We bought a pole lamp from them a few weeks ago, the kind that has a side lamp. I had a really hard time fitting the 'snap on' plastic side lamp shade. After a few hours, it overheated and cracked. The very next day it fell off.
I'm not surprised. Was it a HARSLINGA (with a circle over the first "a")? I've noticed that all IKEA product names are in capitals. Also, their stores are powered by the free-will of customers who are slowly drained as they meander helplessly and hopelessly through the endless convolutions of RAMNEFJÄLL beds, VATTUDALEN sinks and STARREKLINTE rugs. It is possible to survive if you keep a sharp eye out for the warp zones that enable you to miss 90% of the products. For the unwary who think they have escaped, a great bank of freezers awaits by the exits where you are encouraged to purchase horrific Swedish meatballs. These must be avoided, which is easier if you bear in mind that not all customers have made it out of the shop.
We had an Ikea double porcelain kitchen sink, for years. We liked it a lot. It was called a DOMSJÖ (obviously). The downside was that its size and fittings, holes basically, were not standard UK sizes, and apparently not standard European sizes either, which meant that we had to purchase a sink unit (base), tap, and all the waste fittings from Ikea. To connect this to the external waste pipes, we turned to the small community of DOMSJÖ users who had fallen into the same trap. They were able to recommend an unusual rubber adapter from a small sanitary-ware supplier in Coventry. I kid you not. The DOMSJÖ was discontinued several years ago.
"meander helplessly and hopelessly through the endless convolutions"
Ah, I thought that was just a local configuration. After a few goes I learned to avoid the inescapable showroom maze, where you might spot a product, but you can't buy it, and you can't find your way back to the um ... stockrooms? where you can't find that category let alone the specific product. I think that's how we ended up with the particular model. Finding light bulbs to fit it was a different expedition.
Ah yes, the IKEA system where you want to buy a soap dish (KLENEPOT) so you jot down a string of letters and numbers only to find it's in sections spread over 6 aisles in the warehouse bit, and you need a trolley which was in the bay half a mile back.
That is true. They also have ÄPPELKAKA which means apple cake, but it isn't cake - it's the name of a range of stuff. Similarly they have KACKLING and that's a kind of anglicised version of KACKLA which means, yes, cackling.