To hate the ikea shopping "experience?"

[toptramp]

Went to Ikea today to get the trofast storage system as have decided it's probably the best storage system for me.

Havn't been for years and I can see why; horrid aircraft hanger -like store and hellish carpark. Piles of tacky shite piled high. I mean- how mant tea light holders does one need? Hardly any staff to help. I know it's self serve but I would like to be attended to. Staff were helpful when asked and when found. Then the awful self serve bit downstairs where one has to grab piles of flat pack shite oneself.

I hate most of the furniture. I like some of it but most of it is a bit tacky. I'm more of a Laura Ashley girl myself (althought tbh it's far too expensive and I like a bit of modern mixed with my shabby shite chic)

I like what I bought; trofast very useful storage, wine glasses and ultra cheap salad bowl but god I don't ever want to go back unless I'm desperate. I just wish they'd do more home delivery. It's so cheap as customer service is minimal.

Give me my local trading post (lovely second hand style curiosity shop) anyway.

PS Ikeahackers is an amazing site (I'm slightly obsessed with the play kitchen I've just linked to, but there's loads of fab stuff on there)

Haven't read the whole thread, but apparently the reason ikea have no windows is so that you don't notice the passing of time so you could be stuck in there forever

I like the hotdogs!

Not dissimilar to those guys who did a simulated Mars trip recently, where they were locked in a warehouse for 18 months.

"All sorts of random crap that you never knew you needed till you saw it"

That really should be the slogan of their next ad campaign .

The quality of the Billies has objectively gone downhill though. We have an ancient Billy from about 20 years ago, been painted numerous times and it's strong as an ox (possibly held together by paint). The new Billies we bought last year have a maximum shelf weight of 15 kilos, which ain't enough for a row of books. Cue whole shelf falling down. Boo.

Concerning the names, a lot of them make good sense in German, because I suspect it's quite similar to Swedish. But it must be bewildering to English speakers. I mean, take a Lack table - don't you then think it lacks something? But in German 'Lack' means gloss paint, so I always think of those tables as shiny (but shite). And there's some box series called Samla, which is related to the word for collecting. And the Pokal glasses - Pokal is the word for a sports trophy.