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I’m Floored…

This weekend was the great IKEA No Tax extravaganza. Okay, so maybe that’s not what it was called, but it’s sounds better than just plain old No Tax Days. But anyhow, my ass was out the door early to get a piece of that action.

I actually went to two IKEAs this weekend in my search for a tabletop that matches my office desk. I didn’t want to pay full price and the IKEA near my house didn’t have it in the “AS-IS” area, so I headed across the Bay to see if they had one over there.

IKEA Emeryville was packed. Anytime I have to go through the City, across the Bay Bridge and over to the Oakland side is an adventure. WAY too many people. I managed to get through it though, and found a nice parking spot out of the way. Inside, I quickly ran upstairs to the “showroom” area, found the information for the bookcase I wanted and headed downstairs to grab it off the shelves. The problem I have with IKEA is that the customers walk like snails. People walk the wrong direction���there are arrows on the floor for God’s sake. They’re all just in the way. I walk fast. I go in, find what I want and get out. Downstairs was much easier. Fewer people lolligagging around. I found the bookcase I wanted, which was a two box set and headed over to the AS-IS area where I found the tabletop I wanted, paid and was out the door.

The fun part came when I had to push the cart to the car. The problem with IKEA carts is that ALL of the wheels turn. The reason this is a problem is that you absolutely NO control over the cart. It’ll just start rolling sideways for no apparent reason at all. And it wasn’t just me, because as I got to the parking lot area, I watched at least a dozen people using their bodies to try and control the carts. I managed to get to the car, only nearly running over one family who got in my way, as I yelled “I have no control, so you better move”. Loaded up and off to IKEA number two.

The second IKEA is about twenty minutes from my house in Palo Alto. Parking isn’t too bad, but unexpectedly, getting a cart was the hardest part. I actually had to wait in line to grab a flat cart. The wait was approximately fifteen minutes from the time I got in line to the time they delivered a cart to me. The guy in front of me grabbed two. Seems the cart elevator broke and they had to actually deliver carts manually.

With cart in hand, I raced to the flooring area where just days before Wifey™ and I had chosen a laminate floor that we liked. It’s called Hemse and closely matches the oak flooring we have in our entry���which we are going to eventually tear up and replace with tile. The best part was the price, at 99�� a square foot. That and the fact that it was a “no-tax” weekend meant, we’d save about $60 for our 750 sq. ft. that we’d need for the flooring.

Now each box weight approximately 33lbs and I’d calculated needing about 26 boxes. The first few boxes weren’t that bad, but by box 26 I was starting to feel it. That and the fact that they cart was going to weight 858 lbs by the time it was loaded up. I managed to get the flooring to the car where I had to move the 26 boxes, 858 lbs. once again from the cart to the back of the truck. Ugh.

Then… I drove home, parked in the driveway area and had to take the 858 lbs. of flooring out of the car and upstairs to our townhouse. I was able to carry them up the stairs, put them on a cart, roll them to our front door, where I had to lift all 858 lbs. of flooring for a fourth time to get it into the house. So in all, I lifted 3,432 lbs. of flooring this weekend. I’d say, I don’t have to workout this week. 🙂

But I did save that $60.

Tags: ikea, flooring, hemse, laminate

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