I'm going to start this by saying I don't agree with the Lancashire Hot Pots on this one and I neither fear IKEA nor dislike it, in fact, I love it. I know that not everyone likes them, I know some people see them as just a cheap furniture pusher and I'm sure that some people are devastated that the entire MALM range is going to be going soon, even though they already axed the best colour (one of the previous oaks that was a textured veneer and just generally beautiful) partly because it's been around for 24 years (I'm not sad enough to know that without looking it up - it was on the wall of IKEA when we were there last) and it's hard enough when an entire brand goes pop and you can't get it anymore, let alone when a business makes a decision to move on from something that has been a staple for that long.
I've been irritated with them before, because they do something like make the best plant goujons you've ever tasted and then discontinue them, or make the plant balls a bit too meaty so I have a half panic until Paul reassures me that they are the plant ones, he checked and he watched them make my food (he's a good egg), and when the Warrington one decided to slim down their menu for some reason and they weren't sharing that reason because it was after they finished the kitchen refurb and they dropped the rice bowl, it boiled my piss, but the recent salve to that has been a return of the rice bowl and another deal for super cheap food.
I've also seen some amazing things in IKEA like nursing groups in the cafe, they've done a pub* quiz and all those sorts of things that make it more like a community hub than a shop and I love that, and I love the feeding area for babies that I've used as a pumping area more than once. There's a lot that I like about IKEA, even if the Tetris game of getting things into a small car is both laughable and infuriating, the names are a dyslexic person (me)'s worst nightmare and there needs to be a lane for dawdlers because I just want to push them onto the nearest sofa so that they are out of my way. (I wouldn't but the thought crosses my mind on a more than semi regular basis...) I feel similar in the Trafford Centre, but there's less soft landings for people there.
So what is my latest IKEA related gripe? I like the new blue Billy bookcase. In fact, I love it. I love the green Kallax, too. I love the wonky nature of the shelves being different widths and things, but you can only have it in green and the green one is only in wonky. The blue Billy? No height extension, no drawer for the bottom, no doors at all... and let's face it, colour matching is hard to impossible, and because of the nature of what IKEA is, it's not going to look the same if you vinyl wrap or paint your own at home, so it's cool and it's "highly customisable" but not highly enough really. If you want a desk on a Billy, it has to be a white one, if you want the drawer, it has to be a white one, if you have non-standard ceilings... options are vastly reduced. I know, I know, it's mass produced and it's cheap and it's not meant to be custom furniture and you'd pay a lot more for something that is, but just imagine being able to use it like a pick 'n' mix, even if only on the website, and going here's the materials, here's the styles or patterns or whatever you want to call it, and then being able to get multiple height extensions for the Billy bookcases if you have high ceilings, because as long as it's mounted to the wall, the engineering of one versus two shouldn't be complicated at all. I'd love to be able to get blue ones with a drawer at the bottom for little man's toys, a couple of opaque doors at the top and glass doors down the middle to mean that my books get less dusty when they're sat on their shelves, but there are no blue doors and there's no drawer in the brown walnut that I also think would look quite nice.
We had talked about getting a carpenter in and getting something done in the front room and I think what we would be looking for would be very similar to what I've described above, but as I say, it would be more expensive, and we can't do expensive until after the wedding, because until then, well, we have a wedding to pay for, and weddings don't come cheap either!
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