20 Friday May 2016
So the IKEA Tale of Woe wasn’t all bad, because I did end up getting this sofa-bed thingy for upstairs, which I’ve been wanting to do since January. And it looks much nicer than before, especially since Peter is now sleeping upstairs (his former room downstairs is now a much needed utility room). So by day it doesn’t look so much like a bedroom upstairs, and he can also use it as an office (there’s a table out of shot, under a window to the right). Morcilla likes it too!
19 Thursday May 2016
Posted in home, retail therapy, sevilla, shopping, spain
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For years I’ve had a love-hate relationship with IKEA, but no more. We’re going for the full-on HATE-HATE from now on. Yesterday I spent FOUR FUCKING HOURS in IKEA, deciding on some new purchases (easy part) and later figuring out where to find them (not so easy), then finding someone to help me lift the flat packs, then losing another half hour of my life waiting to arrange delivery and installation. Yes, that’s right. After my last IKEA FROM HELL experience, which ended up in IKEA HYSTERIA and a RETURN OF IKEA to fix the mess, I decided to be grown-up about it this time and just pay for everything to be put together for me. Big sigh! But hey, it would be worth it, right?
Well, no. First of all, it costs 39€ to have something assembled up to 150€. My new bed frame cost 169€ which meant it would then cost 79€ (up to 300€ of merchandise). So I added on a chest of drawers I’d bought to also be assembled and – so I thought – a chair. I mean, why not, since it was going to cost me the same anyhow. Turned out the chair got missed off the assembling order thingy. But that was just the beginning.
Guys showed up today. Not from IKEA, these are contracted delivery and assembly guys. They are polite enough but not exactly friendly. Three of them lugged the stuff up the stairs and when I asked about the chair – NO WAY. It wasn’t on their list. So I called IKEA while they were still here to see if something could be done. I mean, seriously. It’s a CHAIR. Would take them 5 minutes, would take me at least half and hour. AND I’D ALREADY PAID 79€ FOR FUCKING INSTALLATION UP TO 300€ OF MERCHANDISE. No go. The guy on the telephone “Help Line” said I would have to go back to the IKEA store I’d purchased the chair from and sort out the problem with the person who’d taken my order.
ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?
Next up… I’d seen this cute chest of drawers thingy as we were finally making our way through the self-service area to pick up the bed I’d originally gone there to purchase. And I thought – hey, I like it. There was also a big banner saying it was on special offer for IKEA FAMILY card holders, so we grabbed one of the flatpacks directly behind the display model (there was nothing else on display anywhere near this model) and piled it onto the cart.
So imagine my surprise when I ended up getting this instead… and frankly didn’t even realise the mistake until one of the team today had already assembled it. I kind of just left them to do their thing, since really, that’s what I’d paid for them to do. So it wasn’t their fault. But was it my fault? Do you honestly have to scrutinize everything you think you have purchased in good faith at IKEA just in case THEY have fucked up? Apparently so. I’d chosen the box sitting directly behind the chest of drawers on display. There was not another chest of drawers anywhere nearby. Why would I have thought this wasn’t the correct item?
And so I am semi-fucked. I have a nice new bed, all freshly-installed (for double the price since it cost 19€ more than their cheaper cut-off point). But I now also have a chest of drawers I don’t actually want, and a chair still sitting in a flatpack on the floor because IKEA forgot to include it in the assembly order.
I feel totally cheated, scammed, and dismissed.
21 Monday Jul 2014
Posted in home, retail therapy, shopping
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The last time I was in IKEA was in October 2012 when I bought this lovely bed, which then turned into a total IKEA nightmare, that was finally resolved a month later when they sent two guys over to re-install the bed. But today I felt the urge to head out to Castilleja de la Cuesta (Sevilla suburb and home to IKEA) to look for some very IKEA looking light fixtures I’d seen – and liked – when I was staying at Casa de Huéspedes last November. In the end I didn’t find the light fixtures I was looking for, but ended up with some new cushions and also replacement curtains required because of you-know-who… and also a bit of this and that. Half-way through the IKEA ordeal Peter and I stopped for the usual summer Cold Beer O’clock break, this time with (actually very good) sour cream & onion crisps, before heading back into the fray. Best part was at the check-out – something almost nobody ever says – when I found out that one of the IKEA cards I’d brought along (had no idea what they were) turned out to be a “gift card” with a balance of 30€! So woo-hoo! My shopping trip ended up costing half as much as expected. So not a bad Monday. How was yours?
