Rumours that London will get its own Ikea swirl around this city like sasquatch sightings up north.
Ikea’s parent company announced its new store locations for ’09 and London isn’t one of them. We have to travel all the way to Burlington to find the nearest Ikea and that’s quite a haul if you’re in the market for an Ektorp or a Leksvik. When I was trekking this way from Toronto most weekends I would sometimes make a mid-week stop at my North York Ikea and pick up something we both wanted for our home. Like the giant black and white canvas of New York City that now adorns our hallway or a pot-lid strainer or some such thing. These items are terribly exotic to have here in the Ikea-starved Forest City!
And then I hit upon an idea. I could become the Ikea Sherpa. I would take orders and make bi-weekly trips to the store where I would have the joy of shopping the aisles for others’ needs. For a reasonable surcharge, I’d get their stuff and bring it to them. I’d even assemble it if required, for another small charge. How sweet is that?
And then it hit me when I ordered a wardrobe a few weeks before I made the permanent move here. Ikea already has it’s own Ikea Sherpa. It’s called…Ikea. They deliver and set up if you like. It’s very doubtful they’d give their blessing to me to do it for less, even on a small scale. My (tongue in cheek) dream was dashed!
Ikea says it doesn’t count London out of future store sites but it’s not looking very likely. They require a population base of one million before they’ll invest. But if you consider that there’s no Ikea west of Burlington and that includes Woodstock and Windsor, surely this spot, smack in the middle of them, would be a logical one. Still, I wouldn’t bet my Flort on it.