Nebrask Furniture Mart Balck Friday 2017

For many people, a trip to Ikea inspires a special kind of anxiety. In that location's something almost being herded through 320,000 foursquare feet of cheap furniture that has a unique ability to inspire screaming matches, marital discord, and the occasional existential crunch. But Ikea pales in comparison to Nebraska Furniture Mart, a sprawling dwelling decor caricature situated in The Colony, a short drive abroad from Dallas, Texas.

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The Berkshire Hathaway-endemic retailer occupies 560,000 square feet in the suburb, where information technology sells more furniture than any of the minor chain's three other stores. It'south headquartered in Omaha, only Nebraska Furniture Mart fits in perfectly in Dallas, and for skilful reason. The city's real estate market is booming, thanks to the inflow of major corporate headquarters like Boeing, Jacobs Technology, and Toyota, and an influx of coastal expats tired of paying rents in San Francisco and New York. More than 800,000 people accept moved to Dallas and its surrounding suburbs since 2010, and they've all got homes that need to be furnished and decorated.

Nebraska Article of furniture Mart sells itself equally a ane-end shop of sorts for those Texas newcomers, a place where Midwestern housewives and trendy millennials alike can observe the perfect couch or dining table. The store peddles a mass-market version of the American Dream, and it isn't shy well-nigh its directly-upward-the-middle appeal.

After making the 30-mile drive to The Colony and finding a space in the gigantic parking lot, I notice the big white letters on the store'southward facade: "America's Dwelling house Furnishing Store." Intentionally, this is a identify where people of all stripes, budget limitations, and design aesthetics can converge to buy a table lamp, refrigerator, headboard, or lawnmower. The incredible number of items on offer—offset with a wall of brightly colored KitchenAid mixers that makes for a solid selfie backdrop—is dizzying. I realize quickly that I'k going to need either benzodiazepines or caffeine to survive a shopping trip of this magnitude.

I choose the latter, because walking through half a million square feet of furniture is an endurance sport. At Scooter's Coffee, a locally based concatenation stationed at the entrance, I order a Candy Bar Blender, the shop's version of a Frappuccino. When I make my option, the barista asks what kind of processed bar I'd like for my drink and begins listing off options—Almond Joy, peanut butter cup, Snickers, Heath bar, Butterfinger. I option Almond Joy because it'south the first option; I should accept realized that the listing was an omen of bizarre and uniquely overwhelming things to come.

While stirring the chocolate drizzle into my frappe, I notice that Joanna Gaines'southward wildly pop Magnolia Home line occupies major real manor near the entrance. Christmas decor, mostly festooned with pine cones and wintertime greenery, is a fixture of the display, which also features Gaines'southward yr-round decor, including woven pillows in muted neutrals ($89.99), down-domicile milk canteen totes in antiqued can ($eighteen.99), and a real-deal lemonade stand up ($199.99) that's made from fake-reclaimed wood and comes with its very ain "promotional crates" and a carte chalkboard. Atop i of the beds designed past Gaines, at that place's even a small brandish wall made of pallet woods in the style of the Fixer Upper host'due south beloved shiplap.

Nebraska Furniture Mart is designed from the flooring upwardly to appeal to Middle America. Alongside the value-produced furniture and Joanna Gaines'due south Magnolia Habitation, items branded with the names of country vocalist and domestic goddess Trisha Yearwood and nutrient personality Rachael Ray offering both familiarity and a tacit endorsement of the appurtenances on offer. These are personalities who have earned the trust of the American heart class. If those plates emblazoned with a chicken are good plenty for these downward-to-earth, "simply-like-us" celebrities, they're probably just the thing to elevate a 2-bedroom ranch business firm in the suburbs of Dallas.

Nebraska Piece of furniture Mart tries, in a dramatic way, to be the best of all worlds. In addition to televisions, laptops, vacuums, hair dryers, and other gadgets, there are enough appliances within Nebraska Furniture Mart to outfit every kitchen in America. In that location'south a range or dishwasher here at every toll point—the store's website confirms that 45 different types of dishwasher are currently in stock in The Colony's warehouse—starting at but $250. For swankier builds, at that place's the KitchenAid with "dynamic wash arms" that sports a sleek black exterior, minimalist stainless steel bar handle, and a $ane,200 toll tag. Outdoor kitchens go their own infinite, consummate with a $849 born stainless steel trash tin and vino chiller.

