couple of items we’ve gotten there (mostly our Stenstorp kitchen island) but the store is confusing af. I think the self-service model is all about cutting out warehouse service costs, a make the customer do the work in exchange for a discounted product sort of thing. But yeah, it’s a terrible set up for people with limitations.
Abigail says
Yeah, I wouldn’t have had a problem with the self-serve thing (well, other than misunderstanding the 1 and 2 issue) if there had been clear signage for it at the front. I get that they want to cut out the warehouse middleman. I just have a problem with the fact that there was no obvious way to get to self-serve from the entrance — or any indication it existed separately from the showroom at all.
Glad you like your kitchen island. I will say that the kitchen stuff I’ve seen there is nice. It’s the rest of the furniture that I’m iffy about. Especially because so much of it relies on cam locks or, as we call them, the Swedish Screws of Death. Because those suckers never stay tight!
Money Beagle says
We have a ton of furniture around our house that’s from IKEA. I think we started small and were able to learn a lot of the things you learned the hard way without as much trouble. When it got time to get our bigger pieces (like what you had gone through) we had gone through, essentially, a couple of trial runs.
It’s really a very efficient process once you learn the IKEA way.
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Abigail says
That could well be true. If I ever have to get display cases from there again (please, God, no) then I’ll know where to go (I think there may have been access to the self-serve furniture from the entrance) and to get two boxes at a time. But if I have my way we will never ever ever go there again. Glad you have a relatively easy time, though!
Kat says
We have an Ikea store that, with little to no traffic, takes about 20 minutes to get there. We just don’t go when there is traffic because it is a lot closer to the city than we are. At first, I wasn’t a real fan of the store. I kept coming back because… well… when you read a lot, you end up with a lot of books you love too much to give away. This leads to book cases. Since I’m picky, and I was known to be low on funds, like most people just starting out on their own, I went to IKEA because I could get nice looking bookcases for a lot less. Specifically the Liatorp bookcase in the dark stain.
Now, I will say that these bookcases differ significantly from a lot of the furniture sold at IKEA because they are solid wood, not MDF. They also have some design elements. This leads to a bookcase that doesn’t look like it’s from IKEA and happens to match the furniture I moved out with. Since I didn’t want to re-buy furniture down the line, I saved up for the more expensive bookcase (if you’re seriously hard up for storage and don’t have a commitment to a certain style, you can find a $20 bookcase that will last a surprisingly long time). All of this lead me to give IKEA a try even when they frustrated me.
I was very fortunate that, upon entering the store for the second time and looking confused, an older woman gave me the secret to navigating any IKEA. The great, mighty, powerful, oh-so-magical secret? Go eat lunch. IKEA doesn’t like people walking around low-bloodsugar cranky. They also know that some people come solely for the inexpensive food. So, they build direct paths to their restaurant from just about anywhere in the store, including the entrance. It’s also located close to the elevator that will put you out right at the end of the marketplace. They may not be great about getting this point across but it is one of the ways that they help disabled customers navigate the store reasonably. It may also sound a little weird, but their food is very decent for the price and nibbling at a meal there can allow traffic to clear up.
The second trick I learned after my AIP started kicking my butt. Every self serve area does have a kiosk in the center of it. While they minimally man the self service area, said guy can call for backup. So, if you go up and say “hey, I’ve got a disability but I’m looking for x item” they can call in someone from the floor or customer service to help you. This person will load it onto your cart and help notify their customer service that you need help carrying it out and loading it onto your car safely. One good to know hint, if you need something lashed to the top of your car? Break out the yoga mat. Not only will it protect your car from getting scuffed up, the things are designed to help you get traction on a yoga studio’s hardwood floor.
As for getting heavy things across tile? The inverse to putting down a yoga mat is putting down a fluffy towel. The sheer amount of loops mean that it doesn’t really have a chance to create as much friction. This allows you to move heavy objects a little easier. Just make sure the towel is flat, place your item on it, and pull or push (depending on item, floor plan, and personal preference).
Abigail says
Duly noted for future tugging-on-heavy-stuff efforts. I’ll remember that about the bookcases, since non-MDF is a rarity these days. Then again, I’m also unwilling to pay much for a bookcase, so it’s probably moot.
Kat says
Rent prices in the Bay Area means that any apartment dweller in a circle of 20 somethings moves, on average, every 18 months. As the friends of said apartment dweller, you get roped into helping. I got a double dose of it because I drove a pick up at the time. Pre-issues, I had one weekend where I ended up helping four people move in one month; so I got a pretty good education in how to move things with a minimum amount of effort and how to stop things from sliding off into traffic. My gift to myself and my friends has been using movers any time I relocated (considering one apartment was a 3rd floor walkup, I figured that was birthdays and Christmas all in one go).
