There are few truly remarkable things about me, but if I were to drop dead tomorrow I hope that someone will remember how much I love IKEA.

Actually, that sounded a lot better in my head; hopefully I don't drop dead tomorrow, that would be unfortunate. And hopefully if I were to drop dead tomorrow someone would be able to dredge up something a little more interesting for my eulogy.


My IKEA wishlist by e_p

I feel a peculiar gravitation to IKEA, I've been to 6 in three different countries. I'm not proud to admit that, it sounds a bit nerdly. The first question I learned in Swedish was, "ursäkta, jag ha en fråga til deg... hur många IKEA fins de i Sverige?" There are 16 IKEAs in Sweden. Just in case you were wondering.

We can only imagine how many allan-keys there are.

I remember being really surprised when my Swedish friends told me last year that buying IKEA furniture was not really something to be excited about. It's the cheap nasty stuff you buy when you can't really afford the real Scandinavian designer gear (see previous post re. The Egg Chair..). My feelings are that IKEA is wonderful as long as you are able to maintain your personal sense of style, and incorporate it, rather than buy the entire room from the catalogue.

It wasn't until I got to Sweden that I understood that people in Scandinavia go there to stock up on random household items, like napkins, candles and cheap meatballs, not pseudo-designer furniture that, to this day, is missing a screw or doesn't quite fit together properly. And it was in the Swedish winter that I realised it really is possible to use up an entire 100 pack of those tea-light candles..

While I like all the things in the above collage, I only own 1...can you guess which?