We moved house (again, again) towards the end of last year and we’ve been in need of a wardrobe in our bedroom. So far we’ve managed with some cheapo clothes rails from Argos, but as one of those collapsed during the middle of the night recently we’ve decided to push on with a purchase.
We’d looked all over the place for decent, cheap wardrobes, trying our hardest not to buy one from our local Swedish furniture seller. It’s not that we don’t like Ikea stuff – we do – but it’s good to shop around and see what else is about. However, we tried everywhere and couldn’t find anything that suited our needs that came anywhere near as cheap as Ikea.
OK, I’m going to have to build this myself, but I’ve had a lot of practice with Ikea furniture in the past and you can’t know savings of several hundred pounds compared to the competition.
We’ve gone for a Pax Lomen combination with shiny white doors. They look nice and have a lot of internal features for storage. We’d printed off a list from after using their useful wardrobe planning tool and I headed off to Ikea to buy it.
The wardrobe is 236cm tall and wouldn’t fit into our car (or, really, anyone’s car) so we decided to have it delivered. I thought that the purchase would go like this:
Arrive at Ikea. Struggle to find anywhere to park. Get annoyed at multiple pedestrians wandering all over the place getting in my way. Eventually find a parking space, park and wander aimlessly in front of car drivers trying to find that elusive parking space. Enter Ikea. Find that the Wardrobe department is at the furthest part of the store. Try and get there in good time but become immensely frustrated by lots of people walking very, very slowly. Arrive, eventually, at the wardrobe department. A nice lady, or gentleman, will order all the parts for me on their little computer. They will arrange delivery and I will pay. The Ikea Pixies will then find all the bits required for my purchase and load them onto a van. They will arrive the next day. I will eat meatballs.
Sadly, there are no Ikea Pixies. Clearly I failed to anticipate the low-cost nature of my wardrobe purchase. Ikea can keep their prices low by not employing pixies to carry out these little jobs for you. You have to do it yourself.
So, once I spoke to the nice Ikea lady (she was very helpful) she handed me a sheet of paper with all the aisle details and instructions for my next steps. I could not call on the pixies – there are none in Ikea. I had to collect a trolley and find all the bits on my own.
I don’t know why I didn’t think that I’d have to do this. I’m an idiot.
I found all my parts. The Pax wardrobe section boxes weighed 65kgs each. 65kgs! That’s over ten stones in weight – nearly as much as me! There were two of those boxes, along with four doors and multiple other bits.
I hurt my finger.
I somehow managed to manhandle the trolley around to the tills to pay before heading to the delivery desk, where another nice lady took my details and £30 payment for the delivery. They come tomorrow, which I think is pretty good service.
I would have preferred Ikea Pixies. But there were none.
Old Posh To Mosh 