I’ve noticed a few hits on these pictures, but somewhere along the line I have made a mistake and they were meant to be in a post, but I can’t find where so I figured I would post them separately.
Unfortunately most people in NZ won’t understand this because we still don’t have an IKEA store anywhere, and I don’t believe we’re going to see one for a while yet. But if you have seen some assembly instructions for any of the IKEA flat pack furniture, these characters will have some meaning.
Enjoy!
I see the Herald is running with the latest in a long string of IKEA rumours, and have headlined it…
Furniture maker Ikea eyes south Auckland site
It’s not until you read the article that you realise this is third hand, possibly fourth hand information based on an article in the Independent, and stuff.co.nz puts the rumours into perspective.
Once again the company has no response, and no one can actually confirm the rumour or provide anything to indicate it might be credible. So once again we are left guessing about whether or not this is true.
In the last few years IKEA has been picked to go into; Botany Downs, Sylvia Park, Albany Centre, South of Pukekohe, Mount Wellington somewhere, and now Manukau.
I’ll leave it to everyone to draw their own conclusions but once again we seem to have some pretty unhelpful reporting with little in the way of firm evidence.
The only area apparently not about to get an IKEA is West Auckland…
I’d heard (from sources so secret and obscure I can’t reveal them) IKEA were looking at land near the new western motorway extension near Massey because it’ll give consumers access from North Shore, West Auckland and when the South Western Highway is hooked up, South Auckland. Real Estate agents have declined to comment and claim to know nothing about this rumour, but there are some huge blocks of land there being re-zoned by Waitakere City Council. IKEA have not confirmed this (because they have never responded to any of my emails about stores in NZ anyway) and so this is as good a basis for a rumour than any of the the other ones started in the last two years.
You read it here first 
As I have previously mentioned, I imported an Ikea kitchen (and bathroom) into NZ from Australia.
A month on from completion (barring the tiling) I thought I would update everyone on the experience.
There have only been two problems so far…
1/. We didn’t put any oil for the oak tops in the container, I’d had enough of Ikea after spending two days in there and I figured my partner could pick up a can next time she was over in Australia. In theory this was fine, but she declared the can when she was checking in and they wouldn’t allow it on the flight and odds on they would have picked it up when checking luggage – it’s flamable.
So no oil. I thought that shouldn’t be a problem, finding some food grade oil for a wooden kitchen top should be easy right? Well no, it’s actually not been that easy at all. None of the easily available oils – Tung, Linseed, etc are not food grade, in fact they are toxic.
In the end I found an oil online, ‘Osmo Top Oil‘, sold by Natural Oils Ltd. You just brush a couple of layers onto the surface and it absorbs into the wood so there’s not visible layer and like the oil Ikea supplies. It’s not cheap but I only used a tiny bit and you need to keep doing it every now and again. This was the only oil I could find that was food safe.
2/. Dishwasher. The Bravad range sink unit allows for a concealed dishwasher, there is a front supplied for it so it all matches up. I guess this is because Ikea sell a whirlpool dishwasher that fits perfectly into the unit. Over here however that’s not so easy, or cheap. The only concealed dishwashers were $1300 plus so we just used our existing one which fits fine.
So if you’re bringing over a pallet or container with some Ikea units, put a can of oil in there and spend the extra money and put the dishwasher in as well.
Everything else has been fine. Plumbing was a breeze.
As far as Ikea coming to Auckland, sorry people, it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen until the population hits at least two million, get busy making babies!
Here’s a couple of photo’s of completed kitchen, almost, expelair just needs to go up…
Well, in our kitchen anyway…
Just an update. Everything arrived intact, including all the glass doors. We had a wooden box made ( http://www.crating.com.au/ ) which was worth the extra money going by the state of the box after it was delivered. The company was very well organised and helpful, and they take credit cards so everything can be organised ‘remotely’.
