Walking around Ikea over the weekend i suddenly realized something. i no longer liked Ikea furniture.
Mind you, i used to have a house filled with Ikea stuff, and still have a few items here and there heralding from those days, but right now, there's absolutely nothing they offer that was even remotely interesting to me. Why the change? They were no longer simple.
Here's a good example. The guest bed i still have from them consists of a square box with pine head board and foot board. The style is mostly straight boards with a noted lack of inlay or extra bits. It says "function" over anything else. That's fine, because the decorations (pillows, coverlet, etc) have the sort of detail that makes the bed inviting. Also in the room is a three drawer chest that i bought later. It's also unfinished, but it features a set of knobs on the sides of the cabinet. i have no idea what they're there for, but since the holes were pre-drilled, the chest looked even dumber without them than with. Why are there knobs on the side of the chest? i have no idea. Perhaps they are there to hang clothes up, which would be better suited IN the drawers, but instead now go outside. Perhaps they're there to be erst-while teats so that future furniture milk can be drawn from the cabinet. Fact is, they're there. Suddenly, extra function has been slapped onto a device that it doesn't need.
Same's true with a lot of things. We, as a species, seem to be drawn from "simple" to "full of crap" (ok, being part of the species, i'll attest that i tend to fall into that category too), but i gotta wonder why we do it. One of the many sage bits of advice my Mom gave me was that i should buy the simplest washer and dryer they make. Why? Less bits to go horribly wrong.
i've since learned to apply that to nearly everything else and for the most part it's been true. The more complex bits tend to break for stupid reasons, where the simple bits don't. Laptops, cellphones, pdas, inevitably the simpler ones last forever while the more complex ones break within minutes of their warranty expiration.
i really just need to force myself into the habit of going with the simplest of all choices. Perhaps a nice shock collar might help, or maybe just a nine volt battery taped to a Popsicle stick. Something simple, perhaps.
I think the same argument can be applied to combination doodads like TV/DVD players or scanner/printer/fax/copiers. There only good combo inventions are Swiss Army knives and Optimus Prime.
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As somebody that never goes to an Ikea — there aren't any close to where I live, and I don't have the transport capacities to bring any Ikea furniture back over the two-hour drive home — I kinda find their stuff is still simple and refreshing.
And cheap. For a lot of people, I suspect Ikea represents the middle step between milk-crate bookshelves and real-wood craftsmanship; something to get when you're not a student any more, but when you don't have the money for furniture that will outlive you.
The frustrating thing is that people don't seem to realize that a lot of furniture is really, really simple to build, and real wood — which will outlive you, if you take care of it and maintain it — is only marginally more expensive than Ikea furniture.