Chesapeake Home

New dining and living room display at IKEA Baltimore.

Thursday morning,  I headed to IKEA Baltimore to join other media types for a sneak preview of IKEA’s 2011 catalog. If you’ve ever been to an IKEA, you know they are sort of laid out like casinos — the walkways lead past what they want you to see, maybe not necessarily what you came looking for.  The benefit of this is that the first few room settings one sees when entering any IKEA store have been designed to show off what’s new.  At the preview, we were given a tour of five new designer rooms that coordinated new lighting, accessories and furnishings with items from previous catalog years. The 2011 focus seems to be all about organization.  We previewed rooms for single women on a budget, the successful bachelor, the active family, and others, but the common goals of organization, multi-function, and versatility were guiding factors for the design of every room, regardless of style.  2011 is also all about media–storing and organizing the flat screen TVs, high-def receivers, Blu-ray players, Xboxes, and more in an attractive functional way.

No surprise (even though I’m a married man) the bachelor’s room appealed to me most.  The all white, black, and dark chocolate scheme had a comfortable stylish, modern, appeal.  Probably not safe for kids, but perfect for setting a sophisticated tone. The large, open dining and living room was also really successful as it incorporates a ton of products and really shows how different peices coordinate.