Steveark says
I’m thinking that if we ever have the zombie apocalypse you are going to last, maybe, fifteen seconds. But I agree that Ikea is Swedish for Hell. Plus who wants to last more than fifteen seconds in a zombie apocalypse?
Abigail says
Oh, I think I’d last the first couple of days. If nothing else, I have a thing about zombies. So if I ever saw one, I wouldn’t think, “Oh, someone’s playing a joke!” I’d freak the hell out and run. Plus our garage has pretty convenient, retractable access to the attic. So that’ll help, til we die of heatstroke. #optimism
Revanche @ A Gai Shan Life says
I like the place if I’m well-fed, well-rested, and don’t actually NEED anything and am just browsing. Which is almost never. Though that’s not IKEA’s fault, that does mean I’m incredibly unlikely to use them much in my old age.
Honestly I don’t know why Costco doesn’t bother me when it’s built along very similar lines. Probably because almost every aisle is food.
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Abigail says
Excellent point about Costco, but it’s not that much bigger than either just the showroom or just the marketplace. Also, yes, food. Mmmm food samples!
Susan Mason says
Except that I know exactly where I am at all times in the Costco and how to get the hell out of there in a hurry!
Abigail says
Also, if you do want to get something specific, you can easily navigate directly to the aisle you want and then directly into the checkout lane. So that’s a bit different from Ikea’s setup.
Revanche @ A Gai Shan Life says
I must be the only one who can’t find anything at Costco, then. It doesn’t bother me THAT much, but I sure as hell thought I was going to be lost for about a decade the last time I was there alone. 😀
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Abigail says
I usually have a pretty good idea where the food stuff is after two or three visits. Now if you put me on the side with all the electronics and home items… Yeah, I’m lost.
My Money Adventures says
Maybe that is why they have the $1 ice cream cones in location directly after the check out lines.
There chicken tenders in the dining area are pretty good too.
Oh furniture… this is why I go on a weekday or first thing in the morn when its not busy. It’s easy to get flustered in there when its busy. And sometimes worth paying the transport fee to have it delivered (and assembled for extra).
Glad all the pieces were in your boxes and the furniture didn’t have any messed up corners.
Abigail says
Aw man, is hid known about the. Ones. As for the time, I was there at 10:30 am on a Friday, so that wasn’t the problem. It was quiet (for Ikea) so I can’t imagine what it would’ve been like on a weekend,
Catseye says
Never been to IKEA (non-existent here) and now I don’t want to go! I couldn’t have lifted one of those boxes, let’s not even talk about 6 of ’em. I hope you didn’t mess yourself up doing that.
I do have one of the dressers, a gift from a friend. I like it but when I moved here, I was grateful that I didn’t have to help carry it up a flight of stairs.
Abigail says
My arms were a bit sore, but shockingly I could raise my arms without yelping. My back and neck are still a bit stiff, but overall I came through it surprisingly well.
Lizzy says
I adore IKEA, but I was raised to, lol! When I was a small child, we went to Sweden, bought a house full of IKEA, and had it shipped to Florida. This was before we had IKEA in the States. My mom is Swedish, so we would have gone to Sweden anyways, but as an adult I recognize this as kind of extreme!!!
Abigail says
Wow, that’s quite a trip! I can’t imagine the shipping costs for all that stuff, but I’m glad your mom got exactly what she wanted. Their stuff really can look quite cool, just not with my stuff for some reason. I think too much of my stuff is just too different from more modern-looking furniture.
Anna says
Ikea tends to make me frustrated, mainly because of its dictatorial layout. I’m fine with their products when I care more about cheap style than longevity, but the stores Drive. Me. Crazy.
Amazon has started carrying Ikea things. Not sure if they do furniture, too, but–something to consider in the future.
Abigail says
Good to know for future reference, but I didn’t see any Amazon results when I did a search for the case. So I think it’s at least out of the Detolf business.
I love the phrase “dictatorial layout” — describes it perfectly: You have to go where they want to get anywhere!
teinegurl says
Never been to IKEA they don’t have one here and they don’t ship to Hawaii which im sure would be extremely expensive but this whole ordeal sounds dizzying.
Abigail says
Eesh, can’t IMAGINE what the shipping costs would be there. They were heinous here — more than $1/lb if you only ordered one case — so yeah, probably best that you don’t have the temptation.
Susan Mason says
Only been to Ikea once. Was up in maybe Redwood City? I was with my daughter who was familiar with the place. I really dislike the serpentine layout-like a maize. And no windows to orient yourself I was actually contemplating a panic attack when my daughter cheerfully pointed out that there were actually exit signs fairly frequently. Although I am sure an alarm would have sounded had I run gasping out of any of the exit doors! Have not been back.