We have brought over a Bravad Kitchen, additional kitchen cupboards, lighting (some cool LED ones) a couple of tables and chairs, and a Lonen Bathroom. ( http://www.ikea.com/ms/en_AU/complete_kitchen_guide/get_inspired/index.html ) I have assembled most of the kitchen and can confirm that it is very well made – it has been manufactured in Denmark and Sweden and everything fits together perfectly and it well constructed. Better design than some of the standard flat pack kitchens available locally.
There is a 7% import tax plus GST that you will need to be aware of, and I couldn’t find any way of getting the Australian GST refunded easily, but despite that it was still cheaper and better looking that anything similar locally.
We were lucky in that we had a warehouse to send everything to before the crate was built around it. The process would be to talk to a freight forwarder first (we used http://www.mgl.net.nz/ ) as you may need to get the goods delivered to a warehouse, possibly the crate making company, then get them crated and sent to the freight forwarder to arrange the shipment. It sounds more complicated than it is but you were bringing in a couple of tables it wouldn’t be worth the effort. We brought over 1200kg of kitchen, bathroom and general furniture – which took up two standard pallets.
Everything comes carefully packed from IKEA and I guess it’s had to come right the way around the world so it needs to be packed well. You’ll still need a crate and insurance.
If you’re committed and are doing some serious house renovations and want something different looking for your kitchen and bathroom etc, then I recommend this. Any questions? post a comment and I’ll help where I can.
There’s been a bit posted on bloggs here and in the media over the last 12 months about IKEA coming to Auckland.
There is a common thread in all the rumour – none of it has anything official from IKEA or the IKEA franchise owner. You’d think that if you actually owned the franchise and were opening one up, you’d be pumping the free publicity for all it was worth.
There have been a number of sites rumoured, from Mount Wellington to Albany, a bit of digging shows that actually none of these were serious. There’s one thing for a developer to say they’d like IKEA to be there (who wouldn’t) or that their site “would be perfect for IKEA”, but that’s entirely different from a franchise holder saying “we are opening an IKEA here”, or someone is “looking at an IKEA for this site” – well I could rock up and say, “hey, this would be a good site for an IKEA”, but in reality that means sod-all doesn’t it?
My understanding of the situation (from someone at IKEA in Homebush) is that the franchise for NZ is held by the individual who hold the franchise in Perth, I guess IKEA must have figured NZ was a insignificant speck and gave it to them at the same time. The franchise holder has apparently shown little interest in NZ because of the commitments in Australia, or to on-selling the franchise.
This makes sense, the catchment areas in Australia service a population levels that match the entire population in NZ, and apparently IKEA have some pretty strict guidelines on the level of population that an IKEA store would need to service it. It is highly likely that at this point Auckland doesn’t achieve this and looking at IKEA’s overseas they always service at least two to three times the population area of greater Auckland (including Hamilton).
Setting up an IKEA is hugely expensive and the low prices obviously depend on a high turnover, you’d want to be sure of that before you made the huge investment required.
My pick is that IKEA is unlikely to arrive here until the population in Auckland hits 2 million.
Don’t despair, you can actually bring in IKEA gear. I have just imported an entire kitchen and bathroom from Homebush IKEA. Doing the sums we got a better looking kitchen and bathroom significantly cheaper than a pretty standard looking kit-set one from the likes of Mitre10 or Placemakers. As it all comes flat packed we got everything on a double pallet which cost about AUD800 to bring in. Even including air fares and a weekend in Sydney, shipping and the crate we saved about $3-4,000+ and got something of comparable or better quality and far better looking that was was available locally. There is a bit of fiddling around as you have to arrange the freight, but there are companies who can arrange the shipping etc and it’s not that bad if you are set on the IKEA option. I know someone else who got a whole container and did their whole house.
We waited a year for IKEA to appear and after doing some digging I discovered that it was unlikely to appear here in the near future so took the second best option. If anyone wants some help or recommendations I’m happy to give them if you want to import your own shipment.
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