Lifestyle

10 Interesting Facts about IKEA You Probably Didn’t Know of

2017-03-18 , 5:14 pm

Still remember your last DIY project? By DIY, we mean IKEA furniture assembling.

There’s more to IKEA than its popular furniture (and meatballs, if you will), so here’re some interesting facts.

1. IKEA is a sentimental acronym

We hope you didn’t really think IKEA was a name by itself (although many in the office think that way). The brand is actually an acronym that stands for Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd. Ingvar Kamprad is the founder, Elmtaryd the farm he grew up from, while Agunnaryd is the town he came from. Kind of sweet of him to do so.

2. IKEA’s founder was once a Nazi supporter

With a grandmother who looked up to Hitler, Kampard was influenced to support him as well. Still, IKEA’s founder emphasises that it was a mistake on his part,” and he even sent a handwritten letter to employees, hoping they would forgive him.

3. IKEA founder Kamprad is dyslexic

Dyslexia is a reading disorder, and supposedly numbering the products would make them difficult to read. Thus the products being named rather than numbered. Anyway, the names of different furniture products actually sound cool, with beds named after Norwegian locations and sofas being named after Swedish towns.

4. There are more copies of the IKEA catalogue printed each year than the Bible.

Imagine that! Now you know why everyone seems to have one of these in their house – not the Bible, but an IKEA catalogue.

5. IKEA is building a 27-acre town in East London.

A whole neighbourhood built by a single company could go in vastly different directions. Their idealistic urbanisation plan is actually rather admirable, given that they are hoping to cater those in need of housing rather than let the houses become something premium.

6. IKEA was the first company in 1994 to portray a gay couple in its adverisement.

Seeing as the issue of homosexuality is still being dealt with by people with contrasting views, 1994 couldn’t have been any easier. IKEA’s campaign featured a gay couple shopping for furniture, a first for any company back then, showing how ahead of the times they were. Now, in 2017, it should no longer be a problem, but back in 1994, you could imagine how it was like.

7. If you live in Scandinavia or the UK, you can buy an IKEA home.

Have you ever if you could assemble a house the way you assembled your furniture? For Scandinavia and the UK, a DIY house is now reality. With a flat pack, you can piece together your dream home bit by bit. We wonder when we can do that in Singapore, with the increasingly limited space.

But at least IKEA has “showrooms” that show you how to assemble your HDB flat into an IKEA home.

8. It’s estimated that one in 10 Europeans were conceived on an IKEA bed.

Put any 10 Europeans together and you know for sure what kind or brand of bed one of them was made on. Out of so many furniture brands, IKEA is still used by such a large portion of people! Uh… TIL?

9. IKEA’s founder started the business when he was 17

The average 17-year-old might still be studying. But Ingvar Kamprad launched IKEA at that age, selling small pieces of furniture, like picture frames. All the way till he’s 89, his company has stood firm and has received worldwide recognition.

10. IKEA has sold more than 11 billion Swedish meatballs, since 1960, just for the UK

Alright, no one can say no to their meatballs, right? UK residents certainly couldn’t, chalking a huge amount of meatballs for years. Heh, Singapore might not be far behind.

All this talk has made us want to dive into the wonderland of furniture (we’re not going for the meatballs, of course not…but it won’t hurt to just have a few while we’re there).

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Featured Image: Abdul Razak Latif / Shutterstock.com

This article was first published on goodyfeed.com