Jan292007
Home of the 99-cent squeegie
Filed under Uncategorized by teresa santoski at 11:38 am
Based on my experiences this weekend, Ikea is Swedish for "massive store full of plastic, good deals, and more organizational solutions than you can shake a stick at."
One of my friends just moved into a new apartment, so a few of us trekked down to the Ikea store in Stoughton, Mass., to see if we could find her an inexpensive bedframe. We found one that matched her curtain rods perfectly - they're these ornate, wrought-iron-looking rods, not flimsy little bits of plastic, so it's not as strange a matching technique as it could've been.
It's safe to say that I was not prepared for Ikea. I had flipped through a catalog many years ago and casually dismissed the line of sterile, modular plastic furniture. It might've been functional, but it didn't look comfortable or inviting.
I was not expecting wooden bedroom sets, wrought-iron-looking nightstands, or brightly-colored rugs and bedding. This warmer, kinder Ikea fascinates me.
It fascinated all of us as soon as we entered the first floor showroom. All the kitchen implements - my word. Never have I seen so many three-packs of plastic kitchen scissors in one place. I almost bought a set, just because they were so pretty, but I went for a six-pack of neon plastic chopsticks instead because they were more practical. Well, at least for my lifestyle.
That would be my new beef with Ikea: when you approach the registers and realize just how full your cart is, there aren't any baskets in which to unload all the impulse buys you plonked in your cart and have since realized you don't really need.
Like my 99-cent squeegie. You're supposed to use it to clean your bathroom mirror, but I thought it'd work on my car windshield. You know how it goes - you have a filthy windshield and those little spurts of windshield washer fluid aren't cutting it anymore, but you have a full tank of gas and you'd feel really, really lame pulling into a gas station just to use their squeegie. I picked one up in bathroom fixtures, only to set it down again in the bathroom showcase. I figure that if I'm going to invest in a squeegie, I'll invest in a really good one, one with a sponge and not just a scraper.
It's a lot of thought to put into a 99-cent squeegie, I know, but Ikea encourages that kind of thinking. Pushing your impulse-buy-laden cart past bins of closet organizers and perfectly organized, tastefully accessorized bedroom sets brings about an epiphany: the people who successfully achieve the Ikea aesthetic are home decoration minimalists. They stop at one mirror and two framed pictures for their walls and one potted plant for the windowsill. They do not stuff their cart with lucky bamboo just because the price is good.
Ikea is fabulous when it comes to organizational solutions, though - if you're an obsessive-compulsive on a shoestring budget, this is the place for you. I picked up a an organizer for my closet for about $35. It's a metal frame with a plastic top and it holds four fabric drawers that are perfect for scarves and other delicate pieces you're concerned might snag. I spent my Saturday night hammering it together and subsequently reorganizing my closet. I am now quite the happy organization fiend.
Ikea is very much a hands-on store; you pick up your own furniture in the warehouse, load it all into your car, bring it home, and assemble it yourself. Warehouse pick-up and assembly aren't too difficult. It's fitting everything in the car and making it safely home that's the problem.
We barely squeezed the bedframe (and several bags of other purchases) into the back of my friend's van and even then, the only way we could all fit in the van was if someone lay down on the backseat, partially under the bedframe. Next time we go down, maybe we should all chip in and rent a U-Haul - there were a couple of them in the parking lot. Ikea, I will never underestimate you again.
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