He Died on My Birthday in 2018: INGVAR KAMPRAD

Here he is in a billboard-sized picture with Wes standing next to him. The founder of IKEA whose first selling job came at age five when he sold matches and by 17 had started his own company selling French pens. The company was named 

The acronym IKEA comes from his first and last initials and the family farm (Elmtaryd) where he was born and the nearby village (Agunnaryd) where he was raised.
On Saturday, we had a road trip - a fall foliage spectacular - to visit the
IKEA Museum
in Almhult, Sweden. It was well worth the visit!
The museum is located where the first IKEA store opened in 1958.
Check out the crowd, the cars and the snow!

The exhibit space started out with vignettes from the past that we found so interesting...and relatable as our ancestors knew this lifestyle:
 
 
 This vignette had both the originals and the "inspirations" for IKEA design.
 

 Carl and Karin Larsson's designs certainly had a lot to do with the IKEA aesthetics as well.
(No wonder I love both!)

 If you have visited my home, you can see a trunk just like this one used for immigration from Sweden to America.

(Made from wood and embossed tin with a humpback lid, my trunk at home is not from our family lineage. I bought it from Swedish seniors in our church who were downsizing their family treasures.)

We continued forward in the exhibit with timelines and product development. Here we see 
IKEA's products from the 50s & 60s:
Did you know that originally IKEA women on staff wore uniforms and walked around with clipboards in the store to help plan out designs such as this one?
Me either!  You can tell, though, that economical use of space was consistent with the IKEA designs of today. And those light fixtures? Love 'em!

Before taking a lunch break, Wes took the opportunity to sit at Ingvar's vintage desk.


Note the accent mark over the e.  Ingvar thought that made the company sound more French in the early years of IKEA.

Okay then...lunch time.  Will the museum lunch room offer what we can get in the regular stores?
NO!  
Just meatballs in five different varieties and we chose the traditional with potatoes, vegetables  and
fresh lingonberries with peas and pickles.


 The dessert?  Black bean chocolate cake.
Simply scrumptious.
Back to the museum we go for a walk through rooms of the past.






The last stop we visited was a walk-on set of a lovely room.

There was a camera set up on a tripod, a red button to push and a printer to spit out a catalog-worthy cover of the posers:  us! (I went with and without Wes.)


Nearby, there is a real IKEA store and even an IKEA outlet store.
It was just so much fun to see that Christmas decor has arrived with an adorable woodsy animal and mushroom theme.



We had the best time on this IKEA day...
Might I be the first to wish you

God Jul
???



 

Comments

  1. UnknownOctober 24, 2018 at 2:18 PM

    What fun to travel through the IKEA museum with you! We don't have an IKEA store nearby, but we do have an IKEA dresser (blue) in our bedroom. It was one of the few new purchases when we downsized to our retirement community "cottage". Going through the exhibits with you almost made me feel like I was back in Sverige again :) Cousin Barbara

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