IKEA: classic or dud?

http://gizmodo.com/5634257/ikea-let-loose-a-herd-of-100-cats-into-store-to-see-what-happens

After three years, IKEA and its subsidiary have finally agreed to meet with their workers about forming a union so they can put a stop to racial discrimination, pay cuts, and dangerous conditions on the job. The stakes are high, and these workers need your support. Help us keep the pressure up by calling your local IKEA store.

http://act.americanrightsatwork.org/p/salsa/web/common/public/content?content_item_KEY=8769#TN

please do this, btw

this does not apply if you live in the EU of course, where IKEA workers are unionized

Holy fucking shit putting together my Effectiv cabinet today was like giving birth -- three basic units plus base plus cabinet doors plus drawers. My hands actually started bleeding spontaneously at one point.

I didn't know giving birth made your hands bleed :-(

The main problem is the 'self-drilling screws' that you sometimes have to put in actually don't drill themselves into the boards very well. Eventually I figured out to just make a small starting hole with a nail first. I also managed to do a couple of things upside down and had to switch them.

never buying shit from here again, mark my words. finally have a house, did get a small loveseat, all you really had to do was screw the legs on and it still took three hours and I wasn't completely successful.

I don't know what you people are like at following instructions, but it's never taken me more than a half a day to put together even the most complicated IKEA furniture. Maybe I should start offering my services as an IKEA assembler. £30/hour sound good to you?

IKEA is amazing bcz it's like Legos for grown ups and when yr done you have new furniture!

Going to IKEA on Wednesday! Though we don't actually need anything at this point...I'm told our main objective is new Christmas decorations; I'll be stocking up on pickled herring.

1) I was strangely elated the morning I discovered Ikea's coffee is bad. Maybe it was the proof that there was SOMETHING Ikea couldn't do right, and this will delay its takeover of the world?

2) I like my Ikea mattress.

i went to ikea for the first time ever yesterday. it was like a lazyriver of 10000 people, i was hardly ever able to find an eddy out of the way of 5 other people. i really hated the shopping experience. a lot of the furniture seemed very low to the ground, but the floor was too busy for me to really check anything out.

i suspect i'll buy something there at some point, but i won't go there on a weekend ever again.

I made the observation on our last trip that Ikea, strangely, seems to have a highly successful business model based on a shopping experience that is almost universally hated. I mean maybe that's just my slanted, anecdotal version of things, but I heard so many couples having similar conversations about how much they hated the rat maze, how tiring it was, how they felt all this pressure to buy extra crap they didn't need, etc. Whenever I go to an Ikea I think that I never want to go again, and I usually don't for at least a couple more years. OTOH I tend to load up on stuff every time I go.

http://semihandmadedoors.com/

really smart new business that makes custom doors to be installed on IKEA kitchen cabinets. You can get better kitchen cabinets than IKEA but you have to spend like 5x as much to do so.

Wow that's an awesome idea, but I wish their cabinet doors were more interesting - many of them don't look all that different than the ones Ikea offers. Except for the Premium --> Reclaimed which are pretty amazing.

I've renovated several kitchens w/Ikea cabinets. Besides being well made, inexpensive, and fooling most people into thinking it's high-end cabinetry, they're also far easier to install than traditional cabinets. Hang a metal rail high on the wall, put hooks on it, and hang your cabinets - much easier than the usual two-person job that requires temporarily nailing a wood support to the wall to aid placement and having to be careful not to let the cabinet slip off it and crash to the floor. The base cabinets, instead of requiring shims to level it, just have adjustable legs. Why aren't all cabinets like this?

a friend of mine has these amazing glossy red IKEA cabinets in his kitchen and it's the coolest, most distinctive thing ever

Whoa, pics plz!

http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47b7df02b3127ccec07b4b962adc00000010O08Ebs3LZu2bA9vPh4/cC/f%3D0/ps%3D50/r%3D0/rx%3D550/ry%3D400/

http://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47b7df02b3127ccec07bdd82abb300000010O08Ebs3LZu2bA9vPh4/cC/f%3D0/ps%3D50/r%3D0/rx%3D550/ry%3D400/

I have some much better ones but this is what I could find now. A $1500 kitchen remodel - what looks and feels like a tile backsplash is a sheet of tileboard I cut to fit, the "stone" flooring is $1 vinyl stick-on tiles, and what looks like a granite countertop (thanks to the rolled edges) is laminated particle board stocked at the hardware store. Ikea Adel Brown cabinets.

Oh, ya wanna see amazing *glossy red* IKEA cabinets.....

http://kitchenideas.com.au/ikea_abstrakt_kitchen.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/154/428694108_98333e046b.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/177/478689606_97a065d41c_o.jpg

http://www.istils.lv/upload/pagegal/661281_abstrakt_red2.jpg

http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/26958_377011379292_327673079292_3523374_1576036_n.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/68/223297027_59ef18b0c9.jpg

ya those are the ones he has, with tile and stainless steel appliances, it's the most gorgeous kitchen

http://us.cdn4.123rf.com/168nwm/snake3d/snake3d1101/snake3d110100037/8669898-two-heart-shapes-i-love-you-concept-sexy-couple-abstract-beautiful-saint-valentines-day-card-templat.jpg

one more:

http://www.womenseverything.com/images/ikea_abstrakt_high_gloss_kitchen_avail_red_black_grey.jpg

I actually like the metal-flake grey under glossy clear vinyl cabs even better.

