Ikea

Don't know what it's like over there, but the layout here is genius. You have to walk through the whole thing before you can exit - that's about as smart as you can get when designing a store.

Don't love or hate it - it's just a store where you buy stuff that you need (or 99% of the time, want).

I'm wondering if its changed over the years. We visited one a few times in Northern Virginia in the early '90s. It was a good place to get cheap furniture for small spaces - very important in that high cost-of-living area. I don't remember anything particularly bad about it, or any bizarre maze arrangement.

They built one in Portland about six months ago, and we went to get some stuff for my daughter's dorm room. What a nightmare! The whole place is a crazy maze swarming with frustrated people. We found what we were looking for, wrote down a shelf number, and miles later we got to the warehouse area only to find that it was out of stock. So we had to to navigate that maze twice to go back, and didn't find anything. We thought about checking out the meatballs, but the cafeteria line stretched clear across the room. We finally just ended up leaving with a rug and a headache.

My vote: used to love, now hate.

Definite godsend for those on a tight income who want some stylish (sort-of) furnishings. I am under the impression that the yellow and blue behemoth has quite a following in North America.

Hate it.

Like a typical man, I just wanna go directly to my item and get out. Ikea obviously wants u to spend as much time as possible in the store. If they sell electronics gadget/hardware on the side, that's another matter. :D

I like it for an hour. Then I hate it.

I still haven't figured out where they keep the cheese ...

Good for newly-weds and college kids. Once you can afford to actually buy good stuff you realize how cpappy they are.