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Around 5,000 hopefuls logged on for the chance to sleep over in the furniture store’s Sydney pop up. Caitlin Cassidy scored a coveted stay, but could she keep her sanity?
If you came of age in the early 2000s, you have probably seen 500 Days of Summer, an indie romcom that romanticised Ikea showrooms as the perfect place for a date.
It was thanks to this film that I jumped at the chance to sleep over in what is effectively an Ikea showroom. The caveat being, I would do so alone and, instead of kookily standing in a waterless shower and pretending to cook in a fake kitchen, the taps would work.
My trip was pitched by Ikea as the “ultimate designer staycation” in an inner-Sydney home that has been fully kitted out with the furniture behemoth’s latest Post Scriptum (PS) collection, a limited line now in its 10th edition, that celebrates “playful functionality” and “progressive design”.
Over the June long weekend, Ikea offered stays at the luxury property for $19.95 a night, a homage to the year Ikea PS launched. The fee – the press release notes – is “less than the price of two servings of Ikea meatballs”. The four remaining stays sold out in less than a minute, with more than 5,000 people in line for tickets.
Arriving on Wednesday afternoon, I am among the first people in Australia to sample the new assortment of furniture and decor.
It took 48 hours and 12 staff to assemble and style the 105 Ikea items in the house, a spokesperson said. This included blowing up an easy chair with a pump that I later found inside a coffee table (the pump, not the chair). I’m thrilled I don’t have to spend several hours musing over a manual and slowly losing my will to live during my stay.
My initial thought upon check-in is that I am hallucinating inside a Scandinavian kindergarten. The blocks of colour are almost aggressively cheerful – green sofas, blue dining room chairs, a red clock shaped like a bent tube.
Six hollow-eyed, pastel face masks hang in the entertaining area. They look like paper plates that have been hole punched. They give me a vague sense of discomfort mixed with fear.
The home’s contents range from $4.99 for the alarming wall decorations to $799 for a chic three-seat sofabed, but given the exclusivity of the PS range – the previous, ninth edition was in 2017 – some of these items could end up developing cult followings and skyrocketing in price.
Head of communications at Ikea Australia and New Zealand, Patricia Routledge, says: “The Ikea PS 2026 collection delivers that ‘wow, I didn’t see that coming’ moment, something surprising, optimistic, playful and brave, while always staying affordable.”
My “wow, I didn’t see that coming” moment arrives when I discover that, for reasons incomprehensible to me, the “personality-packed” jugs have protruding ears.
I count seven of them scattered throughout the three-bedroom property, and five clocks – making me acutely aware of the passing of time. I also feel I am being listened to by a vase.
There are also 12 identical copies of Swedish memoir Musikens Betydelse For Flickor – reminding me I am in a constructed space. This is not a library, these are props.
The flowers in the ear-vases, however, are real, which I discover by frantically pinching a daffodil. It reaffirms, at least temporarily, my own existence. I am not a mannequin, I am a human. I have a life outside this immaculately created stage-set, a partner, a dog.
As night descends, things get weird.
I have tapped all the shelving with a small hammer to ensure it is made of 100% pine, bent and twisted the floor lamps to my satisfaction and rearranged the sofa into a bed. I have even attempted to hang a foldable chair on the wall as a “bold, sculptural piece”, as encouraged on the press release.
In the words of my friend in a group chat: “Individually a lot of these pieces are cute but collectively I would feel INSANE living amongst so many”.
Then, in a moment of madness, or profound sanity, I knock on the walls to check they’re actually made of brick, and not some kind of synthetic board that will crumble upon my touch, exposing me to a warehouse, or another, identical, showroom.
The brick is hard against my knuckles. Investigating further, the facade that I am living in an all-Ikea universe crumbles.
The towels, linens, cutlery and kitchenware are all from Ikea, but not the toilet paper, toilet (fortunately fully functional rather than display), laundry liquid or bin liners.
I have been given an assortment of Ikea branded snacks and drinks, including a bottle of what I thought was champagne but is actually dryck bubbel paron (sparkling pear drink), but the fridge is from Fisher & Paykel, and the television is a Samsung.
Lying in my Ikea bed after turning off my dimmable Ikea lamp on my Ikea side-table, I reminisce about a more familiar Ikea, one that feels like a tired inevitability, rather than a trend.
My Ikea is simple: a $1.99 bin and a KALLAX shelving unit, bought for $15, that has followed me through share-houses for a decade, usually filled with secondhand records and covered in grime.
I wake the next morning and leave early, eager to return to a home that may not be much, but is mine. Then I plan an after work trip to Ikea. I want that PS floor lamp.