....like these:

http://www.graceinottawa.com/images/Stylish-Grey-Kitchen-Inspiration-By-Ernestomeda-1.jpg

blue looks cool too

http://www.neffweb.com/images/cont/eurolite-1.jpg

good handles + good lighting to create shadows = awesome looking kitchen or wet bar

http://www.neffweb.com/images/cont/millennia-1.jpg

I enjoy that blue kitchen shot taken when sky outside matched cabinets 0_0
I would happily exist in any of these kitchens

Lee626 could we maybe get one of those for $1500?

Depends how close you are to DC (or northeast US which gives me a good excuse to visit a gf there more often). But they're nothing magic about my renovations - anyone can do it really, I just carefully choose items that look expensive but aren't. Sometimes I do splurge, but carefully. Fancy handles or knobs can make ordinary cabinets look special. A few small colored glass 2" diamond tiles can be set in a piece of tileboard, and everyone will think you spent a fortune on your backsplash. Ikea cabinets of course, but sometimes I throw in one or two matching-look cabinets from a high-end cabinetmaker, like a curved 12" radius cabinet in a corner, and only you will know you have one cabinet that accounted for 40% of your cabinet expenditure - ppl will know you didn't use cheap Ikea cabinets 'cause they don't make round ones. Prefabricated laminate countertops with rolled edges, sold at the big home centers or Ikea. For appliances, instead of buying cheap new ones, spend the same money on high-end used ones, scouring Craigslist and eBay for bargains. You'll find lots of 5- to 10-year-old luxury grade stainless-steel stoves, Sub-Zero built-in refrigerators, or Miele dishwashers for a few hundred each. Likewise for elegant sinks and faucetry.

Oh, I was totally kidding. But I am in Philly and I do plan on buying a house someday, so...

But srsly damn bro, those are some A+ pro-tips!!

LOLling out loud at me being considered "pro"! I occasionally moonlight as a kitchen and bath renovator. I don't really daylight at anything....

I'll post some more pix later that are hiding somewhere on my old computer's hard drive. I have one where I repositioned the existing 40-year-old wood cabinets, added three new glass-and-aluminum Ikea cabinets between them ($295 for all three), and somehow it came out looking like all the cabinets were new.

My latest Ikea purchases.... make of these what you will....
http://www.ikea.com/PIAimages/24037_PE108848_S3.jpg
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/images/products/idgran-cushion__0135632_PE292376_S4.JPG http://www.ikea.com/us/en/images/products/idgran-cushion__0135632_PE292376_S4.JPG
http://www.ikea.com/us/en/images/products/tindra-scented-tealight__0085474_PE213265_S4.JPG
(cinnamon & apple scented)

congratulations on your impending booty-getting

man i really hate going to ikea.

NEVER AGAIN

Thought this thread got bumped because of the monkey (wearing a little coat!) found in a Toronto IKEA today.
http://torontoist.com/2012/12/ikea-monkey-ikea-monkey/

O_O ikea redeemed.

seriously though, i don't understand the love for that place. it's fucking insane in there. the cafeteria is not good either. always makes me gassy.

just full of screaming people and it's a goddamn maze i tell you

how do you not take a video of this monkey?

and yeah the cafeteria is awful. it can be a savior if you're hung over, though.

I <3 the IKEA monkey.

what a stylish fellow

I don't hate IKEA, I like the caf and the walk-through part! I just hate getting your pieces together and standing in line at the end, and then having to get them HOME. It's all a lead-up to the horrible part, which is carrying way too much home on multiple subways and/or buses.

PS the next thing I want from there is a dining table so I guess I should start being nice to someone with a car.

btw i broke at least one wine glass on the way home because it was stupidly packed in the bottom of a huge back.

also i have about a million christmas sausages

http://distilleryimage9.instagram.com/58ccedb6423811e2979622000a1fb04f_6.jpg

i thought i was a basically heartless person but goddamn if this isnt the saddest photo ever taken :(

ikea is just about the lease stressful furniture buying experience out there. unless you're loaded then buying forniture is all pretty stressful and at least in ikea you can have fun if you just decide to go with it.

fun in ikea looks like a photogenic couple spinning their goods trolley around & hugging in front of the wine glasses, a montage set to sugar pie honey bunch, like there's always this homemaking scene going on somewhere around you while you're glibly deciding whether you need a weirdly dimensioned bowl that you don't need but which is basically too cheap to not buy

I don't hate ikea at all but yeah it sucks if you go there w/o a car because it's like idk going to a p good restaurant and being allowed to taste and chew the food presented to you but there is a maitre'd who physically prevents you from swallowing it and makes you spit it out into a bin

and you never ever feel like paying for car service or delivery service because then it doesn't feel cheap anymore and what's the point of going if it's not cheap!