No Longer an IKEA Virgin

After the Treasures for Teachers drop off, we headed South down 48th Street, around South Mountain, to the Tempe IKEA just off I-10. Neither Dr. Desert Flower nor I had ever been to an IKEA before, and the curiosity was getting to us.

What a massive place! Herds of Idiocracy shuffling through it... lots of useful stuff for dorm rooms and small European domiciles. I was somewhat over-whelmed by the rat-mazed upstairs show room, but the downstairs we found quite useful for gadgets. All of it made in China.

The plumbing features were wholly unimpressive (kitchen, bath, et al). They were trying to look German, but had all the poor quality and ricketyness of the 50% failure rate of the "new" Beijing airport which I flew through 2 months after it opened back in 2001 - when 50% of the touchless sinks didn't work, about 30% of the lights didn't light or hummed at 50Hz, and the stall door hinges were cheesy at best. Walking through the IKEA and seeing ALL the "Made in China" tags was very reminiscent China trying to look good in their own capital city, but failing miserably. In the men's room, as a bright spot, they DID have Dyson Air Knives - those are awesome inventions.

This laundry iron holder (pictured above) was all of $7 (Made in China - supplied without wall mounting hardware, but I found 2 studs with an old neodymium magnet I have). We also got a new apple corer ($4) and a new anodized aluminum egg frying pan, with double riveted handle for $19 (Teflon was beginning to flake off the existing pan at home), all of Chinese origin. A "breakfast in bed"tray was surprisingly made in Thailand, for less than 1/2 a dozen dollars - so maybe next weekend that'll get used for the first time.

Lots of cheap stuff... we won't be sourcing our home's furniture there, but it is an interesting place to look at tons of gadgets and accouterments.