The Making Of...

This is great!

IKEA Home Furnishing is big in Singapore. It has been here for as long as I can remember.

My first memory of IKEA was when it was located in Katong in the 1980s. It was expensive for our taste, but window shopping in the store was quite an experience. Katong was considered near to where we live, so it was quite frequent that we ended-up there after going to East Coast Beach for picnics.

I was a kid then, so the place was considered "high class" to us, village people. We looked, we saw, we touched, but we never bought a thing.

Tagging along my Sisters and Brothers when they go city shopping... well, window shopping was great. Eventually Mom and Dad tagged my Sisters and Brothers along and made their first purchases of small items like flower vases and picture frames in IKEA.

IKEA then moved to their own distinctive bright yellow and dark blue building in Alexandra in the mid 1990s until today.

My parents bought furniture from IKEA when we moved from our village to Tampines Street 22. They did it again when they moved to their present home in Woodlands Street 13, with IKEA sofa set.

So did most of my Sisters and Brothers when they had their first homes.

I followed suit when I set-up my own home with Wifey. Not surprising that Wifey loves IKEA stuff too. It is simply because the style and ideas of decorating homes by IKEA designers and interior decorators are always fresh and most importantly, practical.

We practically grew up either sitting, sleeping or eating on furniture bought from IKEA - furniture and accessories that are modern, attractive, affordable and functional.

We have been religiously visiting IKEA all the way from Tampines, many times a year. Either for our own home or accompanying my parents with their shopping. My favourite section would have to be the indoor plants.

Like in hardware stores, I can spend a long time finding excuses to buy pots and plants for our home garden.

D.I.Y. assembly of IKEA furniture is my forte and I will do it with zest. No manual required until I got stick with something I could not figure out. Then again, these Swedish furniture are designed to fully be functional and easy assembly, its amazing.

I did my own assemblies for my home, for Sis and my parents too. Only Mom had IKEA people assembled and installed several racks in her kitchen that one time.

Now IKEA will open its flagship mega-store in Tampines. Yes! Along Tampines Avenue 10... many, many times bigger than their present building. In fact, it is just 2 bus stops away from our home. How is that for convenience!

They will open end November 2006! A few weeks away. Kind of exciting to watch the construction as it progresses when bus Service 168 passed by whenever come back home from my parents home.

Wifey is bracing herself for my spending stuff at IKEA when it opens here. I am afraid she is right!