The hidden cost of cheap furniture.

My last issue as Editor of Simply You Living included a feature story on the question of designer knock-off furniture - to do or not to do. We extolled the virtue of buying the classics rather than succumbing to the cheaper fake copies cluttering the market.

While we haven't knowingly bought any copies, we have (over the past two weeks) make two trips down to our nearest Ikea store in Chicago and added considerably to the national surplus in Sweden by throwing a bunch of money their way in return for a whole stack of flat packed boxes...The trips weren't without consequence!(check out the snow-plough created snow "mountain" in the Ikea carpark!)

The first time we had set ourselves a budget of $1500 (otherwise I was likely to go ballistic!) and were hoping to get some of the basics...We started shopping and checked in with one of the staff to see if we could get things delivered to Milwaukee. All good, they said – it was going to cost about $280 but we figured it was worth it....

Five hours later (it took me nearly an hour as a I anguished over couch v. sofa bed v. single cool looking sofa bed v. an uglier queen sofa bed), after we lugged the boxes off the shelves, realised they were out of stock of some of the pieces we needed, queued for the checkout, rushed to wrap the delicate bits on the conveyor checkout as the people behind us had their pieces heading our way, then queued for other pieces; we were standing at the exit with three loaded trolleys of flat packed boxes and a few other “essentials”!...Robbie deserved a medal for patience. That man is an angel...

We checked out, pushed our three trolleys to the Home Delivery counter only to have them tell us it was a base charge of $260 + .40c per pound (we were looking at 1000lb!) - AND it was going to be 3-4 weeks delivery....By now we WERE OVER IT! As some of you may know customer service in the US is usually amazing but there was only so far Ikea were going to go being a warehouse-style store...the best option they offered was $300 delivery (but it was still going to take three-four weeks delivery) or they’d store our goods for 24 hours and I could go back and get the rest.

We loaded up the Land Rover for the drive home, and the next morning I rented a cargo van for $50 and drove back to get the rest (...which of course included another 1 1/2 hour shopping for bits we’d forgotten!). Our uber-patient landlord and two of his workers who are still working on the downstairs apartment then helped me lug it all up into the attic (I arrived at the house with brownies as a peace offering!).

We moved in a few days later - and Robbie spent the first day on the end of a allen key while I played chief box opener and folder of cardboard (and cushion stuffer).


All in all we spent about $2250 but have completely furnished our bedroom with a bed, three sets of drawers, two mirrors, a sofa couch (which will end up in the spare room eventually), lights, cushions, tv cabinet, two groovy chairs and an ottoman, two side tables, crockery, glassware, full size rug + a few other bits and pieces...

We headed back again this past Saturday for Round 2. We were counting on two hours instore plus another three hour round trip. We should have known better.

Seven hours later (that's four hours instore!) we have desks for two plus chairs, filing drawers, a coffee table, more lights, a kitchen workbench/table, and more fillers for the kitchen cupboards. All up we've pretty much furnished a house for under $5000 (not including our uber-expensive Tempurpedic mattress that we splurged on; we're now coming to terms with "memory foam"!) but if you added up our combined hourly rate that we would charge out on an average day I think we could probably have afforded an Eames Lounger!

Still, the great thing about Ikea for us is that it perfectly suits our current budget, lifestyle, and unknown future living plans. Who knows where we'll be in two years, but by then we could probably either replace it, leave it, take it with us, or sell it to the students who live in the neigbourhood. Robbie's telling everyone I need to get a job quick otherwise we'll need a 40ft container.

P.S Have found the best (and only!) decent furniture designstore in town - Design Within Reach - www.dwr.com - which sells pieces from the Hermann Miller and Knoll collections, amongst others. Found out they have a twice yearly Hermann Miller sale...upon securing a job in the New Year I will be splurging on a coveted Eames Molded Plywood Chair, just to keep the Swedes in line...!