I visited IKEA to pick up things for my husband’s trip to the India pied a terre next week. With IKEA’s contemporary aesthetic, penny-pinching ways (even the A/C was on low you could feel the need to crank it up) but quality value for the money, and DIY delivery, why are there no blue and yellow buildings all over India yet?
Perhaps there’d be too many big cardboard boxes sticking out of rickshaws, with many of them heavy enough to tip over rickshaws! As I sit in our home office lined with six of IKEA’s iconic Billy shelves all with glass doors … I could only imagine how to get them home in Chennai … no, I can’t at all imagine how to do it.
But there may be opportunity to try soon enough. IKEA wants to go to India.
For our Chicago home, we outgrew the IKEA phase and moved on to investment pieces that last a lifetime. We’ve moved our beloved no-longer-available black-and-birch 5×5 Expedit three times across homes in three states, and I fear it wouldn’t survive a fourth move. But IKEA products are a great value for a second home in Chennai that we visit occasionally.
IKEA is legendary for its cost-effective but quality kitchens. Now that’s value. Many IKEA choices deliver the contemporary feel that it seems so many in India want in new modular kitchens.
Kitchen shared by a poster in online forum discussing IKEA kitchens:
From IKEA Kitchen Installation:
IKEA kitchens are very economical with space. IKEA’s roots are in Europe, not the U.S. where our mentality is “bigger is better.” IKEA designs very well for small spaces. They have a ton of kitchen accessories that help you squeeze more into a smaller kitchen. Of course if you have the space, you can just have more IKEA kitchen stuff, it expands to fill whatever space you have. Materials are also manufactured to certain environmental standards, which I appreciate.
Our Chennai kitchen will be more like a Chennai Cucina — Tuscan country style — but IKEA will be present in the kitchen, that’s for sure, even if it’s via a wooden lazy Susan rotating our wares in a cupboard, glass spice jars, or the flatware organizer in a drawer. Yep those are among the basic necessities — all small enough to fit in suitcases — that I picked up today. Despite all the eye candy I’ve consumed in this blog, basic boring lazy Susans have their place too!
I can’t believe ikea wants to come to india! All this globalization is so crazy–like a swedish furniture store starting in south asia? I really hope they make it there though, I think they’d do really well.
I have been following Ikea’s attempts to come to India. Getting the government to relax their policies has taken some time, but recent news has indicated that a change of heart might be on the cards. I think it is a marvellous idea and I can’t wait for them to set up shop. I think they’d do really well too. We have some great craftsmen (and carpenters) here, but getting uniformly good furniture can be extremely unpredictable and infuriatingly expensive. Even simple things like standardised picture frames or ready-to-install bookcases are hard to source and I would really, really welcome Ikea’s products here. Govt, are you listening? :)
I can only imagine the scene at Ikea whenever they do get their first store there!
hi Deb , your’s is a very interesting blog…and I do visit often, I so very agree with your idea, we must have Ikea in India…that would make home solutions so simple and beautiful ….
Well IKEA may come to India now, truly:
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/11/24/world/asia/india-supermarkets/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
Although I didn’t think far enough ahead to know it would also open the door to Wal-Mart! Oh no …
I remember one of my first trips to ikea, as a teeganer, and I completely painted my little table to match by bedroom. I loved it! That\’s what\’s so great about Ikea….you can make whatever you buy, your own look.
That’s true! Check out ikeahackers.com — there’s so many people changing Ikea things in really creative ways!