Abigail says
Yep, serpentine is another good way to describe it. If you’re there to stroll along and look at the possibilities, it can be fun I guess. But if you have any desire to get something specific… Well, it’s maddening. And kudos for the self-control of *not* running out the exit doors.
Practical Parsimony says
I have been sure for quite some time that I do not have the patience, stamina, or curiosity to ever enter Ikea.
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Abigail says
Smart woman!
Funny about Money says
You tell a great story! Augh…this is EXACTLY the kind of brain-banging thing that would happen to me… 😮
I kind of enjoy an Ikea expedition. True….they couldn’t give me the furniture, at least not anything smaller than an 18-inch-high table. I’m not impressed by the knock-down concept, and 99% of the chairs are amazingly uncomfortable. My son has done all right with some of it, but even he has lost patience on occasion…and he’s much stronger than me and pretty handy with tools.
On the other hand, there IS a lot of stuff there that’s worth the trip. That whole downstairs kitchenware and household junque department, for example: take some time to shop around in there. They have THE best candles, with no stinkum in them, and the price is great. They have a great collection of kitchen and barware tools, decent enough quality and very cheap. Pots and pans are usable. They even carry a French press at a decent price. Their area rugs are great if you have tile or woodoid floors, and some of them are even washable. Kiddie toys: cool. Desks: acceptable. Mirrors that hang on the wall: good. Plant pots: yep. And on and on…
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Abigail says
“Junque” and “woodoid” — love it! Yes, their marketplace has some astonishingly good deals. Very pretty lanterns that look great at weddings too. So if you’re looking for kitchenware or some smaller decor items, then I can see going to Ikea. But the furniture leaves me cold most of the time. At least for my own purposes.
Stace says
I.HATE.IKEA – the stores are the most unfriendly, most un-user friendly that I have ever been in. I seriously thought I was trapped and going to have to spend the night in one of the mini houses that they set up in the store. Hmmmm – maybe that’s what they are looking for.
Abigail says
That could be it! Sneaky devils!
Kalie @ Pretend to Be Poor says
I also hate IKEA! The idea is cool, until like you said you complete an exhausting trip through the entire building, only to find out that every item you were interested in is completely out of stock! (This was before they shipped at all.) I honestly never want to go there again. I’d rather buy used, higher quality furniture and not have to make a 3-hour shopping trip.
Abigail says
The one thing I will say in the store’s favor is that you can now check stock before you leave. Granted, I had a friend schlep all the way out there — she lives by me, so it’s about 25 miles — and the frames weren’t in stock after all, despite what the app said. Which just makes it all the more frustrating.
Jim Manley says
yeah this store is bullshit
Kathy says
My husband & I just visited IKEA for the first time and hated every minute of it. What kind of store is this? How do we even buy the stuff? This is like Consumers Distributing on steroids! Your article made me laugh as it expressed many of our frustrations- especially seeing we needed 6 heavy boxes for our 2 storage units which we realized would not fit in our car! Then we got caught in the Marketplace where you could actually put something in your cart but were presented with shelf after shelf of stuff we really didn’t need. Then trying to find our way out we saw the same picture of the Eiffel Tower four times!
Abigail says
Glad this made you laugh. I definitely needed one after that experience! Sorry you had such a poor time at Ikea too. I guess we’ll both be studiously avoiding the store in the future.
Larry W Yother says
I bought a set of nesting tables highly recommended by a certain national newspaper. During assembly, I found that three of the holes were in the wrong place and would not accommodate the screws provided. Curses, Ikea! Can’t you fine-tune your manufacturing process to put holes in the right places?
Abigail says
Oh dear, that’d be incredibly frustrating! You’d think the store would have manufacturing down to a science by now and not have such egregious mistakes. All the more reason to rail against the store, I suppose.
Aimee says
I’m so thankful for this post; after my trip to IKEA today i was so traumatized that I Googled to see if anyone else understood my pain.
I had a somewhat similar experience and also had a toddler with me. *sigh*
I knew all the items i wanted but some were not furniture so I had to go in the showroom and I was immediately flooded with anxiety because that place makes you feel trapped, lost in a corn maze –only worse because the workers–if you can find one –don’t consider you to be lost, so when you ask to get out they look at you like you’re so crazy and point off at some wall that’s just past another wall and scoff at you as if you’re blind or just stupid for not being born with this information downloaded into your brain.
Plus, every time I found an employee they were chatting in a group with other employees and looked thoroughly put out to have to deal with a customer. Not just once, they stopped and just stared rather than asking if they could help. That’s fairly standard in customer “service” these days but it really feels much worse when you’re hostage in a box with twisting paths and “shortcuts” that will literally put you right back where you just came from and 100,000 products, not one of which can you pronounce and half of which you can’t figure out what they even do and employees that seem to be trained in the fine art of gaslighting, it’s very disorienting.
