IKEA

Everyone in town has been tingling with excitement - IKEA is here! People actually camped out the night before the store opened to be the first ones in. I can understand the excitement, but camping out for furniture (which they're not going to sell out of) is a bit crazy.

Anyway, Blake, Cameron, Linda, Cathy and I made our pilgrimage last night to check out the store and see if it really was that cool. And: it is. Wow! I want all that stuff! And it's an incredible amount of stuff, too: 310,000 square feet if I'm remembering the newspaper articles correctly. That's twice as big as Cabela's, for those of you keeping score at home.

We didn't get there until 8:00, and the store closes at 9:00 so we only had time for brief reconnaissance. But first order of business was dinner so we headed upstairs to the restaurant before it closed at 8:30. I had vegetable soup (forgot my cash except for $2, and soup is $1.69) that was very good. Linda and Cathy had poached salmon, Cameron had a chicken Caesar, and Blake got the Swedish meatballs. Everyone thought it was great, and cheap. You have to clear your own tables, but that's how they keep costs down. They are very good at informing you throughout the store on stuff that they do to keep costs down.

Anyway, the furniture is very neat but most of all this store has thought of everything. Hands full when you walk in the store? Use a convenient locker. Got kids? Drop them off in the supervised play land. Need a sturdy bag? Use one of ours! Bag got too heavy? Borrow a fold-up hand truck! Need a cart? They're on the first floor, so pop on the elevator! Want to know if this will fit in your house? Here, we have paper measuring tapes in metric and standard! Want to make a wish list? Grab a golf pencil and paper! Please note that there is a map of the store on the back of the paper, so you can write down the coordinates of the thing you like. Hungry? Please, stop in the restaurant, or bistro, or Swedish foods store!

Really, it's like they thought of everything.

Another cool thing they have done is to have set up a few model homes. Each has a bathroom, front room, bedroom and kitchen decked out in neat IKEA stuff, and on the outer wall they tell you exactly how many square feet it is. So you can get an idea if the stuff you want will fit in an apartment that is 579 square feet, or 340 square feet.

So anyway, I'll go back some time for dishes or cushions or a tiny couch or something. All I've bought there so far is the soup, and Linda got cinnamon rolls for all on our way out. (Hot and fresh, at closing time.)

This couch is very comfy.
This chair, with the footstool, is perfect for dozing off.