Sunday, August 10, 2014

2015 Ikea Catalog: Interesting Finds

That time of the year again. I'm not sure exactly when the catalogue came out because I haven't been paying attention lately, but I found it on the United States website today. Anyway, it's here now, I took a look and here are my highlights from the online version of the catalog.

Note: All references to the Ikea website mean the ikea.com/us United States website.

Cover and other Videos
Yes, the cover made the highlight reel. Clicking on the "play" symbol ran through a ~30 second video showing the room on the cover. It was a woman just going through her day from when she woke up to when she went back to sleep. Looked like it was a condominium or apartment. Place appeared to be decked out with Ikea products. Other similar videos were littered throughout the pages.

PS 2014 Hat and Coat Stand (US$ 34.99, Page 26)
Found it on the website, the product page said the post was made of solid birch and clear acrylic lacquer. Height was listed at 180 cm or 70 7/8", close to 6'. What drew me to it was its simplicity and wood construction. The model I saw had a light birch color, no elaborate designs or patterns, just a few cylinders of various lengths stuck to a base. I found a green version for $5 less on the website too -- not my cup of tea.

Speaking of, the only place I find hat and coat racks are usually in offices now. Corporate offices with fluorescent lighting, cubicles, and heavy duty office furniture. Racks found are usually made of steel, fiberboard, and plastic. Not that I haven't seen any wood racks before, they show up every once in a while. Unfortunately, the ones I usually see are old, waxed, and with years of dirt stuck to them.

NAPEN Clothes Stand with Cover (US$ 19.99, Page 60)
This was the first real surprise I found. It looked like a mannequin -- these things can come in handy. Yes and no. On the website, it was listed as a "clothes stand with cover" with the stand and cover for sale separately. The stand was just a metal pole with two flat wings sticking out top -- whole thing looked like a pickaxe on a stand. My impression was that the torso shaped covers (two sizes were available) fit over the pole to resemble mannequin. The big catch was that the product was found in the children's section and the body sizes were, thus, very small. One potentially important detail was that the website said the covers were 100% polyester. Hope they make an adult version at some point, but it may be asking for too much due to all the different torso sizes that would have to be made available.

HURDAL Wardrobe (US$ 499.00, Page 74)
Reminded me of the FJELL wardrobe but slightly cleaner and less rustic -- and $50 cheaper. The product page said the "Main parts" were made of solid pine. Looked like this one had a sliding drawer at the bottom of the wardrobe unlike the FJELL, which only had two main outer doors. The listed height was 198 cm, which was shorter than the 208 cm noted for the FJELL. Also unlike the FJELL, a peek inside showed that there was only one clothes rail in the HURDAL while the FJELL had an upper and lower rail. Again, love the wood construction and simplicity. Price was on the higher side, but the solid wood seemed worth it.

LOCKSTA Easy Chair (US$ 49.99, Page 104)
Found this one in green, blue, and orange. Looked like a steel version of the iconic POANG chair. I wanted to call it a cheaper POANG chair, but the PELLO already took that crown. This LOCKSTA was priced the same as the PELLO at $49.99, so it was half the cost of the cheapest POANG chair I could find at $99.99. The "Total composition" was listed as 100% polypropylene, which I assumed to be the fabric backing. I didn't find this to be a very aesthetically pleasing chair, and the price wasn't that great either. The main appeal seemed to be the "not wood" colors or textures.

PS 2014 Pendant lamp (US$ 69.99, Page 128)
Strange, beautiful, and very interesting at the same time. This lamp caught my eye when it was featured on the first few pages of the catalog, but it won me over when I saw it again about a hundred pages later. The manual suggested that it was a hardwired lamp, so no plugs involved. What made this unique was that it was a lamp with an adjustable shade. If I understood the description correctly, the plastic lamp shade or shell could be opened and closed using a drawstring. Fully closed, it resembled a perfect sphere, but when opened, it would open up like a jigsaw puzzle. This was supposed to allow for adjustment of light levels.

And I kind of skimmed through the rest. However, a lot of the new products appear to have been released throughout the past year. I probably covered a few of them in my other "interesting find" posts.

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