Well.... since I'm pretty much responsible for this thread let me put this out there and sorry for the long post:
I FRIGGING LOVE IKEA - I'm a logistics driven person so I love how design is affected by logistics on most of their core products.
- I respect the visionary entrepreneurship of the founder.
- If you follow the store "route" you will see everything without losing yourself and going back and fourth the same section.
- If you're in on a schedule you can jump form section to section using the safety doors.
- If you're really in a hurry you can take the item reference online arrive to the store go directly to the warehouse and be out in 15minutes or less.
- It's like LEGOs for grown-ups.
- I love woodworking but since I live in an apartment (and got forbidden from sawing in the kitchen) IKEA is pretty much the second best thing.
- It is highly affordable, for the price of an solid wood old school china cabinet for the living room you can possibly buy the furniture for the all the living room.
- Pressed wood is environmentally "safer" then solid wood and IKEA has an history of investing in low formaldehyde gluing solutions.
- Tough it doesn't endure a lifetime IKEA furniture starts needing replacement by the same time than my Wife starts talking in changing the rooms dispositions.
- Having a meal in the cantina is really cheap for the quality and besides the usual meatballs, the other usuals here (cod, gammon) are also really good. And that Swedish berry juice is great.
- The crèche is a great way of taking the older one out without enduring the normal tantruns.
That being said and as you're already figuring out:
- My home office is a combinations of Billy's with a complete and improved Micke desk. I do recommend the narrow ones instead of the full width ones if you want to store books without sagging the shelfs.
- Our 10m2 kitchen was completely assembled by me and my wife in two days. Regarding the appliances only the oven and microwave are IKEA. I do not recommend the solid wood counters, the are awesome but if you intensely use the kitchen don't maintain them properly they tend to sag, twist and rot depending on the level of moist/heat/water proximity. They are also really heavy to move around and hard to cut modify with DIY tools. We had beautiful two piece almost 4m long solid wood counter but after 4 or 5 years we changed to a pressed wood with a marble like top veneer, cheaper and easier to handle.
- Living room besides the current sofa that I'll only replace when the cat passes away is 100% IKEA.
- Sleeping rooms and the bathroom cabinets are also 100% IKEA.
Fun story, when my parents moved north and I stayed, at an aunt's house, in the Lisbon area to finish college I needed a job.
So since IKEA was just opening their first store and it was halfway where I was staying and the Henry The Navigator Nautical School where I was on the second year of the Logistics Management Degree (explains my logistics fondness) it seems only logical to try and grab one of the 500 openings.
I somehow nailed the "psychotechnical tests" and got immediately called for a first interview with two lovely, naturally blond , good looking HR Ladies
that were really enthusiastic about my logistics studies and test scores so I had the most awkwardly perfect job interview ever (if only I was older, more "experienced" and in a bar instead of pre-fabricated unacclimatized booth......).
Due to the first interview I was being upped from the guy driving the stacker vacancy to some-kind of low level team leader or shift coordinator or something opening so that meant a second interview with the logistics department boss, since it was the first store all the senior levels were being filled by senior managers from other countries so I ended up face to face with a Spanish gentleman.
And that's the fun part (not the Ladies one) although now a I'm a IKEA enthusiast at that time I really just wanted a job and barely knew what IKEA was about, so the conversation was a bit like this
(please note it was more than 10yrs ago so it might be slightly altered due to recollection and dramatic effect):
- Hi Pedro, I know you're studying something related to logistics and are highly recommended by my HR colleagues. Tell me why do you want to work in IKEA?
- Hello! well I'm in college and a job would really help paying the tuition and help in my parents so since IKEA is opening here I thought why not.
- Well that's nice but WHY IKEA?
- (His tone got me startled so I elaborated a bit) Well again my parents have modest jobs, I'm living in a aunt's house and I don't want to be a burden for either so I really could use the income, on top of that the store location is really good considering the bus/train lines I catch between home and school which is a plus and if I end up on the logistics department it can be interesting from the degree point of view.
- Yes, yes, I understand BUT WHY IKEA?
- (Now I was completely baffled so back to basics) Well I need a job, store is opening, 500vacancies were announced, I'm not afraid of work so WHY NOT I'm sure there is something I can do here.
-Well Pedro, you know?!...
-...(Here we go, maybe I'm not getting this job after all, I thought)...
- IKEA is a PASSION,
-...(Ok
)....
- to work here you need to LOVE IKEA...
-...(Well now
)...
- you need to wake up everyday EAGER to come to work, it's not just a job or a part-time is a LIFE choice
-...(dude on WTF are you high in, what kind of seasoning to they put on the cinnamon rolls)....
- YOU SEE? Do you UNDERSTAND?
-...(I see that I'm don't really know if I want you as a boss)
- Mr.
something, I see (I don't), I'm sure I'll enjoy the experience (and the small talk with the HR personnel) and I'll proudly be part of team and the IKEA family, while I really don't know IKEA now I'm sure I'll learn to cherish fast.....
- Hum! Well Pedro
but I'm sure we will call you really soon.
...
...
...
They didn't.
So while has an husband, father and living in my own house I'm a big fan of IKEA we didn't start our love relation with the right foot.