Ikea through the Years

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apartmenttherapy.com posted a (now archived) retrospective of 50+ Years of Ikea. It's well worth viewing.



Shown is a custom wardrobe from Ikea's PAX series, around $1000.

In 1980 and 1981, I had the wonderful opportunity to live and work in West Germany. To my surprise, homes and apartments were rented devoid of kitchens, laundry areas, and closets! Thanks to an expat housing allowance, I was able to offer significantly higher rent if my landlord would install a kitchen and laundry, including appliances that ordinary Germans would not consider purchasing, such as dishwasher, freezer, clothes dryer. I also was allowed a voice in the layout and choice of cabinetry and fixtures. A bonus that I had not requested was the outdoor umbrella clothesline. Soon after, I purchased my first indoor clothes drying racks, despite the dryer. Two of my life-long habits were learned in Germany; one of them is that I hang most of my clothes to dry.

It was fun to buy and assemble closets, and I bought several Schränke from Ikea in 1980. Twenty years later, I visited an Ikea store in California and it was just as much fun — a successful, enduring retail concept of “fast furniture,” foreshadowing our current “fast everything” retail world.


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