Life In Australia

I guess you either love or hate the Swedish mass furniture and homewares retailer, IKEA, and I love IKEA! When we first moved to Australia, I was happy to find out that there are IKEA stores in Australia and we bought a lot of our current furniture from IKEA.

Yesterday, we went to our local IKEA store in the Sydney suburb of Rhodes. It is laid out in a very similar way to IKEA stores in other countries, with a children’s play area downstairs. You can leave your children there for one hour while you shop, as long as they are over three years old and toilet trained. Yesterday, however, there was a very long queue for the children’s play area, so my daughter did not go this time.

When we arrived upstairs, we found that the cafe was 100% full (it was around lunch time), so we had a look around the upstairs showroom first. In common with other IKEA stores, the furniture is arranged in rooms, so you look at examples of living rooms first, followed by home offices, kitchens, dining rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms and children’s rooms. On a wet Sunday afternoon, it was very busy and you had to keep moving, otherwise the people behind would bump into you!

Once we had passed through the children’s department, we found that the cafe was a little less full and so we sat down for lunch. The food isn’t fantastic but it is good value. I usually choose the sandwiches rather than the cooked food, as I don’t like Swedish meatballs! As a treat, I had a slice of Swedish almond cake topped with white chocolate and my daughter had a strawberry jelly!

After lunch, we went downstairs and looked through the homewares store. Again, it is arranged in a similar fashion to other IKEA stores, with crockery and kitchenware first, followed by throws and cushions for the lounge and bedroom, eventually leading to the self-service furniture area, where you pick up your disassembled furniture before heading for the checkouts.

As I didn’t have much money to spend, I only chose a few items. My favourite purchase was a new green bathmat from the “Thisted” range. My daughter chose some brightly coloured children’s bowls and cups to go with the plates and cutlery we already have. I also bought a cushion filler as I’m planning to make a cushion cover with a remnant of material I have had for a while.

At the checkout, I picked up a large blue IKEA bag for just $1. I buy one every time I go to IKEA, because, not only are they useful for carrying your purchases home, they also have many uses in the home, such as a laundry basket and storage for the children’s toys.

We are fortunate that there is an IKEA store near us, because there are only five IKEA stores in the whole of Australia - in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth. A lady I was talking with at IKEA told me that there used to be several IKEA stores in Sydney but they closed the others down and now the store at Rhodes Shopping Centre is the only one in Sydney.

For more information on IKEA in Australia, visit the IKEA Australia website.