Why St. Louis doesn’t need an IKEA

On a recent trip to Chicago entering IKEA, at 4:00 in the afternoon, I joked to my husband that we only had 4.5 hours until they closed so we better hurry.  Loading up the truck at 7:45pm I was only a little shocked that I was nearly right.  This anti-shopper can spend nearly four hours in one store.  I am a die hard IKEA fan.  I could spend the entire day there, if not watching myself closely I could spend thousands of dollars there, but I don’t want one in St. Louis.

The central point of this trip to Chicago was to go to IKEA, sure we planned other activities around it, but I have been craving their classic chair for my library since we closed on our house.  We have another trip to Chicago planned for November, while the purpose of this trip is to see David Sedaris (LOVE HIM!!) live, we are already making our list for the store.

There is something special about a store you are willing to drive 5 hours to visit.  To drive a long bed extended cab truck through Chicago during rush hour just so you can have plenty of room to bring home your treasures.  There is something special about the great bargains on amazing furniture and housewares you can get and people around here still not knowing what the store is.

If IKEA comes to St. Louis I will still love the store but a little bit of it’s charm will be gone for me.  Everyone will just know that those awesome bookcases came from IKEA because so many people will have them.