Ever wander through a supercenter or megastore with all of its pristine, product-filled rooms and wonder what it would be like to really live in their display-worthy presentation models?

Christian Gideon explores this likely-common fantasy through a series of rather hilarious (and well-shot) photographs depicting friends in everyday situations throughout a giant-sized IKEA store … the averages of which is over 50,000 square feet.

Place-set tables feature friends sitting down to meals. A floor-model shower snap captures someone still soaked and reaching for a towel. Shoe-and-sock free feet sit up on an ottoman while their would-be wearer relaxes in a recliner. And, of course, the ready-made beds were never quite made to be slept in … but can be.

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Nowhere does one spot the ugly concrete slab below, flat steel-trussed roof above of faux-masonry-clad exterior walls … those would shatter the illusion of picture-perfect living inside little ideal dream dwellings, given away only (and selectively) via participant grins and slapstick gestures.


And for Christian, a challenge: make IKEA your first shopping stop but not your last – let us see what happens when you turn Wal-Mart into a giant-sized motor home, or Target into a hipster hideaway.