apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I have the Knappa light in my bedroom, and I love it.

Nice, I will be heading over to Ikea later this week. Ikea as-is for life!!!

http://zero255zero.com

Does anyone know the name of that green (rocking chair?) in image 18?

Cute baby! Great haircut on Mommy!

Was that a round bed in the first picture?

I love those $0.49 dishcloths. Since I've started stocking up, I've cut my paper towel consumption by 75%. They also make fantastic napkins.

The round bed always puzzles me. I know I'd end up on the floor - a lot.

The paper lantern lights always look so delicate to me, I just know I'd put me fingers through them.

I'm headed to Ikea tomorrow (hopefully) to pick up new curtains, rods and maybe a small bistro-ish table.

Your wife is a really good sport!

I wish we could edit our own posts...so that I could fix my constant typos. :)

What's that green chair? I've never seen it before.

is one IKEA supplied better than the other i.e. Garden State Parkway vis a vie LI?

I too was at Ikea last weekend (Elizabeth), and what caught my eye was the Imperativ steel panel:

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/30075131

It seems as if one could do a stainless backsplash for incredibly little money with these....

Oh! I forgot to mention the most important part: they now have frozen versions of their Daim torte and Swedish almond cake to go.

I'm so grateful that ikea exists.... loving modern furniture can create fiscal havoc..... ikea is the great equilibrator. Without it, we'd either have to drastically compromise our style, or would go broke buying only overpriced furniture. I'm certain that without IKEA blazing the trail, there would be no CB2 or westelm today.... and modern would = overpriced.

we have some of their paper lamps in our living room.... they're about 7 years old, and in perfect condition. You'd think they'd tear, but then again, how often do you actually touch a lampshade?

Cute Mom, daughter!!!

I love the Regolit lights - I have the Bow Floor Light in my living room where it acts as a great overhead light replacement.

I was at the IKEA in Stoughton, MA a few weeks back, and it too was under-stocked, which really threw me for a loop and resulted in a mini-IKEA melt down. (You know, when you have not eaten and are standing in the middle of the textiles section and the colors swim before your eyes in a big, bold blur, and you just start piling your basket with pillow shams without even looking...)
Also, due to the meltdown, I ended up leaving one of my bags of merchandise there after having paid at the self checkout. :( I called and e-mailed and never reached a person, so that was $20 down the drain. Has this ever happened to anyone else, and have you had any luck retrieving items left behind?

What a treat to see photos of Ursula and SK

I have the Domsja sink; part of our lightening (1 week!) complete kitchen renovation earlier in the fall. It is the most-commented-on thing in the kitchen, everyone loves it and I do too.

Baby is looking super cute, and I am grateful for the help finding sorting through Ikea. It's nice to have a guide! You managed to pick out things I'd like but would definitely have overlooked.

49cent dishrags...hmmm...i've been wanting to make a dishrag curtain...hmmm...

You might be better off going to the one in Paramus, NJ (closer too) but it is closed on Sundays. I find the sinks pictured to be too shallow to be user-friendly. Plus, udnermount is the way to go!

I too love SKGR's haircut. :)

I loooooove the norden table. We purchased the larger one in July and I can't rave enough about it. The leaf stored under the table frame is so convenient, and for a solid wood table, you can't beat the price.

Beautiful mommy & baby! Love her hair and freckles!

I love the round bed. I'm tempted to go for it. But there is an iron bed by Claudio Reyes that i've promised myself.

Okay... am i the ONLY person on this board who had NEVER been to Ikea?? I've been in the parking lot, but the store was about to close. I promised myself i would return, but as of yet... haven't.
I keep promising myself that I will one day go.

@Tara, I've had a meltdown but I didn't leave anything there.

A nice staffer patted me on the shoulder and reassured me that, yes, it could be a confusing place to shop.

And my brother will never go back with me!

But he just hires decorators now.

Have only had one Ikea meltdown. It was after I got my very first sofa. This was when before debit cards. I didn't have checks or a credit card. I paid $900 in cash for it - way more than I had ever spent before. I started sobbing in the check out after I paid for - it was a mix of both excitment and fear. The check out lady came around and gave me a big hug and then the other people around started clapping. I was 19 or 20 and felt like such a grown up. I LOVE Ikea - now if we could just get one here in Memphis.

glad I am not the only meltdown victim. love that you got applause at the checkout, chairgal!

