The Ikea Blog

IKEA has teamed up with UNICEF and Save the Children. They will be donating $1 to these organizations for every soft toy purchased until December 24.

More info on IKEA’s site.

You may know the KRAMFORS sofa already. Well apparently you can now buy it with a new cover featuring a minimal leaves motif. Pretty nice!

It’s called Kvilla natural and it’s $799.00.

We bought a couple of these NOMINELL chairs two years ago for our home office. We thought it was the best choice in terms of looks price and comfort. I seat on my work chair 8 hours a day so comfort is a must. Alternatives included the JULES (I didn’t feel like I could sit on one of these for more than a couple hours a day), the SVENNING (yuk!), etc.

So after a couple years of intensive use I can tell you this:

• The fabric it is made of is really tough. Our cat is climbing up and sharpening her claws on it all the time, yet it doesn’t have a single scratch or mark.
• The base spins very smoothly.
• The wheels don’t get stuck with dust and hair. This happened a lot with our previous chairs and we had to clean them every now and then.
• The arms get dirty easily and are hard to clean. If the fabric was kitty proof, the arms aren’t, mine are full of nibble holes and scratches.
• The base squeaks a little when you move.
• The hydraulic system fails sometimes and lifts up a little bit overnight.

Despite a couple tiny problems like the squeaking this is a pretty good chair and we’re happy with them. Ratings below:

• Design
• Quality
• Assembly
• Endurance
• Total

I just noticed there’s a holiday brochure available at IKEA’s site. It’s just 9 pages, but that’s 9 pages full of interesting tips and ideas for this holidays.

If you’re looking for a new leather couch for your living room (and you can afford it), wait no more. Ikea just released this nice set of leather love seat + arm. It comes in four colors: Mjuk turquoise, Mjuk redbrown, Mjuk ivory and Mjuk black.

It’s a little pricy: $1,299.00, but looks great.

Last time I went to Ikea, I got fascinated by the KULLA table lamp. The built-in touch dimmer is a great system that allows you to regulate the light intensity just touching the little stick.

Price: $49.99

Four new quilt covers (and pillow cases) are available at Ikea stores: The HULDA RUND (orange bubbles), the HULDA DANS (green people silhouettes), the HULDA VILSE (blood & snow? strawberry & cream? red paint? who knows!) and the HULDA TECKNA (green pixel pattern).

Now you don’t have an excuse not to make your bed look different this winter.

Prices vary from $29.99 to $49.99

For those of you that didn’t know yet, there’s a new video at the Ikea Business website. It’s called “Inside Saint Sabrina’s Piercing & Tattooing” and features a tattoo and piercing parlor located in Minneapolis.

There are lots of interesting ideas for waiting spaces, storage and display. Of course, with Ikea furniture everywhere. Watch it now!

A few days ago, Ikea started accepting applications forms from those interested in a BoKlok property at St. James Village in Gateshead, UK.

For those who didn’t know, BoKlok is a new concept of housing that involves providing space-saving, functional and high quality properties at a price that enables as many people as possible to afford a comfortable home.

We bought an OLLE chair a couple weeks ago as an auxiliary chair for our bedroom. We chose the OLLE, because of it’s visual lightness and retro looks.

Even though it doesn’t look much comfortable, it’s one of the most comfortable chairs that we’ve tried at the Ikea store.

About the assembly, I don’t know if it’s supposed to have an assembly manual in the box but ours didn’t include one. It wasn’t complicated to assemble but the legs were kinda hard to stick into the structure (we had to use a hammer here) and then we couldn’t get the screws much deep into the holes.

That’s it, here are the ratings:

• Design
• Quality
• Assembly
• Total