An Ode to IKEA - The Wonderful Everyday
By Max Birkin for House of Henley
IKEA has arguably transformed not only modern design, but the way we in the UK live our lives. This may seem like a rather outlandish statement – grander names like Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe usually take credit for disrupting interior decoration – but IKEA made the often cloistered world of design an open forum. No longer did one need to employ John Fowler to choose your pelmets; rather like a Swedish Trojan horse, IKEA smuggled elevated Scandinavian design principles into our homes via plastic-coated fibreboard. There is a reason why the Billy bookcase has sold almost 120 million units – it is unbeatable, and, as with any IKEA product, represents a joyful but sensible marriage between practicality and aestheticism. You can also thank IKEA for indirectly joining the kitchen and dining room together. The old form of pretending the kitchen didn’t exist clung to the days of butlers and footmen and shining silver, but with every flatpack chair sold and every jovial television advert (‘Chuck out the Chintz’ is surely the most successful marketing slogan of the 20th Century) IKEA broke down the rigid social norms of Britain and introduced us to the liberal, socially-minded future – the kitchen-diner. It is perhaps prudent now to stress that this isn’t a sponsored blog entry – sadly IKEA are not giving House of Henley a blank cheque to use in stores – but this doyenne of design deserves such enthusiasm. Perhaps it isn’t advisable to source all your possessions from IKEA (although if you do have a spare £1,600 to hand, Balenciaga’s suspiciously Swedish bag is a rather amusing investment) but a healthy dose of flat-pack will suit any home just fine.
Hacks
Picture Credit: Claire Totman Designs - showing Claire’s adaptation of the Pax wardrobe
The greatest argument against IKEA is its gargantuan size and reach; everyone and their dog has a sofa or table or bed from the furniture giant, and supposedly this might lead to a lack of individualism. Wrong. IKEA pieces are simple and well-made, so therefore easily customised with brilliant results. Design social media like Pinterest, Instagram and Houzz feature many an IKEA ‘hack’, involving no more than, say, a Kallax cupboard and some boujii Anthropologie drawer-handles, or a tin of Rust-o-leum and a Godishus wardrobe. The effects are incredible and look vastly more appealing than other solutions costing three times as much. Look to Claire Totman for some particularly impressive customisation of Pax wardrobes, where by painting a non-standard IKEA piece in a softer colour, adding a cornice and some smart handles, she has transformed a cheap piece of furniture into a smart stand-alone feature. However, beware the shiny finish on many IKEA products, and be prepared to sand them down before painting. Your imagination is the only limit here; the only real risk is that you begin to think of yourself as an experienced cabinet-maker and start listing your ‘bespoke’ designs on Facebook Marketplace for Surrey prices (i.e. unjustified).
Kitchens and wardrobes
A brief word on the wonders of IKEA’s ‘bespoke’ services; their kitchens and wardrobes are excellent and so say joiners and designers alike. Many upmarket kitchen companies advise fitting IKEA carcasses and fitting different fronts, but there is an excellent choice of in-house designs at - quite frankly - shockingly good prices. An added joy in sourcing your kitchen from one place is that you pay one price, and everything arrives at once (no need to delay the sink fitting until the glazed, hexagonal tiles handmade by Italian widows arrive). IKEA will fit the kitchen too, and their teams are invariably polite, clean and efficient (if on the pricey side - consider asking your builders if this is something they would do for you). The sheer range that the kitchen department has to offer means that your kitchen need never look like it was all from one place, however; the range of taps and hardware is updated regularly to keep abreast of trends, but the IKEA team are accommodating of additions from other companies so that Quooker tap you’ve always wanted can sit happily alongside the Smeg steam oven. IKEA also offers brilliant online planning services for fitted wardrobes, which allow you to tailor units to your available space and clothing needs. Pick door styles and handles, then interior drawers, rails and shoe racks. Some configurations even provide glass shelves above cushioned drawers to lay your pearls upon, a feature that would set you back a good couple of hundred pounds at Neville Johnson. If Carrie Bradshaw had had the foresight to line her walk-in closet with PLATSA wardrobes, she may have been able to spend even more than £40,000 on Manolo Blahniks…
Market Hall
The big-ticket IKEA items are obviously deeply exciting, but nothing quite beats the wonder of the Market Hall. Really, this is a Swedish souk, and whilst full of far more plastic than any bazaar in Morocco, it holds just the same thrill. Here is your chance to pick up crockery and glassware at really unbeatable prices; it is a lot easier to grin and trill ‘broken glass brings happiness!’ when a guest drops a £1.50 Storsint martini glass than an LSA one, but the IKEA designs are smarter and with finer rims. Also brilliant are the paper napkins in jolly summery designs, and the tealights, which look so pretty placed in clean jam jars grouped in pairs and trios up your staircase or along the terrace at night. Do have a giggle at some of the more outlandish homeware items however, and maybe rehome a cuddly dinosaur (their eyes really do seem to follow you around the shop - clever marketing department). People who believe that a visit to IKEA is stressful or a chore are doing it wrong. Simply visit outside of school and public holidays, follow the arrows and indulge in a big lunch of Swedish meatballs and lingonberry jam (then buy even more in the deli to take home). Oh, and dig out your hammer for when you finally arrive home and realise you have to assemble each and every set of the Malm drawers that you bought...
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