Ikea

So I hit the local Ikea store with my friend A this morning. I've never been there before as I tend to avoid large, overly populated shopping excursions. Especially on the weekend when the rest of the universe heads to them. Really especially on a holiday weekend. But A asked me if I wanted to go furniture shopping with her so I gamely went along.

Truth be told, when we started out, we were going to another furniture store called "The Dump". After going through the place, I do have to wonder if they get the irony of that name. Anyway, this store has annoying ads on the local television stations periodically about how they're some sort of "overstock liquidators". So that's where we headed first. Turns out we didn't appreciate The Dump nearly so much as some people seemed to. It seems to be less of an "overstock" situation as it is "Holy crap, that is an UGLY piece of furniture!" So after making a complete circuit of the store and doing a whole lot of cackling, we headed a mile down the road to Ikea.

Ikea is packed, as expected. You walk in the door and there's a line of parents dumping of their children at the care center. That's actually a really cool concept. I used to love shopping at one of our local grocery stores because I could leave Master J in the class cage and shop much more quickly. Believe me when I tell you that it was worth the little bit extra I paid to shop there. So I totally get why there was a long line of parents waiting in that line to shed themselves of their offspring. Right past the drop off zone is an escalator that takes you upstairs to where the shopping starts.

While I am not totally enamored of everything in the store, I can see why people might shop there. There is a ton of different styles of every item in the place. Looking for new dinnerware? There's about a hundred different styles and/or colors. Need a new cutting board? Here's twenty to chose from. They have every type of kitchen tool you can imagine, bowls of every size and lamps by the dozen. And most of it is inexpensive. I picked up a half a dozen bamboo place-mats for $1.99 each.

In addition to everything you need to run a house, they also carry everything you need to furnish it. There's entire rooms of couches, chairs or tables. There's a whole area of nothing but beds and the the things that go with them such as sheets, duvet covers and pillows. They have rooms set up completely as say, a bedroom complete with pictures on the walls and books on the shelves. They even sell entire kitchens, from the cabinets on out. It's pretty impressive to say the least.

In fact, the only thing I wasn't overly impressed with was the furniture itself. Specifically the living room type furniture. Now, I'm not saying I think it's poorly made or anything like that. I'm not even saying it's uncomfortable. I have no way of knowing if it was or wasn't. Because I didn't sit on one single piece of it. Why not? Because it's all tiny. Seriously, the furniture is miniature sized. I felt like Alice after she eats the second cake. I was towering over the petite couches afraid to sit down lest I break their spindly little frames with my apparently overgrown self. It was kind of freaky feeling to be walking through the room of smaller than normal furniture. Have you ever had a dream where you can't stop growing? That's what it felt like. Like I should probably start heading for the door before my head pops through the roof.

So in summary, cool place to shop for a bunch of fun stuff to put in your house. Not so cool snack size furniture.