We Still Love IKEA, 14 Reasons Why

IKEA has always been something we look forward to exploring, we do love IKEA if I may say. When the kids were younger, they enjoy playing pretend at the furniture displays, relating the layout to country colors, and familiar designs.We would eat lunch there often,  be it Köttbular, salmon, schnitzel, we’ll enjoy the drink-all-you-can station and we would be happy with their new menus. We would always try a new cake, muffin, or other sweets on the offer, too.

When lockdown was lifted, it was the first place we went to – not just to eat or to shop things together, it was a breather as well. The kids don’t really approve of me taking their photos anymore, so the ones you’ll see on here are candid and stolen! 😀 IKEA is one of the places the kids still enjoy, after all these years, and it’s really more than just a furniture store. Here are reasons why we love IKEA.

Touchable Displays

IKEA’s display of living room, dining, bedroom sets are all free to sit on, lie on, and touch. Yes, you can try how soft IKEA mattresses are by lying down on them.

Listing Your Wares

When you get to IKEA you’d see stands with small pencils, papers, and paper measuring tapes so you can measure the items properly (although most furniture has the info on width, height, thickness listed) and list down the items you would want to buy. Seeing them on display is one thing, but looking for them from the warehouse is another story. The mini pencils are free to take home, by the way, who doesn’t love free items?

Play Pretend All Day

As mentioned, the kids love playing pretend while in IKEA. When they were younger, they would even ask me to take their photo while checking on the items, while pretending to be cooking, or while pretending to be speaking with a customer (at the office section).

So Much Stuff to Buy

IKEA has a lot of stuff in its hectares of warehouse. You’ll find table napkins to plates, towels and bedsheets, chairs and tables, TV cabinets, bathroom storage, balcony umbrellas, sinks, almost anything you need in the house from when you sleep, to having breakfast, from tooth brushing to bathing. And they just continue to add a thing or two every single visit.

Challenging Like Lego

We love IKEA for giving us a good challenge every time a package arrives, be it big or small. The pieces come with instructions, of course, and some times they’re drawn a bit funny and odd. But it’s a test of one’s capability to follow instructions. ^_^ One single mistake could send your project crumbling, like building with legos, IKEA cabinets are fun to build, just now, they are bigger and would actually be used in real life – like lego scaled to real life.

Plants

IKEA has a lot of plants – both plastic imitations and real ones. You can even find Alocasia, a specie endangered in the Philippines and other regions, for 9,99€. On our last visit, the kids bought a carnivore plant, and they have been tending to it since day one.

Pet Needs

Yes, IKEA has also incorporated pet needs among its products, with old products redesigned to fit our furbabies’  necessities. For example the Kallax shelves can incorporate the Kallax Cathouse…It even has a a cute cat-shaped hole for a door. Well, it’s a way to tell people that a cat lives there.

Other items as food bowls, pet beds, leash, cat carrier, and even under rugs to keep the home clean from litter sand and such are available.

Affordable

IKEA’s furniture and items are not just affordable, you can opt to pay on instalment. Compared to other furniture stores, the prices of IKEA’s products are better, quality-wise they’re more superior too. And yes, Scandinavian style could be simple, but it’s elegant too (except there’s weirdness blended in some)!

Fun Names to Pronounce

Being Swedish, IKEA’s names, and letters for its items are much different even from German. The kids and I would have fun reading them and also trying to use them in sentences, after figuring out words that would best sounds like – either in English, German, Filipino (Japanese is far from the words).

Funny, Curious, Weird Designs

Once, the ceiling lamp in the kids room was a really big cloud. It was fun to look at from a kid’s perspective (I am a kid at heart too).Through the years, IKEA designers have produced many other cloud-looking lamps. In photo is one of the latest. It’s fun and cute,but also weird in a way.

IKEA has an app that allows customers to design their own kitchen, bedroom, or office with their app planner. It’s fun, and sometimes people do make weird designs that would surely send you laughing.

More Than Just Meatballs

We love IKEA’s food. They have so many menus added through the years or changed, and we would try each and every one of them when we visit.

The breakfast offerings weren’t there when the kids were younger, so it was a surprise to them the first time we dined for breakfast.

Sometimes, there would be new cakes in their shelves which you won’t be able to find from outside stores. At one point, IKEA started offering fish by the gram, and I was happy because I’ve been on a lowcarb diet, and potatoes aren’t exactly what I need – which is their side dish for many of their meals.

Here’s a recipe for the meatballs we had often, but IKEA did give the recipe to Köttbular during lockdown, so that’s worth checking out. Although nowadays, the Köttbular is called by a different name, it’s still as yummy as what we know.

The best part about IKEA food is you can buy most of them from their food section to take home. From salmon to meatballs, Almondy cakes to Swedish chocolates, even ciders, and chips. Oh, it’s also a drink-all-you-can for 1€ (coffee and tea included) too.

Catalogue

IKEA’s catalogues are free. We never fail to get one every year, it’s so nice to look at the design ideas that many designers put effort into.You can even have your own photo printed on the cover at some of their branches!

Furniture For Years

We’ve had most of our furniture for 17 years now. ^_^ Yes, cabinets, shelves, shoe-banks, lamps, plates and utensils, and most of our stuff found in the kitchen are from IKEA. We simply love IKEA products. We (hubby and I assembled them) by ourselves.

Guarantee

Twenty-five years, that’s how long the guarantee for IKEA products are. Well, this would be for a lot of products, others have a 2-year statutory guarantee. You have 365 days to return unused product if you decide it’s not what you need. :O

Big Bags

Remember Balenciaga’s blue bag that went viral? Well, the IKEA sack bag really doesn’t look much different, it even has the exact same shade. There’s a lot you can put in that bag, that’s why you’ll find a number of them at our home (they’re foldable – very easy to store). If we need to go out and carry a lot of stuff, the IKEA blue bag can hold them all.

Like mentioned above, finding items at IKEA’s warehouse is another story, it’s like you’ve gone through a massive maze looking for a product, putting things you “might” need at home, and then search for those that you really need in another big maze. Which is another activity that the kids love IKEA for. We can’t wait to visit the eco-IKEA that is soon to open in Vienna. We’ll update you next time when we visit.