As it were…

We’ve been fans of IKEA for years now, and make regular pilgrimages to Chicago to the one in Schaumberg.  Last year the Chicago area got a new one in Bolingbrook.  How they rate two when MI had none is beyond me.

The Schaumberg store is 3 floors, and the store is round, so you shop by moving around the center.  The center is open through all floors, so on the third floor you can look
 down to the first.  There’s an island in the middle however, with the second floor island being all kids stuff, and the third floor island being the restaurant.  The whole place is very open and airy, allowing you to move easily from department to department, and see pretty much from one part of the store to any other part.

The new Bolingbrook store is more like the one we visited in Toronto; it has just two floors, with the first floor being split between warehouse and shopping area.  It’s a very linear store, with a defined path you’re supposed to follow to see everything, with arrows on the floor to make sure you don’t stray.  There are small doors between departments, so you can sneak through if you want, but it’s certainly not open like the Schaumberg one.  Bolingbrook is about 25 minutes closer to our house though, so we started going there.

On June 7, IKEA of Canton MI opened, and we were there.  It’s only about 2 hours from our house, and dead nut simple to get to off the freeway.  On opening day there were parking lots miles away, with shuttle busses, and motorcycle cops EVERYWHERE directing traffic and helping people walk across the street.

We parked in a lot across the street from IKEA, and a cop held up traffic for us to walk across.  There aren’t ANY walk lines or lights or anything, so I don’t know what they were thinking putting a parking lot over there, and not expecting anyone to walk across the street.

There was a live DJ outside, and hot dog vendors, and the cops had their Harleys all out on display.  We got there several hours after the doors opened, so we didn’t wait in line or anything.  It was very busy, but not quite wall to wall like I expected.  It seemed similar to a Schaumberg regular saturday, but my wife thinks it was busier.  We didn’t eat there because there was a 45 min wait in line.

There were TV crews all over the place, and we saw one by the tents in the kids area.  Our girls were wearing a couple of my camping hats because they love them, and the TV lady said "We need to find a couple kids who look like they’re camping" and turned around and saw our girls and said "Hey! Can we borrow your kids?".  So the girls got to be on WXYZ TV in Detroit that night.  They didn’t make it on the website though.  🙁

Last weekend we went back, and had pretty much exactly the same experience.  Cops everywhere, directing traffic, helping people across the street, live DJ outside, hot dog vendors outside, the works.  Things hadn’t slowed down a single bit in the weeks they were open.  Crazy.

Canton has pretty much the exact same layout as Bolingbrook.  There are a few differences in structure, but still the 2 floor model.  I much prefer the Schaumberg structure, but Canton is close and easy to get to.  I suspect that’s where we’ll be going from now on.