Furniture! After seeing this last year, we finally got a day to go out to the new oddly-placed Raymour & Flanigan right next to the giant Ikea store. Good for them to think they could challenge the mighty Ikea! At the very least, there's a huge parking lot here for everybody who needs furniture.
See the corner of the building over there? The Blue one? That's the Ikea. The Raymour & Flanigan building looks pretty big, but still a little smaller than the Ikea. Wonder what kind of furniture we'll see?
You know how the Dr. Who phone booth is "bigger on the inside"? Well... this is the exact opposite of that. The outside of the building looks immense but inside it's rather non-impressive. First of all, it's only one floor. Looks like it could have been two stories, but it just has a very very high ceiling. And it's all one single big open room, not a vast maze like the Ikea right next door.
I thought I would have another huge store to explore, but honestly there was not much to see. We did a lap around the store and that's about it. I suppose if we actually needed furniture, it might have been more interesting, but as far as exploring goes... enjoy the one big room!
I feel like I should have gotten more pictures, but we still wanted to go to the Ikea... Hey, here's a table that looks like some evil supervillains would discuss stuff around it. I don't know if you can't see it in this picture, but those chairbacks are really tall.
The Floor & Decor was also new and complete, but we couldn't think of any reason to go explore over there. We almost went over only because it's the old Toys R Us building, maybe next time.
Well.. let's check out the Ikea! We've been here before, but there's always cool stuff to check out. I don't remember if the giant revolving door was here last time or not. But it's gone. There used to be a super-big revolving door in the entrance.
If you were worried that the Ikea is not a giant maze to explore, it still is. the entrance leads you up the escalator so you start on the upper floor. They want to make sure you go through the whole maze and not just the bit you were looking for.
One cool thing about Ikea is the display rooms, set up like real rooms. We went there on a random Thursday so it was not very busy, so we placed me in the room somewhere so we can play a little game of "Where's Minty?" for a few pictures. Can you find me in this picture?
It almost looks like these pictures are just taken in random friend's houses, but we're still in the Ikea store. Pretty sure everything in this display room is available for purchase here! Maybe not the TV. Did you find me? I'm small in these pictures so I might be a little blurry.
Just don't look up at the ceilings. Those are the giveaways for being in the store. Everything else looks like it's a real house. In an weird way, it makes you feel like just going home to relax. And then you turn around... boom! You're still in the store! AHHHH!
Check out the stairway. What, are we in the basement or something? I'm hiding in this picture somewhere. Should I be giving hints? Minty hints? Mints? I'm pretty blurred in the background somewhere, so if you think... that's probably Minty, it probably is.
Check it out! They are building a room! I tried to take a picture while they weren't looking but that person turned around right in time to catch me. They're all wearing masks... remember the Covid times? When we all had to wear masks?
Back to the "Where's Minty?" pictures. Here's a kitchen with a strange bench area on the other side of that sink. At first it looks like that bench is perfect for a smaller kitchen but if you look at it, the kitchen area would actually need to be pretty big to fit that whole island thing in it in the first place.
Busted! Just like we thought, the faucet can be turned right around to soak whoever sits on the bench! My friend's old apartment had a similar foolish sink placement where he could run the water right onto the carpet if he really wanted to.
Are those chairs wearing dresses? We laughingly thought about peeking under them to see the chairs, like that seemed like it would be naughty or perverted somehow, haha.
OH! I want curtains in my room! As a matter of fact... curtains everywhere!
Those lights looked like they were made out of crumpled-up paper and could burst into flames any minute. Perfect for your kid's room!
Glowing wall flowers? Hey, if you are going to be a Wallflower, you might as well be glowing!
Is there a hidden message on this chalkboard? We looked around but there was no chalk to use. Looks like it might have been like a kid scribble thing but it was too high up for them anyway.
The restaurant area was still open, but there was a greeter at the entrance who was going to seat us and take our order or something. We told her we only wanted to peek out the windows, and she got all paranoid and told us not to touch anything. But she still let us go.
You can see the New Jersey Turnpike out the windows here, on the other side is the Newark Airport. There was a family near enough to overhear that they saw a "Star Wars Plane". Which was probably on it's way to or from Disney World. You only have to wait for a moment to catch a plane taking off or landing.
We were going to take a picture of the kitchen area, which seemed totally empty, when the host lady ran over to awkwardly stop us. Like we were some scummy newspaper reporters trying to bust them on something, and she had to stop us! 'Scuse me! 'scuse me! The moment was very strange, but no big deal. I grabbed another picture from further away outside the window. And now this story is about the uncomfortable-moment lady, and not the kitchen or food.
I'm almost 100% sure that they are not selling REAL animal fur rugs, but even if it's fake animal fur, that still seems quite barbaric, right? I was all sorts of uncomfortable even looking at this hideous thing.
