Swedish home decor retailer IKEA will harness a little sun power in Costa Mesa, and has applied for permits to install solar panels at their store, according to the Daily Pilot. "The 1,120 panels the store plans to install are expected to generate 250 kilowatts — enough to light up 2,500 regular light bulbs." Seven IKEA stores, including other LA-area locations in Burbank and Carson, and one warehouse will be going solar. "This effort represents the equivalent to reducing 5,268 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) in California - equaling the emissions of 914 cars or providing 580 homes electricity yearly," says IKEA. more ›

How Bay Area-based artist Michele Pred spent her Black Friday, via her website: "On Black Friday I shopdropped 10 hand signed prints of my artwork at IKEA in Emeryville, CA. Shopdropping is the opposite of shoplifting where merchandise is covertly placed in a store for display and sale. The prints are available for sale at IKEA for $8." By Saturday, they were all sold. The art is an image of a mobile phone interactive 2D Barcode--called Mobile Tagging--in IKEA's color scheme. more ›

Everybody should know by now that one of the secrets of lasting through a shopping trip to Ikea is making a pit stop at their cafeteria, which features whimsical Scandinavian delicacies like Swedish meatballs and lingonberry jam. The Burbank location even has a well-stocked food market where you can pick up your own frozen meatballs, cream sauces, lumpfish roe, canned herring, rye breads, cheeses, and countless other little oddball treats like roe cheese spread. more ›

Since the 80’s Ikea has become a cultural icon of the do-it-yourself furniture world, here in the U.S. Almost all of us at some point or another have struggled putting a piece of Ikea furniture together for ourselves. Artist Felis Stella explores these concepts in her latest exhibit IKEA My House: Part 1 on view now through May 17th at the L2kontemporary Gallery in Chinatown. more ›

One of the first major stores in the US to initiate a surcharge per plastic bag, IKEA, has announced that they will stop providing customers with disposable bags entirely in October of this year. more ›