Ikea, you done me wrong

In general, Ikea and I are on good terms, but I had an unfortunate experience this past week and feel the need to share.

Last weekend, we bought seating to go with our Ikea patio table. As it turns out, the bargain that you think you're getting from a supah-cheap table is obliterated once you buy seating and cushions for six. But I'm not upset with Ikea about that; they set their prices and it's up to us as consumers to decide if we can accept them.

We bought four chairs and one bench. I like the idea of having a bench on one side of the table. However, the bench setup wasn't meant to be. We have never had a problem putting together Ikea furniture--the instructions are great, the parts are always complete, and everything lines up correctly.

But not with the Nordano bench, or with ours anyway. We had all of the parts, but the pieces didn't quite line up. Ben put it together as best he could, but when we sat down to test its comfort, we heard a loud crack. One of the pieces that had come bolted on had snapped loose. The bench had to go back.

Monday night, after work, we loaded the bench into the Subie and made the (not short) trek to our local store. We had to exchange the bench for two chairs and the bench cushions for chair cushions. We found the chairs all right--but the cushions were more difficult.

We had opted for red cushions because we thought they went nicely with the furniture and would "pop" on our deck. Apparently, everyone else had the same idea because we were able to find only one remaining red cushion. There were oodles of lime green cushions. Guess they weren't very popular this year.

B tracked down an information person, and he said that the green and red cushions come together in one box, and they won't receive any more until the green cushions are sold out, and we'll have to call to find out if they have any more red cushions in stock. Great.

But then I had an idea. We had grabbed the last remaining packaged red cushion, but there was one other red cushion in the store--the display model.

I marched back over to the information man and figured I had a good story. We had been to Ikea stores 3 times already to try to fill our order, and couldn't he cut me a break?

Information man was unsympathetic, and he said there was no way that he could let us take the model--store policy. He explained that the display color always sells out first, and then they have to wait until people buy the remaining color. I (logically, I thought) pointed out that they had only green cushions left, and didn't he think that the green cushions would sell faster if the green cushion was the display model?

He didn't agree. Oh, information man--how you disappointed me, hence the title of this post.

However, in fairness to Ikea, I have to point out that we have been completely satisfied with every other aspect of our transactions. Our deck transformation, courtesy of Ikea, Lowe's, Home Goods, and a whole lot of work, is nearly complete. We've even managed to find people who want to buy our old patio set, so when they arrive in an hour or so, we'll actually have a place to put this assembled furniture.