Virgins

I’m wanting to hear from folks who went to IKEA the first time, ever, in the last two weeks since the West Chester Store opening.

What did you think you’d find and what did you actually get? Did you try the food? What had you heard about the store before you went? And most importantly: what did you buy?

Tell us everything in the comments!

Six

Thats the number of times I’ve been to the store thus far. Didn’t really MEAN to go that many times, but family and friends keep driving in and I of course have to indoctrinate them properly into the Church of the Way.

How many times have YOU been there so far?

Before I head to the store again…

Third time this week mind you, tee hee, I thought I’d post this little story on WVXU about myself and my pal Bev (See I said your name, you said I never say it!). He found us lured by our playing the IKEA song by Johnathan Coutlon (on the Smoking Monkey album near the bottom). he was one of the more fun and interested reporters we talked to. (Hint:The TV ones were the worst)

Local blogs her first visit to IKEA

Yup, she tried to buy a floor model… - Mommin’ It Up! » Blog Archive » Our Ikea Adventure

Pimping IKEA en mass

The Enquirer has a HUGE themed page of articles it’s done about the store.

And I’m in the graphic banner TWICE. Well actually one shot of ME and a shot of my license plate. If you missed any local coverage , you’ll prolly find it here.

From a fellow line-camper:

Sweden Comes to Ohio is from Eric King, a fellow designer, and father of the four kids that were wearing the I-K-E-A shirts. You need to go there for the pics and great commentary. Nice tying up of the events too!

(Oh, and West Chester councilfolks: He’s right. Your little logo sign on the post was NOT well received by the assembled fans, and was panned as hideous and ugly - at best. We all seemed to get on the topic of it. Bleh!)

Don’t forget to checkout the IKEA West Chester Photo Group on Flickr, many folks have ben adding pics of the opening! You have some you can add yours too!

I’m recovering from a little head cold (go figure!) so I haven’t had time to out up a big photo post yet.

Hey Co-workers!

Wednesday was your day too, and I liked that you guys got your own portion of the festivities. That was very cool.

Tell me about your day! How was the staff holding up at closing? How were the staff that were new to IKEA doing with all the fanfare? You can email me privately and I’ll not use your name if you want. Got any good stories?

Return to IKEA

My face, after suffering sunburn and being freeze-dried, is rough. My lips are chapped, and I’ve lost my voice, but despite the ravages of camping out I’m the happiest girl in the world today.

And obviously insane as I went back this afternoon to see how it was going, and to see if the Ektorp chair was gone from As-Is. It was. But getting in and out and buying some of the double decker chocolate Havreflarn cookies took 30 minutes, and that includes chatting to a coworker at the food store that I met in Detroit. Saw another from the line on the way out so I don’t feel SO crazy.

I have to say though, finding a parking spot was dang near effortless. I’m not saying the lot wasn’t full, it was, but there were empty spots to be seen dotted all over it. The parking lot team was keeping track it seemed where there were spaces available and steering cars that way. Busy? Oh yeah. But certainly not the madhouse of yesterday.

And the weather today is so nice I actually opened the windows in the house and turned off the furnace. Also found myself reaching for the AC in the van after it warrmed up in the lot.

Changes imminent

Phase I of OHIKEA was rumor-mongering, wishes and sparkles. Phase II was monitoring the progress and all the news from the announcement to the opening. Phase III is here now that the store has opened. If you’ve been here from the beginning you know that means I have plans for redesign and other nice things.

Redesign and a new name - FlatpackOhio.com! Commenters really responded to the name, and liked Ohio having it’s own IKEA theme site rather than widening it out to other areas. There are lots of other blogs that do that.

So, if you come back to OHIKEA and the site is gone or looks wonky, fear not you caught us fidgeting around. We might vanish for an hour or two, but when you come back we’ll be here in some form.

As soon as the new domain resolves I’ll get started in the changeover. I will set OHIKEA to point there so you long time readers won’t need to remember it. I’ll also likely have a “formerly OHIKEA” in the header for a bit as well.

Now is the time to tell me what you’d like to see on the new site-to-be… put them in the comments!

So how much was sold?

6, 821 people bought something yesterday, that’s the word today.