Brandon and I moved our TV from the first floor up to the second a couple of months ago, but the seating had not followed suit. We had our brown corduroy glider with its rolled arms (not the prettiest, but so comfortable) side by side with our boxy mid-century-inspired white Petrie armchair. It worked, but… not really. We initially tried to bring our Jasper sofa upstairs (the beige sofa from the living room in our last house), but it would not fit up either set of stairs. Rather than finding a company to hack it apart and reassemble it (guaranteeing that the same would need to be done if we ever wanted to move it again), we sold the sofa on Craigslist. Three months later, we finally used that money to go buy a couch from IKEA. Because our only option for getting one upstairs is to get one that comes in pieces.That’s what took us so dang long. I couldn’t make up my mind. I like the lines of the Karlstad, but I would want to switch out the legs. This simple set is $36, and Pretty Pegs has fun options from $68-144, depending on the style.
Or the legs could be covered completely by a Bemz slipcover with a full skirt, which I like the look of. Then there was the Kivik. Similar in shape to the Karlstad, but with wide, padded arms. I actually like the width of the arms with the sofa is made longer with a chaise attachment, but I wasn’t crazy about them on the regular length version. The cushions are a little nicer than the Karlstad’s though (they have a top layer of memory foam), and I was sold on the arms as an additional spot to sit. Not all the time of course, but if we had a lot of people, a kid (or adult) could easily perch on the armrest as another seat. Plus when I asked about the Kivik on Twitter, someone said that it was an excellent napping couch. We went out to IKEA last night to test the two side by side, and come home with our new Kivik. We had to open the box in the loading zone and fit everything in the car piece by piece, but we managed to do it (just barely). Brandon and I assembled it while the kids were asleep, and when Eleanor saw it in place this morning, she was impressed.
“We BUILT it,” she exclaimed, accompanied by big eyes and a little circle mouth. (Um, we bolted a few pieces together and put a slipcover on. She and August then dove from each of the arms onto the cushions, taking turns so as not to bash their heads together. Everyone loves the new couch! And we got it up to the second floor! I kinda want to go take a nap on it. You know, to fully test it out and all.Browse the 2017 IKEA Catalog Also available for iPhone, Follow IKEA USA on:Ikea's new catalogue app allows customers to place 3-D versions of furniture in their homes. Image: IkeaThe physical catalogue acts as an anchor for the virtual furniture and a way to gauge the correct scale for the products shown on screen. The hardest part about buying furniture from Ikea is not constructing it. It’s making sure it’s going to look good in your home. The truth is, most of us are not equipped with the trained eye of an interior designer, which can lead to some regrettable purchases.
That’s where Ikea’s new catalog app comes in handy. Using augmented reality, the app allows customers to visualize 3-D versions of Ikea’s furniture in their homes. So the sofas, tables, desks and chairs that you’d otherwise have to eyeball (or if you’re the planning type, pre-measure), can now be virtually placed into a room, ultimately making the planning process much more accurate and the chance of you schlepping a 50-pound box back to Ikea much less likely. The way it works is this: Customers flip through the print catalog, and when they come across a plus symbol on a page, they hover their phone or tablet over it until a screen pops up asking them to scan the images on the page. At that point users will see the bonus features, which could be a 360-degree view of a room, videos, additional product information, or the option to place a piece of furniture in their room. They place the physical catalog in the spot where they envision their new love seat. There are only around 100 products available for the 3-D augmented reality option, which in the grand scheme of a 300-plus page catalog doesn’t amount to much.
But the furniture that was chosen—generally larger centerpieces like sofas and chairs—make a lot of sense as the primary options. When customers find the piece they’d like to test out, they place the physical catalog in the spot where they envision their new love seat, and the device’s camera uses the book as both an anchor and a way to gauge the correct scale for the products shown on screen. Since 2011, Ikea has tied their annual catalog to a mobile app with the hopes that it will make the shopping process easier and more fun, which one can assume will ultimately lead to more purchases and revenue for the store. Every year, the product team assesses how the app was previously used and how it could be improved for the next catalog launch. “We’re looking at how it’s been used and what are the improvements that can be done,” says Mattias Jöngard, Ikea’s Global Communication Integration Manager. “The technology or the functions themselves are not are not really the driving force.
Rather, it’s how can it add value to our consumers?” Ikea did a little digging into their customers’ habits and found that around 14 percent of people have bought a wrong-sized piece of furniture and more than 70 percent of people don’t know how big their homes really are. Last year, Ikea introduced an augmented reality function that allowed customers to scan the page for added content like videos, full-room views, and decorating tips. This year’s version was a bigger tech push, requiring the company to fine-tune their 3-D imaging. “It’s not the easiest thing to make material look and feel as in real life,” says Pontus Sjöberg, product manager for the app. “We needed to decide how much quality and detail do we want? And how much weight should the models have?” More than 70 percent of people don’t know how big their homes really are. Ikea worked with their 3-D specialists to nail the texture of organic textiles, and for the most part, the images are passably realistic.
At least to the point where you could imagine if that green sofa you’ve been eyeing looks as good in your living room as it does on page. “One of the challenges was to find the right combination between speed and quality,” Jöngard says, adding that the right balance was imperative for making sure the app didn’t feel clunky. When I used the app to place a sofa near the window in the WIRED New York office, it took me a while to figure out how to position my iPad so that the piece of furniture didn’t appear as though it was sitting on top of my coworker. The augmented reality function is cool, and it really is handy, but at least for me it took a little finessing to figure out the right placement and scale. The app’s other features, particularly the time-lapse images that allow you to watch a room being decorated piece-by-piece, are gorgeous and a great way to get some inspiration for your own home. Which, Sjöberg says, is the whole point. “I think this application should always try to enrich the catalog and enrich the experience for consumers—and that is an ongoing journey.”