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| - I really have absolutely no complaints about my experience in Ikea Charlotte, other than the massive line.
I came to Ikea Charlotte having already scoped out my order at the Ikea in South Philly, to which this one is remarkably similar. That was quite beneficial, as it saved me a good deal of time to already have the list pre-printed from their website (which is really neat when you consider how they allow you to check if the item is in stock as well! So you can time your Ikea Day perfectly). In fairness, the showroom felt exactly like every other Ikea Showroom in the world (literally the ones in foreign countries are remarkably similar both in layout and selection- it's kind of amazing to go to Israel and see almost the same thing as in Charlotte).
However, on this particular Ikea trip I was furnishing a full one-bedroom apartment from scratch, and I have to say the prices at Ikea really did help to meet my graduate student-sized (so not that big, but beefed up from graduation presents) budget. I feel like for $1,500 I walked away with an extremely livable and stylish apartment, which wouldn't be possible at many other stores (where a single room can easily cost that much), and it would seldom look as well-coordinated as my Ikea apartment does now.
Since I didn't have any room in my car, I ordered everything to be delivered to my apartment in Chapel Hill, which they did for an extremely reasonable fee of $99, and for an additional $40, I let them take care of picking up all 300 kilograms of furniture I ordered (it is amazing how much furniture one can buy here). This was pretty easy, as the staff member on the floor was able to walk up to any given kiosk and type in my item numbers and print out a list of the items to give to me to take to checkout. Furthermore, she was able to assuage any fears I had about items being out of stock, as even though they give you an ominous warning about out-of-stock items being skipped, in reality, they can't add it to a list if it's not likely to be in stock, so you do get a heads up.
The delivery people did a pretty good job, yes some boxes had holes in them, but overall the contents were in remarkably good condition considering their long trip to arrive at my door. One thing to note about the delivery company is that they call you and tell you a time, and they don't give you a choice on the matter. Not a major issue, but it does make it difficult to schedule around things, and the delivery folks (Urban Express) were pretty easy to deal with to reschedule my delivery date (and had a nifty website).
Also, I haven't yet remarked on probably the best aspect of an Ikea trip, the abundant reasonably priced food. This is a pretty exciting thing, as it's high quality food for usually around five or six bucks, and it is placed in such a way that it is a convenient stopping point between the showroom floor and the picking floor below. Get the Swedish meatballs with the jelly-stuff. They're divine.
On the floor below, I'd highly suggest the standard tool set. Every apartment I've ever owned has had one, and they especially come in handy in the process of assembling the furniture (as the screwdriver with the hex wrench head is much, much easier to use than the little wrenches that come with everything). However, I did have to spend a good forty-five minutes in line to checkout, but considering I had very few items that I had bought individually, and I had a cell phone on which to text, this was less of an issue and more of a minor inconvenience.
TL,DR: Make a list before you go in online. Try the meatballs. Buy the toolset. Be prepared to wait at checkout.
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