Ikea...really?

We're trying to get the house in order to fit a kid in. Everyone says that we really don't need much room for a baby but if we're going to do this, we may as well do this right. So hubby and I decided to start furniture shopping for a sideboard to put under the kitchen bench to increase our storage capacity.

And the first place that we decided to go to was Ikea.

Now, we've never ever bought Ikea furniture. We've got 3 pieces of Ikea furniture in the house, all hand me downs from friends. 2 low white tables and a pink reclining chair and they're all doing what they need to do. So we figure how hard can it be to get a sideboard, right? Plus we have some history with Ikea furniture so we should be alright in finding something, right?

Wrong! The stuff from Ikea is so bleah (for want of a better word...although, that's not really a word!) - its ordinary, flat packed, generic...and comes in the very basic of colours. Now we were hoping for something in a warm maple sort of wood but there was only particleboard stuff in white, birch, beech or dark brown.

Nothing wrong with the colours except that it would match nothing in the kitchen area! Plus all the sideboards more or less look the same. Sure you can customise it with various door designs etc but how much more do I need to pay for a door and a handle? And then there was the issue of having very few staff members on the floor to help with each area specialising in their own thing ("Sorry sir, I'm with the kitchen department. You're going to have to go back to that area...what? There was no one there? Well, they also look after the living room area so try there".) So frustrating!

So 2 hours later, we end up at the Ikea food market looking at their chocolate and cinnamon rolls and end up getting food from a furniture shop. Not a single piece of furniture, not even any of their knick knacks...a pack of chocolate, a pack of nougat and some cinnamon rolls. Which actually turned out to be pretty yummm...

Funny, huh?