IKEA…IT WAS AN ENJOYABLE EXPERIENCE

The rains came sometime in the night setting off a chorus of Frogs & Crickets. Pattering of rain on a roof always reminds me of camping & as I comfortably sat in my recliner by our open patio door at 5 a.m. this morning I let the rain, the Crickets, & the Frogs take me back to years gone by. It is the time of day when one's mind is not yet cluttered with day's activities. It is a quiet time of life's reflections. Later, despite the rain, we donned our hats & raincoats for our morning walk along the darkened pine forest trail.

OH PLEASE MOM & DAD, LET’S GO HOME….I DON’T LIKE GETTING WET:((
Not all stories have happy endings, but some fortunately do. If it's a an animal story & especially a dog story, that makes me a pretty happy guy. Check out how RV SUE was able to get the ball rolling in re-uniting a man & his lost dog somewhere out in the wilds of Colorado & Arizona:))

PHEEBS WAITS PATIENTLY FOR ME EACH NIGHT KNOWING AS SOON AS I’VE FINISHED MY POST I WILL SPIN MY CHAIR AROUND & GIVE HER A GREAT BIG SNUZZLE:))  AND YEP, THAT’S ONE OF OUR IKEA CHAIRS…………….

Kelly had been to an IKEA store before but & I had only heard of them. She convinced me that if we sold all the uncomfortable furniture in our Motorhome we could replace everything with better things from Ikea. And, so it happened. I took apart our dinette & unbolted both the couch & tub chair while boondocked in the desert. A day later we sold it all to 'The Gambler' in Quartzsite Arizona & a day after that, with only a couple small wooden chairs to sit on in the coach we headed for an RV Park in Casa Grande Arizona. Figured we would make this our home base for a few days while we slipped up to Tempe south of Phoenix to scout out an Ikea store for some furniture.

 

ALL THE MERCHANDISE YOU SEE IN THESE PHOTOS IS FOR SALE
Well, what a totally pleasant experience that Ikea store was once we got there. And getting there was an even better experience. The traffic on I-10 to the easily locatable Ikea store in Phoenix that morning was light & non threatening. Fortunately, the store is in the south end of Tempe & situated only about a block from the Interstate. We timed it to get there around 9 to take advantage of the in-store restaurant at Ikea. As we neared the store it reminded me of being on the grounds of large estate. Big palm trees, landscaping, & not at all like the usual ordinary run of the mill shopping mall. The super large yellow & blue store stood in the middle of it's own acreage. I had a good feeling right off because there were only a handful of cars in the huge parking lot & by the looks of the store this was not going to be just another ho-hum drag AL up & down isles of another boring big box store .

 

We entered a very clean & well organized lobby, followed the prominent arrows on the floor to the escalator & let our noses lead us to the well laid out & colorful restaurant. Store wasn't open yet but the restaurant was.  Yummy stuff:)) 

  

HAD OURSELVES A GREAT IKEA BREAKFAST BEFORE THE STORE, OVER TO THE RIGHT, OPENED 
Very, very, impressive to say the least. Breakfast is fast, & cafeteria style, & the prices were right out of the 1950's. As I ate my bacon, eggs, & pancakes I looked around at all the colors, designs, windows, & decors. The thought occurred to me, "finally, a store that knows how to market itself right!!"

  
No gouging here, no silly "sale" signs, no cheesy gimmicks, no glitz & glamor like some stores. Merchandise was not merely stacked on shelves row upon row. Homey settings were everywhere. Living rooms, kitchens, & bathrooms were all laid out. Chairs were there for sitting on & trying out. Flop on a bed in a cozy setting. Bounce those big yellow beach balls on the floor. The store was kind of laid out like a large castle with many rooms chalked full of colorful things & think that is what appealed to me. It was a store a kid would love. Finally, a retail store that actually put a child like grin on my face. And, they knew how to price things right too.  As we made our way around the store looking at a ka-zillion million things I was amazed at the sensibility of the price tags.  I think the retail industry should send their CEO's, sales staff, & managers here to see how a business can be run in a warm & aesthetically pleasing manner. The showrooms are beautiful & tastefully done. Colors, colors, colors. An interior decorator's place to be, & a photographer's dream. The whole store is like a piece of yummy eye candy. We easily spent a couple hours sitting in this, lying on that, & lifting things to check their weight, etc. I especially liked the kid's toy section with all it's really groovy & colorful unique Ikea toys. Kelly wouldn't let me stay & play though.

  

WE BOUGHT THE SAME TYPE OF FOLD UP BED & MATTRESS KELLY IS LYING ON
The way things are done at Ikea is different as well. As I recall, we filled out cards or something with item numbers we were interested in. We didn't have to carry things around or push a cart full of stuff. When we finished our shopping we hopped aboard an elevator & headed straight to the basement.

The warehouse basement area is huge & it is set up in such a way that you pick up your own stuff you had previously marked down on your card while up on the sales floor. I've worked in warehouses for Eaton's & Sears many years ago but this warehouse dwarfed them many times over. I've only been in a Costco once & there are some similarities with Ikea. Long wide aisles with merchandise stocked high on towering metal shelving. It was not just a shopping cart we walked around with either.  It was 2 larger wagon type carts. All aisles & merchandise items are clearly marked so with the numbers we had on our cards from the sales floor above we easily found everything we were looking for. We just kept piling things on our cart & moving along.

AISLES & AISLES OF REALLY NEAT-O GROOVY STUFF

 

Even the check-outs are different. You can scan your own stuff, which we tried, but gave up. Just a little too techno for us bumpkins from the north. And, when you leave the checkout, there is a bistro with 50 cent hot dogs, dollar cinnamon buns, etc. And the 25 cent coffee is great. Even outside, they have people there to help you load the merchandise in your car. And, it was quite a load we packed into our little Santa Fe at the time too. And everybody at Ikea was not only helpful, but friendly too. Even the young kid who helped us pack our car:))  I think a lot of retail business’s would do well to take a few lessons from Ikea on how to display merchandise, how to treat people, keep prices down and how to make yummy cinnamon rolls:))

 

KER-POOPED

My memory is a little hazy now but I think we sold our rig's furniture for around $450 & our Ikea stuff came to slightly less than that. Couldn't believe we came out ahead of the game for a change & ended up with so much stuff. It was good day & I will always remember our one & only Ikea experience.  We began assembling things as soon as we returned to the rig in Casa Grande & the following day I began painting our interior walls.  Kelly had to drive all the way back to Ikea in Tempe to pick up the bed mattress that had been out of stock the previous day.  Despite what seemed like a lot of stress at the time, we look back on it all now as a fun experience:))

 

 

2 POANG CHAIRS, TWO WOOD TABLES, 2 GREEN PILLOWS, 1 HASSOCK, 1 COMPUTER CHAIR, ONE FOLD UP BED WITH MATTRESS & CHAIR COVER PLUS A LITTLE PAINT LATER…………….:))

GROANER'S CORNER:))

 

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