A New Experience

Life here is still full of new experiences.

Yes, I was an Ikea virgin until this week. I’d heard the tales, of course. The bewildering choice, the labyrinthine layout, the crowds, the delays in collecting purchases… what was I letting myself in for?

Apart from a hiccup at the start, when we went into the storage area instead of the showroom, we found our way around easily enough.

There seemed to be a class outing from the local technical college going on :

We saw these lads emerging later on in groups, having bought “things to be assembled.” I’m guessing “Ikea Assembly Expert” will look good on any CV.

We were mostly shopping for office furniture and, kudos to us, we kept our focus really well. I wanted to get cushions, too; our hideous couch is uncomfortable as well as ugly and I thought a few cushions would help. So apart from cushions, it was all about the office furniture. Oh wait, there were glasses, too. And a cutlery set. And Daycent Mugs for the cuppa Barrys. But apart from cushions, glasses, cutlery and mugs, we were totally focussed on buying office furniture.

We quickly (it was only two hours, not bad at all) finished in the showrooms and made our way into the warehouse.

Where someone proved yet again that you will never fully remove the boy from the man…

and I discovered that Ikea also do headaches. No assembly required.

We eventually found all our brown boxes and queued up to pay. Finally, all was in the jeep except for those darn things we had to collect at the special pick-up point. Me & the dogs waited, some of us patiently, others less so.

and finally, we got back home, seven hours after leaving.

After dinner, we started assembling. These were my very first Ikea project :

And no, I did not “just have to match the correct lid to the correct bin.” Humph. Look at all those handles!! I had to attach every single one!

Buoyed by my success, I proceeded to my second ever Ikea project – my new office chair. It was a bit more complex than the bins.

The LSH was busily assembling tables while I was doing all that. One end of his office looks pretty good now.

The other end? Judge for yourself.

I’m currently sipping my tea from one of the new mugs and admiring the new cushions. They look great! Mind you, draping a sheet over the couch helps a lot, too.