Why we broke up with IKEA

This year, Brian and I decided to celebrate our fifteenth anniversary with a trip to IKEA. We'd enjoyed the trip we made there for our tenth anniversary, and this time around we actually had a large item we wanted to look for: a sideboard for our downstairs room. For the past year or so, we've been setting up a little card table in that room every time we have guests over for games, so we can keep snacks and drinks ready to hand without cluttering up the game table. The little folding table served the purpose okay, but it didn't look great, so we figured we had two choices: try to build a nicer-looking piece of furniture to fit the space, or see if we could pick up something suitable for a reasonable price. And since IKEA was our go-to store for any furnishing needs, and since we'd both taken the day off from work for our anniversary, this seemed like a perfect occasion to go have a look. Even if we didn't find anything, we figured, we could at least enjoy a nice, inexpensive lunch at the restaurant.

Our trip got off to a promising start. After a bit of fooling around, exploring the model apartments and bouncing in the POÄNG chairs, we found a little kitchen cart called FÖRHÖJA that looked like it would fit just right in our space. The price was $110, which Brian considered a reasonable amount to pay to avoid the hassle of trying to build something himself. So we cheerfully jotted down a note about where to find it in the warehouse section, and headed off to the restaurant for lunch.

That was the point at which things started to go downhill. The first sign we noticed that something might be wrong was that, even though it was noon, the store had opened up only one of the two available lines at the lunch counter. At first we thought maybe that was just because it was a weekday, but as we drew nearer we noticed something more alarming: all the glass cases where the cold food is normally stored were empty. There were no salads, no sandwiches, no wraps, no fruit, and no desserts. They were serving hot entrees and nothing else. Instead of the marinated salmon and green salad I'd been looking forward to, I had to get the salmon meatballs, which turned out to be fairly tasteless, accompanied by mushy vegetables. Even the coffee was watery. They didn't even have real utensils to eat it with, only plastic forks and spoons. And when I got out my phone to try and figure out what was going on—a power outage that had caused all the fresh food to spoil, maybe?—I couldn't get the wi-fi to work.

This cast a bit of a pall over our anniversary outing, but I tried to cheer myself up with the thought that at least we'd found the piece we needed for our downstairs room. Until we headed downstairs to the warehouse, went to the bin where it was supposed to be—and found it empty. A quick check on the computer confirmed that this particular item was out of stock, expected to be back some time next week.

Well, after the disappointing experience we'd had on this trip, we weren't very enthusiastic about coming back again a week later. In fact, as we stood in line with the few items we'd found to purchase—a few chocolate bars, a couple of folding shopping bags, and a scratching mat to keep our kitties from clawing up the leg of the dining table—we were inclining toward the view that, really, there was no reason for us ever to come back to this IKEA again. It's a half-hour trip each way, it costs us nearly six bucks in tolls on a weekend, and the store itself keeps letting us down. They no longer carry my favorite coffee, their LED light bulbs are feebler and more expensive than the ones at Home Depot, and we can't even count on getting a good meal there anymore. There's nothing much to tempt us there anymore except lingonberries, and we can always swing by the Indianapolis store during our annual visit to my in-laws to stock up on those.

Fortunately, this story does have a happy ending. After our unsuccessful trip, Brian started working on a design for a DIY sideboard for the downstairs room, but he wasn't enthusiastic about it; considering the amount it would cost him in materials and the amount of time it would take to build, he kept wondering if it would be a better use of resources to just go back to IKEA and get the FÖRHÖJA. So I started wondering if there might be another alternative, and I decided to check the postings on our local Craigslist group. And that's where we found this baby.

This piece is better in almost every way than the one from IKEA. Its traditional style is more in keeping with the rest of the furniture in that room. It's got more usable storage space: two good-sized drawers and two cabinet sections, instead of two dinky drawers and a couple of open shelves that are only good for storing things you don't mind looking at all the time (and having to dust regularly). It was already assembled (but not too big to fit in the back of our hatchback). It was available for pickup a mere 15 minutes away, with no toll roads. And the cost was $40, instead of $110.

So, bottom line: After a long and eventful relationship, we're dumping IKEA for Craigslist. From now on, it's the first place we'll look when we need anything for our home, from a microwave to a blender to a decent used bicycle to replace a new one that's been stolen. Even in the unlikely event that we someday have to outfit an entire room from scratch, we'll do our best to find everything on Craigslist and only go out to IKEA as a last resort. It's clearly the more ecofrugal option, since buying secondhand on Craigslist is both cheaper and greener than buying new for nearly anything. And if we want to treat ourselves to a nice lunch after our shopping trip, we'll just stop by the local Dish Cafe.