When we got home there were a few pieces missing from the boxes -some screws and a plastic cap for one of the shelf legs but….
I will never go back.
I can totally understand why you shed some tears, I’m shocked that i didn’t! I kept it together for my son, he was enjoying breaking the IKEA law by riding on the flatbed cart, we were told several times that he couldn’t do that but by this time they were all the enemy so breaking their rules actually felt really nice.
Abigail says
Wow, sounds like your experience was even worse than mine. I ran into no employees in the showroom, but at least the ones I interacted with elsewhere weren’t rude.
I hope you recover from the awful trip and that the missing pieces don’t affect the furniture too much.
Marsha says
I hate, hate, hate Ikea. They force their customers to walk through every level. If I need a lamp or a spatula, why should I waste my time covering thousands of square feet to see cheap, mostly ugly, poor quality merchandise?
My husband decided to go with Ikea to save a few bucks when we expanded our kitchen island. We ordered 3 cherry cabinets to match the existing. They sit back-to-back of the original cabinets so a couple shades off wasn’t a big deal. Well, the toe kick end pieces keep popping off. So much so that they don’t stay on anymore. Stopped by last week to order a few. I was told we’d have to order new cabinets. Really, a 3 cent plastic part that’s 1/2″ x 3″ isn’t available? My husband’s pretty upset. When you order cheap, you get cheap.
And don’t bother with their batteries. Half of them don’t work when you open the package. It’s safer and less expensive to bypass the garish blue and yellow big box store.
Abigail says
Yikes that sounds horrendously frustrating! I know one couple that looooooved their Ikea kitchen, but maybe they lucked out. Or just didn’t mind some cheap details? I’m sorry that yours didn’t work out. I think when it comes to wood stuff, it’s usually safest to pay a little extra if there’s even a small chance of a quality difference. I’ve learned that the hard way a few times, I think. I hope you can find a not-too-expensive solution to your cabinet issue.
Aaron says
Oh my goodness, this dumping on IKEA is so therapeutic. I hadn’t been there in the last three years and I now know why, I hated the place subconsciously in the past, or I forgot I hated it. lol
They have a few useful things like low cost tables, but I found myself needing a new tabletop because I was careless with mine and used razor blades against it without a cutting mat to trim stuff (don’t do this). Then I spilled water on the table, it seeped into those slashes and got the MDF and it swelled into bumpy blistered tabletop. Again, abuse and carelessness on my part.
So I go to IKEA and since I last was there everything just looked like chintzy tacky junk to me. I walked seemingly forever to get to the home/office area and come to find out they have completely different tables now, none were the dimensions of my existing one, and everything was just expensive.
That made me pretty upset and I stormed out of that place as fast as I could. Yes, having to go through the damn marketplace and the depressing gray warehouse area, and through a cashier lane empty-handed explaining quickly to a confused cashier I wasn’t buying anything.
I was so dispirited. I will never go there again. Unless I forget, but I don’t think so.
Abigail says
Yeah I’ve always felt like, while cheap compared to mainstream furniture, IKEA is a tad expensive for what you get. I’m actually not bad at putting stuff together but assemble-it-yourself furniture other than bookcases always seem to be a little unsteady despite my best efforts. Partly because of what I affectionately call “the Swedish screws of death” that seem to come with most of them — those round locking screws that never seem to stay locked for long. I chose IKEA because it had the only affordable display cases on Earth, but for regular furniture I wouldn’t bother. Partially because, as much as I can admire modern furniture in other people’s houses, I don’t like the aesthetic in mine.
I hope you never forget so you never have to go through that again!
Prince Roger says
I have the same feeling about Ikea as you do. The store is a complete maze and by the time you get the stuff you need and somehow manage to get out you feel like if you just walked 10 miles without stopping. I wouldn’t give a broken penny for their furniture ever again. I bought 5 tall shelves for my huge CD collection, 2 of them I had to throw out after 6 weeks cause the screws kept giving in which caused my CD’s to fall. Putting a CD into them is a lottery too, you never know if you can fit standard CD in it or not. I only had these shelves since last summer but the screws are starting to go on them too. One of the days, I’ll my f****** (Sorry for swearing) temper and just smash them. Then, I know I’ll feel better. Put My CD’s on the floor like I use to have years ago, much better solution.
Abigail says
Were they the circular screws (cam locks I think they’re called)? My ex and I used to call those The Swedish Screws of Death because the lil bastards never stay. You have to go in and tighten them every couple weeks or so. Maddening!
Sorry you too have had such a bad experience with Ikea. I know some people love the place and its style (I like the style just fine in other people’s houses but I never think it looks right with my stuff), and more power to them. But I will be avoiding it like the plague.