10 Monday Dec 2012
Posted in animals & pets, cats, home
Well who doesn’t remember my latest IKEA saga, when I first bought this bed and after getting it home and going through two days of IKEA hell ended up with drawers that didn’t fit in the frame!
About a month later IKEA sent out a couple of guys to replace the frame, but they ended up fixing the original one so that – finally! – my bed looked like this and everything worked. Except it turns out that perhaps it works too well…
Yesterday morning I was enjoying a Sunday lie-in until I heard a soft whooshing sound, like the sound the closet door makes when it rolls along the runners in its metal frame. Except I had kitten-proofed my sliding closet doors by placing a plank of wood between the two outer doors so that Luna couldn’t open them and start noisily rifling though everything during the night. Then I heard the whooshing sound again, and then again, so I got up and saw that Luna had learned to open the goddamn bed drawers! *sigh*
Yet another of those “there goes life as we know it” moments that happen so often to those of us who live with cats. But the clincher came a few minutes later when there was more whooshing followed by some seriously frantic scuffling and scrabbling. Turns out Luna has not only learned how to open the bed drawers, but she also knows how to close them… with Loki inside! How did I not notice the now obvious design flaw which has a small opening there just big enough to both arouse curiosity and allow a little paw to fit through? I have to admit that my discovery of a very flustered Loki inside my drawer was pretty funny, though I’m sure the hilarity of this activity will decline with frequency of occurrence, especially in the wee hours.
20 Tuesday Nov 2012
Posted in home
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[IKEA guys at work under the watchful eye of Loki]
I was looking forward to today with mixed emotions. First of all I was thrilled that IKEA finally agreed to send someone to fix the wonky drawers, but since their solution had been to replace the entire bed frame I wasn’t looking forward to having most of my morning/afternoon disrupted. Also, when I spoke to them last Friday the conversation went something like this…
IKEA: Based on the report we received it looks like we are going to have to replace the bed frame, and since you didn’t pay for installation you will have to pay for this now.
Me: I don’t think so… (there was more, much much more, to what I replied to this, as you can imagine)
[pause while I was put on hold]
IKEA: Okay, Ms Hennessey, we will bring you a new bed frame and install it for you, but first you will have to dismantle the original bed frame and have it ready to be removed.
Me: You know what? I don’t think so. I spent TWO DAYS putting that bed frame together and I am not about to take it apart because it’s flawed and you have to replace it. As it stands I am going to have to lose another day waiting for IKEA to show up and then who-knows-how-long while everything is dealt with. I have already lost enough time… (and quite a bit more in that vein)
[pause while I was put on hold]
IKEA: Don’t worry Ms Hennessey, on Tuesday we will bring a new bed frame, dismantle the old one and assemble the new one for you.
Me: At no extra charge?
IKEA: None at all.
But you know what? The two guys who showed up to do the work first came up to assess the situation. I told them about the “one screw” that seemed to be, well, screwing things up, and asked them if it wasn’t possible to just repair the existing frame. They said they’d give it a go.
Out came the power tools and soon they were tightening bits here and there (impossible to do with just an allen key and normal screwdriver!) but even after all that two of the drawers were still a bit tight. I told them that wouldn’t matter so much if they weren’t the two drawers I was going to use the most (by the foot of the bed). No problem. The guys flipped the bed frame over, slid in the drawers and asked if that would do. I said it seemed a much more reasonable solution than having to take the frame apart and install a whole new one. And they assured me that since the bed came with a two-year guarantee that if this repair job didn’t do the trick I could have the bed replaced at any time. So fine! I agreed to that though didn’t understand why I had to sign papers saying they’d replaced the bed when they hadn’t…
What an ordeal though! If I ever buy anything major like this from IKEA again I’m just going to pay for installation. Now I can finally properly enjoy my new bed. And fill up the drawers! 🙂
casa azahar 