Anyone who is a fan of furniture should be a fan of IKEA. In a wavering economy, one appreciates the small battles won. Well friends, the battle for overpriced furniture has come to an end in Colorado. For those who have succumbed to frugal lifestyles—IKEA is the place for you, AND is opening in the Denver Metro area in 2011.

Not only will IKEA blow the minds of Coloradoans, but will employ just over 400 people and be housed in an over 415,000 square foot location.  Headed by Saunders Construction, the new retail madhouse will be located on a lot on the west side of I-25 near Park Meadows. Construction crews will begin clearing ground for building and anticipate breaking ground in a couple of months.

Building Colorado based IKEA has launched community-wide involvement in the project. CLC Associates will head the civil design, Kimley Horn Associates will do traffic consulting, Ground Engineering will handle environmental analysis, Johnson Robinson Neff & Ragonetti will serve as local counsel, Legend Retal Group is helping site selection process , Geothermal Systems of Colorado is installing a geothermal component and last but not least Miller Global is selling the IKEA plot of land.

Colorado’s location will hold the classic IKEA look that all stores have around the globe but will differ from any other location in the United States in its incorporation of geothermal components for heating and cooling system.

IKEA will have 1,500 parking spots and is expected to have 50 different room settings. A variety of model home interiors will feature over 10,000 items. Also, the kids can come along! IKEA prides itself on its supervised children’s playroom and 500 seat restaurant. This makes for an awesome day of shopping and recharging.

IKEA, founded in 1943, has more than 300 stores in 38 countries.

Here at Exodus we are all about finding ways of treading lightly on the planet as a moving company. We use durable bins when moving customers, wooden shelves on wheels for office moves instead of boxes, and we offer recycled boxes giving them a second life and reducing our resources. When we came across an article explaining what designers Diogo Aguiar and Teresa Ott did with their used storage boxes, we had to feature it on our blog.

What do you get when you put 420 IKEA boxes, LED lights and a metal base together? How about a 15-foot-high bar that has funk, character and uniqueness. The appropriately named structure; Temporary Bar, was constructed for a competition organised by the architecture faculty at the Universidade do Porto in Portugal. Finished in just one week with the help of students, this bar stands tall and proud in Parque da Cidade, Porto, Portugal.

Next time you move, think about the endless possibilities you could do to reuse those boxes instead of throwing them in a land fill. Moving somewhere dry and need to get rid of your umbrella(s)? Bars are not only made out of recycled boxes, but can also make a bar too, like the Bucky Bar in Rotterdam. Talk about creativity and reusing! This project references the famed geodesic domes of the late American architect Buckminster Fuller and attracted 300 visitors before the police intervened at 2 am on February 19^th, 2010.

Morale of the story, whether you are moving or not, look around your house and before you throw anything out, see if you can reuse it for something else, or donate it to someone else that could put it to good use.