Ikea

An open letter to Ikea: -
First of all, I have to admit that I do - on balance - like you. You are cheap but not as tatty as MFI used to be. I like the air of calm Sweedish-ness and I really like the meatballs in the cafeteria. I like all your ingenious storage ideas and believe me I am tempted by one of those massive bookshelf thingies that take up an entire wall. I'd have enough room to store probably 1/3 of my CD collection and a fair number of my books, not to mention a lot of my kick-knacks. To be fair, to store all of my CDs, DVDs and books I'd need units like that covering every wall in my house and then another house to store the computer games, but now I'm getting carried away. Most of my CD collection is still in boxes in the garage and I'll probably toss most of them when we move house. Does anyone want some 90's and 2000's indie slash rock music that wasn't really very popular at the time and is now on an out-dated format? I think I've got a Travis record in there somewhere and possibly still some Supergrass. I can remember really liking the records at the time but now I probably couldn't name a single track on them. Oh well, I suspect the local charity shop is going to end up with a large stack of unwanted music.
Back to the subject I started with, my trip to Ikea.
I like the fact the furniture is cheap, but actually quite good quality. I like the way everything has funny names. I saw a lamp-shade called "Stig". Alas it was not white, had nothing to do with cars and it did not know two incorrect facts about ducks. Pity.
There are some things I think need a little work. It's tough getting a buggy round Ikea, the designated path they make you follow has slightly raised edges and my buggy wheels kept sticking on it. I didn't want to shove down the middle as others needed room too, but I did keep getting stuck on the edge.
Also, why have you not got round to building one in my town? We keep getting told it might happen, but it never does and this means that every time I want to go and look at cheap stylish furniture it's over an hours drive, hardly a quick trip for a bit of a browse. Please get on with it and build your store, I believe there are some buildings free near the Savacentre, opposite Dunelm Mill.
Finally, why do the instructions in your flat-pack furniture make the job look a lot harder than it actually is? Our table instructions looked remarkably similar to the manual that came with the Lego Imperial Star Destroyer (biggest Lego kit you could get, many many little pieces and finished it was about a metre long) and implied a level of knowledge and skill only seen at degree level mechanics. Actually it was quite easy, I managed to attach the legs myself and I'm not a very mechanical person at all. It's a nice table, it looks good in my room.
And so, I am signing off. I suspect it will be some time before I visit you again although I might peruse your website and sigh at all your nice things. Andy can sleep easy for now, I wont be making our house look like a set from Wallander any time soon.