After spending a little besides much time wandering through the Magnolia Dwelling house display and getting thisclose to buying a bottle-brush Christmas tree ($eleven.99), I knew I needed to develop a game plan for actually seeing the rest of the store. Starting on one side of the Mart's beginning floor, I planned to weave up and down the aisles i by one, vowing to avoid getting distracted by items exterior of the planned left, right, and so center path. That didn't concluding long.

There'south a department congenital specifically to showcase Viking appliances, a favorite of the moneyed fix, where a cheery saleswoman in a sharp purple blue top gently tried to sell me an Italian-fabricated Viking Tuscany range that retailed for $16,759. Information technology was truly dreamy, painted in cobalt enamel, topped with six cast-iron gas burners and a griddle that could be configured to my specific cooking needs, along with two different ovens, 1 conventional and one convection, on the bottom. Co-ordinate to the saleswoman, each oven was custom-built in Italy, was available in a diversity of colors, and took at least two months to build. I told her I'd have to think about it.

And yet, there is more. The real point of coming to Nebraska Furniture Mart is to touch, feel, and sit on the thousands of couches, chairs, love seats, benches, ottomans, headboards, mattresses, coffee tables, and dinettes that litter the store'south 2nd flooring. More upscale offerings are staged as living rooms and dens, each with its specific wait. Eames knock-offs are paired with hairpin-leg coffee tables and midcentury-inspired sofas, while whitewashed headboards are paired with vases of seashells and linen bedding in an endeavour at Hamptons chichi. Fuzzy recliners, couches covered in everything from Naugahyde (ahem, vegan leather) to tweed, and dining tables decorated with scratched glassware offering a respite from pacing upwardly and downwards the aisles, unable to decide whether a crushed velour sofa that's the color of orange soda is quirky or tacky.

The furniture that is not arranged into those mannerly displays is squished into tight rows, 1 unremarkable recliner lined up against the adjacent. I don't understand how anyone comes to a conclusion with that many available options. How does one choose an easy chair—the easy chair—without sitting on every unmarried chair in the store? Even those weird, puffy "entertainment recliners" fabricated exclusively for dads that come with a cup holder, remote pocket, and born radio that only plays The Rush Limbaugh Show. For anyone with a diagnosed anxiety disorder or tendency toward perfectionism, Nebraska Furniture Mart is the perfect place to have a panic assault. At to the lowest degree there's somewhere to lie downwards while curled into the fetal position.

Despite their similarities in size and offerings, Nebraska Furniture Mart is the anti-Ikea. The two stores are fewer than four miles apart in Dallas-Fort Worth, just worlds unlike in appeal and aesthetic. Here, Swedish minimalism is swapped for classic, contemporary, mod, cottage, farmhouse chichi, traditional, anything that tin be seen on HGTV. Whatsoever your flavor, Nebraska Piece of furniture Mart does it—merely it doesn't practice it very well.

Looking closely at each piece, it quickly becomes apparent that quality is not the priority. Cease peels upwardly from the bottoms of table legs; an entertainment center fitted with a sliding barn door that glides to reveal subconscious bookshelves makes a screeching dissonance that would wake the dead. Teensy splinters of forest poke out precariously from the sides of anything with unfinished drawers or doors. Even the more expensive pieces, like a people's republic of china cabinet with mirrored doors priced at $999, testify scratches, dings, and other signs of wearable—not necessarily surprising for floor models, but information technology's articulate that in a habitation full of averagely clumsy adults and children, these are pieces that won't final long.

And perchance that'south the appeal: Nosotros all modify our minds and start following new design gurus and decide that maybe we don't actually want to live in a generic apartment that'south decorated like a whimsical barn. It's like shopping at H&1000 or Forever 21 and knowing that glittery mini wearing apparel isn't going to survive more than than 3 trips through the spin cycle. Outside of the mattresses and elevation-quality appliances from well-known brands similar Viking or KitchenAid, the furniture is more often than not fabricated of particle lath, staples, and faux finishes. Information technology is nearly entirely disposable, and that'southward the point—when farmhouse chic is over, it'due south easy enough to come back and gather an unabridged room with an entirely different await for nearly $2,000. (All of which, of course, can exist financed on a Nebraska Furniture Mart revolving credit carte du jour, with the store charging 18 pct involvement for its trouble.)

And in about cases, those quirks and scratches and dings are only visible up close. For Instagram photos and real manor showings, it doesn't matter if the sheepskin is actually polyester or the forest veneer is actually a sticker slapped on top of medium-density fiberboard. The young, new-to-Dallas professionals upgrading from Ikea are used to wiggly legs and drawers that never seem to open quite right. Even if it isn't neat, it is certainly skilful plenty.