So here is an email I lurked out from under the hansosan this morning. I post it here because it’s almost exactly how I feel about IKEA (everything except the part about trying to build my own stuff… because even being half a lesbian doesn’t mean my limbs are safe from power tools). The sad part is, most of the furtniture Pnut and I own comes from IKEA, because (disclaimer!!) it’s the only stuff that broke down into small enough pieces to fit up our hamster-sized elevator. It’s a matter of hell vs. 8 flights of a (spiral) staircase. Perhaps the only time IKEA wins, in my book. If you wish to nay-say, you first need to come over and try moving some shit up our stairs without puking.
Anyway, here’s the ’san’s response to this article by David Pierson; I couldn’t have said it any better:
I HATE IKEA SHOPPING. [The boss] would buy half the store if I let her, and all I can think of in there is how I am going to have to spend the rest of the weekend deciphering Swedish cartoon instructions, yelling to disappearing family members while trying to hold electric screwdrivers
into awkward angles after dropping essential tiny bits into dark corners, just to build something I should have made myself in real wood, if I would have had time to figure out what it was I really wanted and cleaned up my garage to make space to do it… I hate screwing into lousy particle board that will emit carcinogen PU vapors for the next decade, cardboard backs that will sack out of their nail fasteners in just one season, the unrepairable cigarette-paper thin printed fake veneer, drawers that I know will rack apart and lose their bottoms no matter how much extra glue I squeeze into their joints. The most insidious part comes after you’ve put them finally together: the
doors weigh more than the whole cabinet, which requires me to screw the humongous front-heavy blocks (zero fasteners provided for that part of the job!) to my crappy walls if you don’t want to find a family member crushed to death underneath it one day.The only spot in the shop I liked was the left-over bargain corner where I occasionally picked up some wood to chew up into something else. That cooled a bit after I once picked up a 2 meter long mirror there, and only remembered just in time at the check-out that I came driving our super short and tiny Lupo car, which would have made for some great candid camera shots in the parking lot.
None of this livid aversion has had any effect on what really ends up into our house, because there is not one room left uninvaded. Not a year goes by without another batch making its way into our already overstuffed rooms. From the bunker-like units with sliding glass doors ((heavy!!!) in the bedroom to the fake-leather cardboard boxes on the shelves in the privvy, they’re all silent testimonials of the unwritten conspiracy between the marketing moguls and the real decision power in our home.
Sigh.
