Maybe it’ll surprise you, but up until today I had never stepped foot inside an Ikea. With the idea of picking up a coffee table in mind, my mother (who had come to visit to help get my place organized) and I ventured over to the North York location to have a peek around. I had no idea what to expect. As we approached the place, the building looked enormous. Immediately, I kind of felt dwarfed by the scale of it. I parked on the upper deck and we ventured down to the front entrance. As I walked to the front I couldn’t help but notice just how crowded the place was on a Saturday afternoon. I have never seen a furniture place that packed, you know? I passed a lot of families with their little kids in tow. I swear, you’d think they we were all heading into an amusement park. Maybe I was imagining it, but there was some palpable excitement among the kiddies. On my first step in, the fact that I saw kids playing in a ball pit made me laugh out loud. Yup, the magic happens inside.
So my mother and I were wandering around the showroom, kind of ooh-ing and aah-ing at some of the merchandise. Sure, there are some items there that kind of look inexpensive, but if you pick the right item you’ll get that whole clean-line modern thing without much fuss. Now, yesterday I said I was eyeing the Ramvik or the Klubbo coffee tables. When I finally got to see it for myself, I realized that the Klubbo was far too low to the ground for my liking, and the Ramvik was just way too chunky. Even the fact that the Ramvik had storage was not enough to make me want it. However, then I saw a black-brown version of the Expedit coffee table. It was thick, sufficiently chunky, and looked sturdy. The glass on top gave it a bit more character. At that point I knew that if I were to get a table, that would be the one. So, I pencilled it onto my Ikea sheet. It just so happened that beside the coffee table they had the corresponding side table. I figured that if I got the coffee table it would probably be a good idea to just get the side table as well. At $60, why not? I pencilled that in, too. I wasn’t intending on getting a bookcase either, but when I saw the 4×2 bookcase and noticed that it was also Expedit, I just decided to pencil it in as well. I don’t know if I intended to actually buy all of that from the get go, but I figured that writing down what I wanted wouldn’t hurt.
Well, my mother and I wound our way through the store. We tried to minimize the impulse stuff as much as we could, though I did end up getting an Årstid floor lamp as well. We eventually got to that self-pick up area with the flat-pack boxes. Right by the entrance was the bookcase. Sweet mercy, that thing was freaking heavy. I was already wondering how the heck we were going to bring it home. As we went around, the boxes piled up. The cart was heavily loaded. Every time there was a slight slope, the cart really started rolling out of my control. That’s how heavy everything was. All in all, I ended up paying $365 for the day, which, in my mind, seemed obscenely cheap for all the stuff I got.
When we got back to my car, my mother and I sort of had to play Ikea Tetris just to get all of the items to fit into my car. She had all of her training lifting heavy patients at the hospital. Even though I knew that, I was still quite impressed with her ability to lift things to get them in. That bookcase package wasn’t light at all. I’m also impressed with the Corolla. I knew that it was good at holding cargo because of the fact that I was able to stuff all of my boxes in there during my move. Still, the fact that I got all of the furniture in there just amazed me. I really did a lot of heavy lifting today. Moving has that effect, no? Part of me wishes that this process is on-going because this necessary weight lifting must be doing something good for me (or so I’d like to think).
So, it’s late on a Saturday now. All of the furniture is assembled and I swear, my living room is now looking like a proper living room. Yes, there’s more stuff, but no, it’s not cramped. Everything goes well together, and that makes me happy. Very soon, I’m going to start work on softening up the room. I’m a little afraid that all of the pieces together might be a little overwhelming. Maybe adding cushions and other textures to the couch will help. We’ll see.
Yup. It’s been yet another productive weekend.
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6 comments
Raluca says:
Sun. August 23, 2009 at 1:38 am (UTC -5 )
I didn’t think a Corolla fit an Expedit bookcase. How did you do it?
I was thinking about the Expedit coffee table, but Conor vito’ed because we already had the book case, and Lack shelving and side table, and apparently they all look the same to him.
Jay says:
Sun. August 23, 2009 at 6:49 am (UTC -5 )
Yeah, the bookcase, and the coffee table, and the side table and the lamp, right? Once I folded down the back seats the bookcase went right in. I don’t know how they did it, but the Corolla is roomy!
The Ikea site does say that Lack and Expedit coordinate well together–they both seem to be chunky/blocky; I can see why Conor turned it down. All the same, it does look good. I should post pictures of my living room in its current state.
Erin says:
Sun. August 23, 2009 at 2:04 am (UTC -5 )
I hadn’t been to Ikea before I moved here 2 years ago and ended up going with my parents and sisters in tow the day I moved in… it was good to get the stuff when Dad could help me put it together, but a bad idea considering we had just spent the day moving my stuff and Ikea is more than slightly overwhelming for us small town folks, especially during back to school season. Since then, though, I’ve fallen in love. Ikea makes me want to get my own house just so I have more room to decorate.
Jay says:
Sun. August 23, 2009 at 6:53 am (UTC -5 )
Hell, even I was a bit overwhelmed heading in for the first time. Then again, I don’t consider myself to be all that “big city” anyway. There’s a little bit of a carnival atmosphere to the place, know what I mean? I can’t imagine what it’s like during back to school. I’d go insane. I think going during a less busy time would be necessary just to survive.
Yes, I’m now a fan of the place. Just need to make sure not to overdo it.
wegrit says:
Mon. August 24, 2009 at 7:27 am (UTC -5 )
I find it shocking that you’d never been inside an Ikea before. Shocking! I *love* going to Ikea. There’s so much to look at…and so many things to see that make you go “what *is* that?!?” True story: one one occasion, a friend and I got bored in Prague and decided to get fucked up and go to Ikea, wander around and eat meatballs. I am almost certain that we didn’t actually *need* anything.
Jay says:
Fri. August 28, 2009 at 11:01 pm (UTC -5 )
You’re right about there being a lot to see. When you’re on the site, all you see are the individual pieces. It can be hard to picture how it all goes together. In the showrooms with everything together it does a lot more to generate ideas and possibilities. And it’s for this reason that I can see why getting fucked up and eating Swedish meatballs seems oddly appropriate.