A Swedish Shopping Day!

Absolutely fabulous day!  Today was our IKEA trek!  And that's exactly what you had better be prepared for...a trek.  Lace up some Nikes before you embark on it and you'll be fine, though.  My friend and I only had to travel a few miles from my house...IKEA, the new mega store from Sweden, is dangerously close to me...and as we crested the hill, the big blue shopping day awaited us.

Because I had been lost in this place on my last visit, we decided to grab a map...

Oh that looks easy enough, but they don't give you a legend.  Each dot stands for a city block!  Not really, but believe me, it's miles of shopping heaven.  As you enter you can get a cart that looks similar to a Home Depot pallet mover on a slightly smaller scale.  They also have big yellow shopping bags, but the idea is to write down the item number of the big stuff for the warehouse area at the end, and load it right before check out.  There are also many smaller items that you can collect as you go, though.  


As you first walk in, there are little showrooms featuring living rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, dining rooms.  For $6000, you can have this kitchen:

Like I said, you just take the number to the warehouse and pick up everything in BIG, FLAT boxes.  Serious assembly required.


You follow the gray, cement road...following arrows painted on the floors.  Heaven forbid you backtrack!  Actually, the arrows and the signage are very good.  If you can read, you can do IKEA.

The two sections that impressed me the most were the kitchen and the lighting areas.  I fell in LOVE with a butcher block kitchen cart that would fit purrrfect in a nook of my ever-evolving kitchen. 

This is a beautiful, heavy, solid wood island that I cherished, also.  If I had the room, this would be my favorite!

Try making that for $199!  I'd spend that in ibuprofen and Aspercreme alone!


I think we spent the most time in the Lights.  Here are just some of the creative lamps, pendant lights and chandeliers we saw:

The lights pictured above baffled us.  There is a dial on them to gradually change their colors from green, to blue, to red then white.  HOW would you use these?  Are these the 21st century "stobe" lights?  Then to the right of these are some flat screen TVs, and positioned behind them are more of these lights!  Ohhhhhh, THAT explains them!  You light up the back of your flat screen!!!!  What? 


OK....on to things I understand.  Nine dollar lamps that sit by your bed to light up a book!

Before you get to the end of your trek, the cafeteria aromas begin to attract you.  The food is a superior value!  If you get to IKEA before 11, breakfast of eggs, bacon and coffee is free!  Wish we had know THAT!  By this time it was way after our lunchtime!  Each day presents a "special" ranging from 99 cents to $2.99.  In Denver, this usually buys you bottled water :}  We opted for a veggie wrap, chips and a drink, however, and it was $5.  We tried Lingonberry for our beverage.  I guess there are alot of Lingons in Sweden because it was right up there alongside the Pepsi and Tea!  It was very good!


So, because my crockpot chili was probably properly cooked and my friend needed to get to her side of town before the rush hour - oh and did I mention we were dog tired?...we opted to call it a day. Do you believe we got out of there for a $5 meal and that's IT?  Oh, but the ideas I have!  Like that kitchen cart....I can hear it softly calling "lynda....lynda...."