Ikea, my screws just lost their threads
Preface: This is a rant, beware. DIY fanatics, stay away.
I have always dreamt of having an IKEA store in my hometown (there isn’t one, by the way). I have often picked-up used and dated Ikea magazines from bookstores (yes, they sell, for inspiration, I suppose). My first time shopping in an Ikea store (in Malaysia) was a dream come true.
This is for everyone, who think DIY1 is cool. When you put a couple of screws in a wooden board, make your chair roll over the floor, it’s cool. It’s one thing to build a couple of things yourself, but entirely another when it comes to setting the furniture for an entire house.
It came as a rude shock when we actually received our first shopping consignment. Because, it was then that we realized the amount of stuff, we had to put together, to make a livable home. And this was just half the stuff. There were many items unavailable—some of them still are—with the most notable being the sofa; my daughter’s desk; and a couple of matching dining chairs.
Ikea’s (transport/delivery) service makes me go hmm. We blew €95 for the first shipment, which weighed about a ton. This price is applicable only if it is a ground-floor delivery. (I really like this one.) Add 30% of that cost to every higher floor you want the delivery at. Anyone familiar with Dutch homes will know that this bit of news comes like a well-seasoned hard dried brick aimed right at your skull.
We took our delivery at ground-floor, obviously. We then, dismantled large components into manageable ones before we could haul them up our narrow spiral wooden staircase. Imagine ants at work—carrying one piece at a time.
That day, Sneha and I spent an entire back-breaking evening setting-up our kids’ bunker bed, in a cycle of couple of do-loops and a couple of if-else, break routines.
I quickly realized that this activity was not worth enjoying, and decided to get help. A senior colleague of mine recommended a local help and offered his contacts. At €14 euros an hour, the man went on to fix most of our stuff in about a week’s time, 3 hours a day on an average. You can add up the economics, if you like. And believe me, this is a steal-deal, locals would say.
Today, we ordered our consignment number two2. It would be delivered sometime in the middle of next week. That’s when we will start shedding either fresh drops of sweat or those green bills. Tough choice.
I am happy that there is no IKEA store in my home country. Our local ‘Ramlal’ would happily build anything, that we come up with, as a design.
- We were forced to go this road simply because Ikea is the place where you get the stuff you want quickest. If you have lived long enough in Holland, you’ll know that a typical furniture order takes at least 3-months for delivery. We didn’t want to sit / sleep on a cheap rug until that happened. The downside, however, was the DIY that came with it. [←]
- After another round of 7-hours shopping, my daughter is sick of it. [←]
I understand your pain as I went through a similar experience assembling a simple pair of bar stools. We recently furnished our new apartment But thankfully, the assembly this time around was much easier although the items were bigger. But we couldn’t buy stuff that wouldn’t fit in our car (so no IKEA sofa) coz the delivery or transportation charges were, as you noticed, exorbitant.
Jan 27, 07 at 23:58Ikea’s consistency in prescribing and supporting connections via bolts, screws and generally, metal connections really helps. There’s no glue usage prescribed, in any of the products. Unlike in India where, local carpentars / furniture stores use glue. This modular way is a genuine advantage. Still, assembling a home yourself is a bit too much for a fun DIY.
Jan 29, 07 at 17:23