Pilgrimage to IKEA

There is no IKEA in this city, although there have been rumours of one opening for years. There is likewise no online shopping in Turkey, at least not in the true sense of the meaning. (You can send an email to a specific IKEA location elsewhere in Turkey, tell them what you want, and wire money from your bank account to theirs; then, for a hefty delivery fee, they'll send you the items you want.)

So a few weeks ago, I extended a business trip to Istanbul by a day and spent my Sunday at one of their two (they have two!) IKEA stores. I went armed with a list of items I'd pre-selected from the online catalogue, and did my best to stay focused. That was however extremely difficult to do, since almost everything I saw appealed to me in some way, and I was overcome with that panicked I-must-prepare-for-being-being-cut-off-from-society-and-hoard impulse -- not knowing when I may next find myself among such reasonably priced good-looking glass vases and light fixtures and sofas. I wanted to buy them all.

But the thought of something breaking in transport back east, and the impossibility of travelling with so much luggage, stopped me. Instead, I got the items I'd come for (crib, dresser with changing table top, cupboard), plus a few little extra goodies, and high-tailed it out of there. The hardest part of my IKEA adventure was over. Or so I thought.

Now, my extremely heavy, flat brown boxes had to make their way via courier to my city. I employed a company my husband often uses for business, and got the whole load here for just thirty-five Lira! (It would have cost me around 250 Lira, had I allowed IKEA to send it.) Easy enough.

We got the crib set up in an evening, despite horror stories I'd read by disgruntled customers on the Consumer Reports website. Although my Turkish husband had never assembled IKEA furniture before, something I think every North American probably has -- a right of passage into manhood, isn't it? -- he was genius, as long as I interpreted the pictures in the instruction booklet and forced him to do the steps in order. I guess it really does help to have an engineering degree!

The cupboard is taking a little longer, partly because we've been coming home from work late and exhausted, and if we get to the assembly at all, fizzle out after about ten minutes of work. And it didn't help that it turns out we needed two different kinds of screwdrivers to put together the cupboard, which delayed us a day -- I thought IKEA was famous for including all the necessary tools? What happened to the trusty IKEA key?

Although our cupboard is slowly taking shape, there is still no changing table in sight. At this rate, baby's nursery is going to be finished around the due date. Here are some 'before' shots, which I hope to soon replace with 'after' pictures.

What's left of the cupboard's many pieces:

The cupboard in its current state:The crib, ready for mattress and sheets!