Building a Swedish House in the middle of Montana has necessarily required travel south to Utah. IKEA Draper is just south of Salt Lake City and is home to a touch of Sweden from its Restaurant and Deli to the extensive showrooms and fully stocked warehouse. Cynthia and I have twice made the 800 mile trip in our Subaru and have spent much of 3 full days shopping at IKEA.

A year ago we made the journey and returned with a U-Haul filled with over 127 cartons of IKEA kitchen components. Assembly took some time but now we have an incredible and wonderfully efficient kitchen!

Our most recent trip brought us to IKEA Draper last November on the Friday after Thanksgiving- a rather busy shopping day. We spent all afternoon Friday and all day on Saturday checking merchandise, reviewing designs with staff and filling carts with cartons from the self-serve warehouse isles. It was both delightful and exhausting.

As I continue to finish trim and molding work throughout the house I also continue to open cartons to assembly IKEA furniture and cabinets, lighting and shelving. I would say I am rather experienced at interpreting IKEA assembly instructions.

Of the nearly 300 boxes and small bags of parts, screws, tools and bolts, I continue to be amazed every part required has been included and every part fits where it should and every piece of IKEA furniture looks great when assembled.

Until last Saturday! I was half-way into the assembly of the HEMNES shoe cabinet (white, two compartment) when I couldn’t find the part I needed from those set out across the floor of the sun room. I stopped and looked carefully and suddenly realized I was missing SEVERAL pieces! How could this be? IKEA has never let me down like this. How could multiple parts be missing?

Wait a minute. When I opened the box it was a typical IKEA package. The parts all fit together in the carton with absolute minimum wasted space. There was no room in the box for even one more small part.

It dawned on me. There must have been two boxes of parts for this cabinet, just like some of the kitchen cabinets that came in three, four or more packages for easier handling of the heavy components. Cynthia and I checked every package still in our storage area and there were no HEMNES boxes. I checked the computer and my receipts and the mistake was obvious and it was my mistake. I forgot to pick up both boxes when in the warehouse in Draper. I had left half of my cabinet 800 miles behind in Draper.

No problem. Even though it was clearly my mistake, Marie and Natalie were quick to answer my email and to provide help from the IKEA Customer Care Center. They confirmed my address and receipt number and date of shopping in Draper and sent a request for assistance straight off to the store in Draper.

George called me from Draper about an hour later. His call went to my voice mail as I was helping Julia and Steffen at their house set up their new IKEA PAX storage units that they had recently purchased. Our whole family is into IKEA. When we talked to Sigrid and Olle Saturday in Stockholm, they had just returned from IKEA with a new crib mattress for Lilian!

I returned the call to George and he picked up the phone and quickly confirmed details with me. He assured me it was no problem and the parts I needed would be Fed Ex’d to me first thing Monday morning.

Thanks George! Thanks Marie! Thanks Natalie. Thank you IKEA Customer Care!