Ikea’s virtual interior design service brings in a pro to pick out your new furniture

Ikea’s virtual interior design service brings in a pro to pick out your new furniture

If you’re like me, you enjoy walking through Ikea stores and dream your home could be as neat and organized as the showroom samples — but you really don’t feel like putting in all that effort. Well, Ikea has a new interior design service that just might help you over that mental barrier of attempting to make a beautiful, modern, and functional space (via Fast Company).

Ikea’s not alone in spotting the profit potential of adding more services to everything it already does. Apple just launched Music Classical on top of its iCloud, AppleCare Plus, Apple TV Plus, Apple News, and Arcade. Meanwhile, retailer services continue to creep wider, with Walmart’s own Plus order and delivery services, Best Buy’s Totaltech, and of course, the all-encompassing Amazon Prime.

For $99 per room in your home (or $299 in a business setting), you can relinquish your DIY dreams of making your space yours yourself and let Ikea’s designers take care of the planning. You’re not exactly getting a private session with Joanna Gaines, but Ikea’s service seems like it could be a good value compared to white-glove interior design services that can cost hundreds of dollars an hour.

And if you just want to hand over your payment card and have something done for you, it’s a more hands-off approach than trying to draft up a space yourself (and hoping you have taste) using Ikea’s Kreativ tool, the company’s virtual design software that replaces your furniture with Ikea stuff.

Ikea’s Kreativ tool.
Ikea’s Kreativ tool.
Image: Ikea

It’s a major move for Ikea, expanding its consultation and design services to be more than just the existing kitchen planning offerings. The kitchen design service starts at $39 for two hours of planning your kitchen in store and $199 for a three-hour on-site planning service. The company also offers the kitchen planning service online, which is $39 for up to two hours.

The new interior design service is also accomplished digitally over video calls (three of them, to be exact). It comes after booking an appointment and taking an online survey “wish list” that you fill out to help Ikea figure out your needs.

Then comes the fun part — the Ikea designer will build you a mood board, map out your space in 3D, and work with you on furnishing, materials, and lighting choices. (Ikea has really been building out its smart home lighting solutions.) The best part is that you don’t need to figure out which warehouse boxes and items you need to buy; the Ikea designer will select everything you need and just have you pay for it.

With the mental part out of the way, now come the logistics of getting the items home (or setting up delivery) and putting it all together. If you’re suddenly up to the DIY task, you can take over from there. Or you can be set up with Ikea’s TaskRabbit service to take the plans and build them out for you so you can sit back and watch more HGTV and dream up that next home project that you’re totally going to do very soon.

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