IKEA children's playmats
IKEA sells playmats - like the "tiny town" playmats common in preschools. Some of them are extremely Scandinavian. I think you will find some of them interesting.
I know I did - because I bought one of them as the main rug for my living space. I'm 37 years old and I have no kids. I just think the rug rules. We are reorganizing our entire apartment after moving out for seven months, and I thought our new seating area could use a rug. The kids' rugs are much cheaper, so I joked we should look there... and now here we are.
First, I'll show you the playmats I did NOT pick.
The VALLABY rug. Thowbacky, simple, small. 3'3" by 4'4". 25 US dollars. That's around $1.76 per foot of rug!! I assure you, that's an insane deal at IKEA. Most of the adult rugs we saw on-site at the store cost upward of $200 USD, with some around $400 or more.
The LILLABO rug. The buildings here are depicted top-down... a little perspectival complication for growing minds. This one is 2.4583' by 4.3645', which is something around 10.729 square feet. At 15 bucks, that comes out to around $1.40 per square foot of kid rug!
The HUSSPARV rug. This one has a mix of perspectives... some stuff is side-on, and some stuff is top-down. Whimsical! It's a land of leisure... there's a pool, and a beach, and a patio, and a swing, and a farm and a hammock and a greenhouse. How nice! I'd like to spend time here. Once again, at 25 bucks, the rug is cheaper by the foot than anything an adult can buy for their floor at IKEA. It's around 3.27' by 4.35', or 14.24 square feet. That's $1.76 a foot!!
Behold the MARKKRYPARE rug.
Now this shit is getting good. Look, I did not buy this rug. I just think it's insanely good/funny that the Swedish design brains are selling a black, white and grey minimalist playmat. It is perfect for the family who wants to keep their house looking like a modern interior design obelisk. This is the playmat for mothers who wear a Steve Jobs turtleneck and make their kid wear a matching one, too.
I think this rug is so funny that I kind of wanted to find an excuse to buy it... but then I remembered that people would probably not "get" "the joke" if they saw this rug on my floor. Placing this rug outside the context of the other rugs denies it the crucial dumbass context. However, this rug costs only ten bucks, which makes it the best rug deal I have calculated so far at IKEA: 2'5" by 3'3", or 7.85 square foot. That's around $1.27 USD per foot!!! Damn, kid rugs are THE deal for rugs at IKEA!
The rug I actually bought
I actually bought the most expensive playmat at IKEA.
It looks like satellite imagery, okay? That rules. You can pay someone hundreds of dollars to embroider you wall hangings that look like this stuff. It's also much, much bigger than all the other rugs I have posted here today - like, it's 5 foot by 7 foot. It costs $160. I'm getting so tired of calculating these numbers exactly, so I won't. It's a weird egg shape. Rest assured that it is the most expensive playmat IKEA sells.
And yes, they're definitely selling this as a "playmat" rug... but I do not think it looks like a playmat! It looks like a rug for map nerds! When I was a kid, I wanted a picture of a train station and a road and a house on my playmat. I did not want an abstractly-rendered hedgerow. I was not looking for a rug which accurately depicted the terrain of Europe as seen from a drone. I had a dumb little brain and I wanted to drive my hot wheels to the hospital, or whatever. Adult me is the target audience for this, not a baby. Any adult who buys this should be honest that they are buying it for themselves and not their kids.
While I was trying to figure out what was going on with this weird abstract satellite imagery "playmat," I found something even funnier than the black and white minimalist playmat: this bizarre video of a very pained, frightened-looking woman "reviewing" the GREJSIMOJS product line that this rug comes from.
I was absolutely losing it for this entire video. She really wants to review these products as if they are an interior decoration line for adults, but they are very clearly for babies, and she also looks like the IKEA marketing liaison is standing behind her camera pointing a gun at her. She looks fucking terrified. Her facial expression is like nothing I have ever seen before. What is going on????
Anyway, That's the story of my rug. I don't even have it yet! The rug is so popular that they were completely out of stock at IKEA and I had to have it delivered.
Rest assured that I await the rug in eager anticipation. I am absolutely certain that anyone who sees it in my home will think it is a Rug For Adults. I was certain of this even before I saw the Adult Baby Furniture IKEA Influencer Youtube Content. And I am trying, desperately, to remain certain of it now that I have seen her video...