Ah, IKEA... My love/hate for thee has no bounds...

An understocked IKEA store seems to me to be the result of some sort of back-office dysfunction. Either the buyers aren't paying attention to what sells, or the corporation itself is hampering its stores with quotas/limits on purchase orders.

Regardless - I don't have the patience to understand how such a store could so often be out of it's bread and butter. I've tried all three of the NYC-area stores and I've never found 100% of my shopping list at any of them.

To mount an excursion to IKEA is really a daunting task for a city dweller... First, you have to free up a day (if you're buying furniture to assemble, you've got to devote a full day) to drive an hour (it really takes that long with traffic) each way. You have to either rent a truck or convince a friend with a truck to take you there. Try to park within a 1 mile radius. Dodge the always overcrowded aisles and rude customers who try to pretend that they're the only person in the store. Deal with the some-of-the-stuff-is-here, some-of-the-stuff-is-in-the-warehouse thing. Then you find that even though you checked stock on the website and called ahead, roughly 40-50% of your shopping list is sold out, discontinued, not available at that particular location, or not available in your color choice. "Frustrating" doesn't begin to describe it...

After I had a MAJOR red-faced, snapping-at-the-staff meltdown in the Elizabeth, NJ branch, I decided that shopping lists were probably not a good idea.

The $180 black armchair that I found in the AS-IS room for $40 made several bad trips worth the effort, though. And I love IKEA's design sensibility, so I put up with a lot of crap to own their crap. As, it seems, many of us do...

Take a deep breath, head to the cafeteria and have some Swedish meetballs (my grown kids cringe at the words Swedish meatballs - I guess we overdid it when they were little)

Can't beat the salmon with potatoes and vegetables either. Never any need to starve at IKEA.
I went shopping in Elizabeth for a couple of things in the Stockholm series a while ago and found the coffee table I wanted in the As Is section--saved about $75. Not so sure about it now, but it felt pretty good at the time.

Does anyone own, or knows anyone that owns, a Beddinge sofa bed (Resmo mattress- if that makes a difference)? If so what has been your/their experience? Is it comfortable enough to be a primary sleeping mattress every night?
question first posted here

Hi,

Totally new at this website, but love what I see so far. I'm a practical NY mom, soon moving to a new place and terrified of choosing paint colors and having old pre-war walls stripped and painted. Anyone on who would be interested in helping me for a small fee? Or any advice where I can find an idiot-proof palate?

In general, love Ikea, though I do have a taste for B&B italia and other higher end stuff. I'm trying to create a modern look in my prewar and I'm hoping that the paint guy is being honest when he tells me that he can bring the walls back to life after the mega expensive paint job.

Sorry for rambling and I will appreciate any thoughts, advice, leads etc.

Just went to Ikea Paramus on Friday. I had to fill up on gas and the tolls went up to $8 today! Whenever my tank is low, it's time to go to Ikea, since the gas is 40 cent per gallon cheaper in Jersey. Ok, that's probably just an excuse. It doesn't take an hour to get to the Paramus store--it's about 10 minutes from the GWB.

I've gotten amazing deals in the as-is department. If you ask, often the staff there will mark the item down even further for you. And on Wednesdays you get an extra 10% off. I always stop there first to check if what I came for is marked down.

I bought the regolit 37 inch shade and put it in my bedroom over the overhead light upside down. I was able to just slip the wire frame under the screw in the center of the overhead fixture. It looks awesome. Now I need one in the living room.

I also got this amazing huge palm tree for $14.99. I had a hard time getting it out of the store since it was taller than the elevator doors (in the cart). And I'm not sure where to put it since it takes up about 6 square feet of space. It makes my bedroom look like a five star hotel room. Very chic.

We just got our first Ikea here in West Chester, Ohio, this week. I had no idea what an ordeal it is to shop there, or that I needed so many instructions and maps to navigate it.

My friend and I were totally confused (I wrote a post on my site about how many newbie mistakes we made on our first outing--it was ridiculous the amount of trouble two college-educated, veteran shoppers had figuring it out).

You can imagine how crazy it was for the Grand Opening. We loved the furniture and prices, though, so it was worth all the trouble and fighting the crowds. Can't wait to go back for bookshelves!