PSA: POÄNG safety

Consider this a public service announcement friends. Learn from my misplaced enthusiasm.

If you ever find yourself in the midst of a major house clean (you know the kind where you dust on top of the kitchen cupboards and inside of vases?) and happen to glance over at the POÄNG chair sitting in your living room and think "I bet that can go in the wash" don't do it.

You may think you have things covered. You may even do a little research like I did and be fooled by the IKEA page that calmly tells you that, yes, your POÄNG chair cover can go in the washing machine, just don't put it in the dryer. Excellent you think. You might even remember how easy it was to take the covers off your matching KLIPPAN coaches and how sparking white they were when you came out. Do not be fooled by the Swedish innocence, the fancy accent or fond memories of lingen berries and meatballs. This one time, IKEA is not your friend.

What they don't tell you is simply this -- that inside your lovely POÄNG seat cover is a piece of foam and that the back of the lining of the cover is made of some nameless fabric who's only purpose in life is to adhere to foam. You can put the cover in the wash, sure, but don't expect IKEA to give you any clue how to get the d@mn foam out. Or back in for that matter, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

If you ever wonder if mankind will ever find something that holds on tighter than industrial-strength Velcro, they will. They have. And it's lurking inside your POÄNG. You, like me, might start out taking the cover off the ottoman. You'll think, "that wasn't so bad. Claire was really overreacting with that whole PSA thing on her blog." And then you'll move on to the main chair cover and when you, like me are half lying, half sitting, on the floor wrestling your chair like an alligator, you'll know I was right.

Technically, eventually, it did go in the wash. And it dried fairly quickly in the afternoon sun. And then I tried to put the cover back on. I spent at least 5 minutes trying to convince myself that leaving just the foam without the cover would still make for a comfortable chair and besides, grey is a neutral right? I fought. POÄNG fought back. Although I can't speak from experience I would imagine that wrestling the foam back inside that cover was somewhat similar to trying to hold down a two year old at their first trip to the dentist. You might also be fooled into thinking that both the ottoman and seat of your POÄNG are square, but they are, it turns out, ever-so-slightly rectangular. But don't worry, this will become painfully obvious when the foam is about three quarters of the way in.

Now, tired and a little breathless I can tell you that it *is* possible. It can be done. But I don't recommend it.

On the upside, my chair does look lovely...