I love IKEA and I don't care what pop culture says
Before this past Sunday I have never been to an IKEA. Neither has my wife. We have both seen their website at www.ikea.com. Since we are buying a house and will need lots of stuff to fix it up, we are looking for a mixture of style and low cost. This is what attracted us to IKEA. I don't know about everyone else but there are two things that I have always heard about IKEA from pop culture: 1. You have to put everything together by yourself, which means 2. It's all a bunch of laminated particle board stuff that doesn't hold up well I'm glad that I stopped believing that. We had nothing else to do on Sunday so we took a drive down there. The closest IKEA is in Baltimore (about 1.5 hours away). I have found that you don't just shop for products, you experience the products. We walked around for a few hours and didn't buy anything. We were just pricing out some stuff. We did stop for Swedish Meatballs at the well-placed restaurant in the middle of the store. What we found is that a lot of the stuff is made of laminates and veneers . . . good quality laminates and veneers. We were mainly looking at kitchen cabinets and even the cheap ones would be great if you're on a tight budget. We picked out a style that is somewhere between the cheap basic ones and the high-priced fancy ones. We will be completely gutting the kitchen of our new house and installing all new cabinets, counter tops and appliances. IKEA is definitely the way to go since we are working with a budget. Curious about our house? That's a separate blog located at fixingupourhouse.wordpress.com. -derekmartin81
