I kea, you kea, we all kea for Ikea

Raise your hand if you have something from Ikea in your house.

We do: this kitchen cart holds our microwave and all our small appliances; this set of shelves stores our vases, platters and other serving pieces, and our smaller pans; our dining set consists of one of these chairs, two of these chairs and this table. This watering can collects the faucet runoff in our bathroom. I drilled holes in the bottom of these 6" pots, and now they hold houseplants in the living room. We store our Wii controllers in this, and I line four of these up on the hall mirror and fill them with flowers nearly every week.

Like Elvis, Ikea is everywhere. And like Elvis, it will be popping up in ever-widening circles across the U.S. The WSJ reported yesterday that "Ikea Sees Opportunity in Slump." Of interest:

Sometimes derided as selling cheap, hard-to-assemble furniture, Ikea has placed more of an emphasis in its newer stores on offering design assistance for kitchen makeovers and on beefing up the quality of its home assembly and delivery services, according to [Ikea spokesman Joseph] Roth.

Its new stores have helped it gain market share. Ikea jumped to No. 5 from 7 on the 2008 list of top 25 U.S. furniture and bedding retailers by U.S. sales published by trade magazine Furniture Today.

With a couple more stores, though, Ikea could pass both Wal-Mart Stores Inc., No. 2 in the rankings, and industry leader Ashley Furniture, according to the magazine. Sales at about 33 U.S. stores and its e-commerce site generated $3.16 billion in 2008, according to the company. That means each Ikea store in the U.S. represents more than $90 million in annual sales.

The quality of Ikea's kitchen cabinet frames and butcher block countertops has been an open secret on design blogs for a few years (sample post here). I am not at all surprised that it's getting more attention now.

In my opinion, a reason Ikea's so popular:

simplicity of the designs + low prices = consumer who is comfortable personalizing their purchase.

Just look at this roundup of all the ways people have modified their Ikea buys. (I love the idea of putting a Lack bookcase or Expedit bookcase on wheels. Hello, spot below upstairs window!) The low risk/high return potential of an Ikea purchase may make it very appealing to a lot of people.

Now if they just had an allen wrench return program ...

ETA: The Harvard Business Review ran a piece as part of their roundup of 20 ideas for 2009, "The Ikea Effect: When Labor Leads to Love." Their theory on the Swedish giant's magic: "When people construct products themselves, from bookshelves to Build-a-Bears, they come to overvalue their (often poorly made) creations." This ties into the whole hands-on sense of ownership and modification I nattered on about.

Comments

[Stephanie]

I like to check out the Ikea Hacker blog every once in a while too. http://ikeahacker.blogspot.com/

I'm with you on the allen wrench thing. I probably have about 10 of them sitting around my house.

[Lisa Schmeiser]

I love Ikea Hacker.

Apartment Therapy has the big love for Ikea too. Have you seen their roundup of things to do with Lack shelves? (http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/chicago/shelving-storage/12-uses-for-ikeas-lack-shelves-037156) And I could swear this is an Expedit bookcase here (http://gallery.apartmenttherapy.com/photo/021309hannac/08hannac).

[Mary-Lynn]

In putting together my newest Ikea purchase this weekend I acquired a completely new allen wrench! A very big one - a size I'd never seen before. I was sort of unduly impressed by it. But as much as we make fun of them with the allen wrenches, they do now mostly also require additional tools of your own. My cabinet needed two different allen wrenches (they supplied them) plus two screwdriver heads and a hammer, which I had to supply. Perhaps the argument could be made that this means a better quality of furniture - it had lots of different screw types and locking screws and fancy screws.

[drunken monkey]

I have plenty of Ikea, and I have no problem with that. A whole bunch of our little house stuff is from there, like the hamper and the bath mat. I have two of their kitchen trolleys. Our couch is Ikea. Our desk and desk chair are Ikea. It's basic stuff that you can personalize either by customizing it or by adding accessories and more personal pieces. And as far as furniture goes, it's well-priced.

I am very good at putting Ikea furniture together, actually, because I'm good at following instructions. (My fiance, who likes to pick up two random pieces and start from there, is no longer allowed to assemble the Ikea furniture.) But those Expedit shelves...I like them, but wow. What a pain. My friend got a 4x4 one, and I almost gave up.

[amanda]

I really marvel at Ikea. They are the democratizing force in modern furniture design. They make things that look good and are crafted well but within the limitations of flat pack, home assembly. I love Ikea hacker! It just goes to show that Ikea's stuff has "good bones."

[Jacquie F]

We are consistently impressed with Ikea's kitchens--especially the hardware. They use Blum hinges and drawer glides. These are top-of-the-line features for a fraction of the price. The hardware used in the slide-out pantry and cabinet shelves are also very high quality. We're building a kitchen and have hacked several Ikea cabinet carcasses for the hardware. Purchasing an entire cabinet is actually less than purchasing the hardware they use separately.

Their bathroom plumbing fixtures are high quality solid brass for less than $100.

My only complaint about Ikea are the relatively unhelpful workers. I never can find anyone to answer my questions, and most of them don't know much about kitchen/bathroom basics. Also, I really hate having to got to the will-call window for some of my purchases. You don't even get to look at them prior to purchase. I'm willing to put up with the ambivalence for 1/4-prices Blum fixtures, though.

[alicat]

Thank you, thank you, for linking to that butcher block countertop. The boy and I want to build a sort of island/freestanding counter for an unused wall in our kitchen, and that is just the ticket for the top of it! Now, to find/build a frame for the bottom...

[Jane]

Only one thing - a clock - classic Scandinavian design, birch casing, simple and clean. It's probably 20 years old.