Ikea

So, we went to IKEA yesterday. We have been wanting to get a black-brown wood table, but decided to wait since we don't have a lot of money right now, but ironically we ended up buying an Expedit bookcase/desk combo that was about the same cost anyway. At least it will be more useful than a new table, as we need more space to store books.

Ikea is such an interesting place with all its flat-pack furniture. Some of it is better quality than others. As in, some of it I hate and think it looks awfully cheap and shabby and is poorly made. On the other hand we have found some things we really like there.

I am not sure that I would say I like it as much as Target, but it does have interesting room configurations to stroll through. Every time I go there I think of the video above. I just had to add it to my blog. Mark Malkoff lived in a Ikea store for a week! This is also the same guy who visited and consumed something from all 151 Starbucks in Manhattan in less than a 24 hour period. That video is well worth the watch as well.

Anyway, did you know that Ikea products are identified by single word names? Most of the names are Swedish in origin. Although there are some notable exceptions, most product names are based on a special naming system developed by IKEA, according to Wikipedia.

• Upholstered furniture, coffee tables, rattan furniture, bookshelves, media storage, doorknobs: Swedish placenames (for example: Klippan)
• Beds, wardrobes, hall furniture: Norwegian place names
• Dining tables and chairs: Finnish place names
• Bookcase ranges: Occupations
• Bathroom articles: Scandinavian lakes, rivers and bays
• Kitchens: grammatical terms, sometimes also other names
• Chairs, desks: men's names
• Materials, curtains: women's names
• Garden furniture: Swedish islands
• Carpets: Danish place names
• Lighting: terms from music, chemistry, meteorology, measures, weights, seasons, months, days, boats, nautical terms
• Bedlinen, bed covers, pillows/cushions: flowers, plants, precious stones; words related to sleep, comfort, and cuddling
• Children's items: mammals, birds, adjectives
• Curtain accessories: mathematical and geometrical terms
• Kitchen utensils: foreign words, spices, herbs, fish, mushrooms, fruits or berries, functional descriptions
• Boxes, wall decoration, pictures and frames, clocks: colloquial expressions, also Swedish place names

Anyhow, this morning I spent entirely too much time reflecting on all the stuff we own from Ikea. This past weekend, we got a Noresund side table, an Expedit Desk/Bookcase Combo, bamboo drapes, big cylinder pillow with pillow case, and a milk frother.

In the past we have gotten our bed frame, chest, guest bed frame, and ginormous bookcase as well as miscellaneous other stuff. Here are a few highlight pictures: