Pour out a bottle of
Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of Ikea, at the age of 91.
Sure, we sometimes cursed Kamprad鈥檚 ubiquitous creations 鈥� sitting in our living room, half-drunk and surrounded by indecipherable assembly instructions for an Ekby J脛RPEN and bewildered as to why we still had three screws and a wooden dowel left over. But Ikea鈥檚 cheap and aesthetically inoffensive stylings helped us become adults who owned their own furniture rather than inherited whatever their friends, family and neighbours were throwing out.
Over the years, we鈥檝e gradually replaced most of our Ikea furniture with sturdier, less-Ikea-looking items. Our attraction to raw pine, much like sleeping on a futon mattress and decorating walls with framed posters, has dimmed in old age.
We still maintain a few items from the Swedish retailer 鈥� the Expedit shelf, which perfectly holds a sizeable record collection, a couple Fado table lamps, which really hit above their weight in terms of stylishness and price, plus an assortment of glassware, silverware, serving trays and containers, which linger in our kitchen like a lower back tattoo we can鈥檛 bring ourselves to remove once and for all.
Ikea鈥檚 shadow looms large, like a ridiculous Pax wardrobe. But like Ingvar Kamprad, we鈥檝e moved on. Mostly.
RIP, du sexig bastard.
听
听
听听
听 听听
听听
