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We have all been to IKEA. We have all been broke but needed a table to eat our ramen noodles on or a futon to furnish our new apartment with. Out of a sense of duty to our wallets, we breakdown and drag ourselves to IKEA. We know going in that this stuff cant possibly be credible against our sophisticated design education. We go anyways. You park in the big parking lot. You grab the over-sized bag and worthless paper measuring tape. Take a long deep breath and walk into the showroom. Then, while you are walking around the huge showroom, comes the moment you actually start to admit to yourself that, indeed, you do rather fancy this fantastic Finnish Swedish furniture forum!

This is the IKEA effect. A phenomena whereby the educated aesthete convinces himself, if only temporarily, that IKEA has figured it all out and has solved the problem of enlightened design at a bargain price (to be honest, this notion is really not far off and this is why IKEA has become such a successful business model worldwide). Nevertheless, we get hooked and, generally speaking, scurry along the Costco-esque warehouse floor like kids around the Christmas tree to find our goodies. We load up the car with the flat boxes of ready to assemble oh-so-chic furniture. When we get home, we put everything together using our poor excuses for tool boxes and, voila, instant design!  

For illustrative purposes, these are the items I bought on my first trip to IKEA. Actually my girlfriend footed the bill…I was broke.

Now that I look at back, it is kind of sobering knowing we spent over $150 dollars on this stuff. The red cabinet is the lone survivor three years later.

We convince ourselves that we have in-fact bought into the Northern European inspired style that we came to love in school. In my experience, it took me a full six months to fully realize that my new furniture was really only worth the discounted price I paid for it, at most. There is a reason why some things are more expensive than others…even if we think they look the same at first. We sit on what a real high-end modern couch is and, guess what, we can’t feel the support bar digging into our ass. We sit at a very simple but elegant table and we don’t feel the legs wobble under the weight of our bagel.

The comparison that I speak of is between a functional discount piece of furniture and a substantial piece of artisan craftsmanship. It is one between a Formica/MDF composition tabletop and one of solid wood, stone or resin.

IKEA is a necessary brand and it has its place in households throughout the world. After all, we cant be expected to shell out hundreds of dollars for trays, lighting and accessories like most trendy magazines would have you think. Everyone will more than likely have a little IKEA in there crib, just don’t go to IKEA thinking you are getting a work of art that will be the focal centerpiece of your decor.