My mother lived in Charlotte when they opened the first Ikea in North Carolina there. I think the closest one might have been in Atlanta before then. We went one morning to see what it was all about, expecting to spend maybe an hour or so. Later that afternoon, we finally emerged with our purchases and bellies full of swedish meatballs with lingonberry sauce, ikea-lagged for the rest of the night.
There’s now an official Ikea museum and lord knows how long we’d be stuck in there, aimlessly wandering through the labyrinth of flat-pack, Swedish design for the masses. They’ve added an online archive of their catalogs, so now we can waste hours at virtual ikeas through the years without even leaving home.
The covid quarantine just continues to innovate: 70 years of Ikea catalogs online.
Obligatory scene from Fight Club: