The Gibson Family Goes to Ikea

This is Hank again, Kelsey's husband.  I write a little on her blog when I get inspired every now and again.  Apparently, a Swedish furniture store inspires me greatly.

We went to Ikea on Saturday!

There are some things the greeters at the front should warn you about before you actually ascend the escalator into the heart of the store.  Things like, have you brought food and water?  Have you stretched properly?  Are you in shape enough to walk 4 miles?  Do you have heart problems?  Do you suffer from shopping overload?

Unfortunately, the greeters didn't convey these very important questions to us. 

Now, I had been to Ikea twice in my life before and to their website several times.  They have really cool, really affordable stuff.  I like Ikea stuff.  The two times I'd gone before, once with a friend to just walk through the store and get the Ikea experience, not to shop, and the other time with my two male apartmentmates to buy a desk and desk chairs, we'd been inside the Swedish Village (aka, Ikea) for, at most, an hour and a half.  No biggie right?

Apparently, three years causes the enormity of the store to fade away. 

I met Kelsey and her sister there at approximately 3:30 in the afternoon to browse around and maybe buy some stuff for the house.  We didn't really have a list of things we needed, we just wanted to look around some.  Well, I quickly remembered, you don't really just look around Ikea, then head out. 



Taken from this blog

They are really smart marketers, these Ikea folks.  They set all their furniture (and I mean all!) out in little room setups and apartment setups so people can see what they look like.  Then, they weave a maze through the store so you have to, quite literally, walk by everything before you can get out. 

Ikea's furniture is really snazzy, though, so for the first hour, I was enthralled.  Wouldn't this look great?  Oh, that is really cool!  Sweet, check out that clothes hamper!  They sell fridges?  Woah. 

After an hour and a half, I was starting to get a little weary.  The beds were beckoning to me for a nap.  Again, the Ikea people are smart though.  They put a restaurant at the halfway point!  What better way to get some energy, right?  We piled some food on our plates, well, dessert actually, chowed down, then set off with a new fervor in our hearts!

The fervor lasted until about 30 feet from the bottom of the stairs that led down from the restaurant.  At this point, it had been two hours.  My eyes had begun to glaze over.  The girls feet were turning to mush (they had already been to the zoo that day).  All the Swedish names of everything were starting to jumble together into one Swedish mass. 

Kelsey's sister had gone up ahead of us while we lingered around the picture frames.  For some reason, the frames began to move, twist, and take a new shape.  They formed hands that wanted to grab me and drag me into the picture.  Had there been some Swedish drug in my dark chocolate bar? 

Oh, wait, that was just a heart pillow with arms.  Carry on.

By the time we got to the checkout with our new house items (which were awesome by the way), we had hiked (yes, I do use that word on purpose) through the small Swedish city for over 3 hours.  Over 3 hours!  One store!  Madness, I say. 

Words for the wise when shopping at Ikea.
1.  Bring provisions
2.  Wear comfy shoes
3.  Don't bring small children (they'll get bored quicker than you and get into everything.  Trust me, we saw many examples)
4.  Don't have evening plans
5.  Finally, make sure you bring a strong husband along to carry the wife's purse

Finally, some serious Ikea advice:  shop online, pick out what you want first, then go to the store.  It'll save a ton of time!

Happy shopping!