Purchasing BILLY

Together with Johan’s one & a half year old daughter Liv, John & Johan completed their first assignment.  Travelling by car, John wanted to do some driving shots, but it was so cold that we had difficulties getting the windows down.

This was not our first trip to IKEA, of course, but there was a different feel to the store than that described by Alan Penn. In fact, at the exit to the store there is a nice flowchart that shows how store congestion varies depending on the time of day and day of the week. With not so many people around, it was quite a pleasurable stroll, and my daughter enjoyed running up and down the ramps, in particular.

Before moving on to the bookshelf showroom, we had some coffee and buns (kanelbullar) for only 10 crowns total!

At the showroom we found that the red Billy is out of stock and out of production, but luckily the blue Billy was less than half price at 195 SEK, regularly priced at 395 SEK. There were only 6 left, so we got lucky. Here we are at the Billy showroom.

Then we were ready to find our “open your wallet” piece at less than 10 SEK. We first tried a tiny stuffed snake for 9 SEK, but Liv didn’t like it, so we settled on a white toilet brush for 4 SEK. That was quite bargain, and also a necessary piece of equipment in Sweden, as John will tell you. He is currently developing one with a folding handle that you can put in your backpack.

Then it was time for lunch. Since we got the Billy for half price Johan decided to spluge, while John stuck to the 16 SEK meatball deal.

We also got 11 metal handles for 9 SEK each, which seemed to good a deal to pass up, since they had originally cost 99 SEK each!

Then it was time to pay and pick up our Billy. It was very heavy and we were lucky to have a car. Before we left we had our picture taken in Småland.

It almost felt like we were back in Rotterdam again!