Monday, March 7, 2011

An Adventure with IKEA - Parts 1-5

We decided to make our 2nd bedroom into an office/reading/craft room and needed to buy a desk. At home, we invested in a nice desk from Techline that we both really love, however, paying that kind of money for a desk we'll have for only 3 years wasn't practical, so we did what all budget conscious furniture shoppers do ... went to IKEA. There's one IKEA currently in Abu Dhabi in the Marina Mall and a second store is opening in just a few weeks on Yas Island. I think Dubai has 2 IKEAs in the city. For the most part, it's exactly the same store - this one a little smaller because it's in a mall, but the same stuff displayed in the same way ...

Part 1: We found a desk we liked that is part of the Gallant series so you can choose the pieces you want and essentially build your own unit. We picked out what we wanted and had the order put together. Then we saw some rugs and other smaller furniture and thought we might be able to add up to the free delivery & assembly minimum. For those of you who haven't shopped at IKEA, everything comes in pieces and you have to assemble it at home - not hard to do, just time consuming. We couldn't decide on the rugs (primarily because we hadn't measured the rooms yet) so decided to wait on the desk and come back when we thought we might make the 2500 dhiram minimum for free delivery.

Part 2: We measured our rooms and realized even the largest of the IKEA rugs wouldn't be big enough, so decided to buy the desk after all and forego the free delivery. We rushed to IKEA after Brian finished work and again put in our order ... only to find out it wouldn't be ready for pickup for 3 more days. (sigh)

Part 3: Back to IKEA to pick up the desk. (By the way, this was after the call the day before telling us that they forgot to load it on the truck, so it would be available  a day late.) Got to the pick up area, got the desk pieces and off to the car. As we were walking out to the car, a man asked if we needed any help. We said no and thanked him and proceeded to our car. When we were starting to load the car, a younger man was hanging around. Come to find out, the other gentleman sent his son over to help us anyway! Unfortunately, he couldn't help us though BECAUSE THE DESKTOP WAS TOO BIG TO FIT IN THE CAR! Ugh! Yes, our cute little car is great for the crazy parking lots here, but not so good when you're trying to buy furniture for your apartment and save paying the delivery fee. We loaded in what did fit and put the main desk surface back into the cart to trek back into the store. Now we didn't know what to do. Taxi? yes, if we could find one of the van taxis (of course there wasn't one in sight). Have IKEA deliver after all? We were standing near the taxis hopeful when another man approached us and asked if we needed a taxi. We explained the situation and he said he had a Land Cruiser and could take us for 175 dhiram. We said, no, that was too much, we knew IKEA could deliver it for less. He came down to 100, but we still decided we'd be better off having IKEA deliver. (In hindsight, I think we should have taken him up on his offer, but this sincere, honest, friendliness is still so new to us that we don't quite trust it.) IKEA agreed to deliver the desk top for ... 100 dhiram on Saturday at 11:30am.

Part 4: Saturday, 11:30am, no IKEA truck. I gave them another 30 minutes and then called customer service. After about 30 minutes of searching for my record, I was informed the delivery was scheduled for Sunday, not Saturday. (sigh) I had Saturday clearly written on my delivery paperwork and both Brian and I heard Saturday, but oh well.
The good news is that on Sunday, they called me around 10:45 and the piece was delivered by 11:15. And, they had no trouble finding us! All was good ... or so I thought.
I had assembled the rest of the desk the day before, so it took no time at all to attach the desk top. I tipped it up and bam! the front right leg collapsed. Okay, no problem, I must have forgotten to tighten it. ... Nope, the threads were stripped and the leg broken. (sigh)

Part 5: Brian ended up taking the leg back and had his own adventure. First, they thought they had one in the backroom stock. Nope. Then they tried to suggest that they could order one and we could pick it up in a few days. Brian suggested he could take a leg from one of the floor models. They were hesitant, but he was persistent and went with the employee up to the floor to get a leg. Before they could hesitate more, he grabbed one of the desks and started to flip it over to exchange the leg. What could they do but help him? :) Success! He got the leg, we finished assembling the desk and finally have something in the office.

We're thinking next time we might just spring for the delivery and assembly service. :)

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