IKEA News

IKEA mini-stores will pop up inside Best Buy at 2 Dallas-area locations

IKEA mini-store inside Best Buy

Courtesy rendering

IKEA and Best Buy are partnering in an innovative pilot program that's coming to Dallas: Beginning this fall, the two retailers will combine major appliances from Best Buy with the well-designed and affordable home furnishings from IKEA.

The new in-store collaboration will launch in only 10 stores in Florida and Texas, and that includes stores in Mesquite and Hurst. It'll feature 1,000-square-foot IKEA mini-stores that showcase kitchen and laundry room settings. These spaces are designed to help customers create a cohesive living space incorporating Best Buy's high-tech appliances.

At the IKEA in Best Buy experience, customers can receive support from IKEA staffers to plan and order home furnishing solutions. Best Buy’s blue shirts will also be in the store to provide advice on electronics.

This is the first time IKEA products and services will be accessible through another U.S. retailer. Best Buy shoppers can make purchases for their kitchens and laundry rooms with IKEA merchandise available at Best Buy stores.

In a statement, Best Buy chief merchandising officer Patrick McGinnis says that "with this partnership, we get to combine technology and design and show shoppers what’s truly possible in their home like never before."

“When you’re shopping for new electronics, whether it’s a laptop or a TV or a washing machine, it’s important to understand the technology and make a decision based on how it will help you, your family and your home in your everyday life,” McGinnis says.

“This partnership between IKEA and Best Buy is about making great design and functionality more accessible for the many,” said Rob Olson, chief operation officer, IKEA U.S. “By bringing together our home furnishing expertise, products, and services with Best Buy’s leadership in appliances and technology, we’re creating a one-stop destination where customers can design their dream kitchen, storage solutions or laundry space with ease. It’s a great step on our journey to helping people create beautiful, functional homes at a price they can afford."

The Best Buy stores that will feature an IKEA shop-in-shop later this year include five locations in Texas as follows:

Plus five locations in Florida: Boynton Beach, Daytona Beach, Lakeland, Melbourne, and Waterford Lakes.

To further meet the needs of customers, two stores – Lakeland, Florida and Alamo Ranch, Texas – will serves as a pick-up point for IKEA shoppers, allowing customers in these markets to pick up most IKEA U.S. products for free at the Best Buy store, whether those were purchased through an IKEA in Best Buy design experience or IKEA.com.

Highlights include:

Immersive In-Store Experience: Each of the 10 pilot locations will feature a 1,000-square-foot IKEA footprint inside Best Buy stores, complete with 3–5 planning stations and curated kitchen/laundry setups. Two stores (Lakeland, Florida and Alamo Ranch, Texas) will also serve as pickup points for IKEA shoppers.
Enhanced Kitchen Offer: This collaboration allows IKEA to introduce kitchen planning services to a broader audience, enhancing consumer experience. Customers will be able to integrate Best Buy appliances into their IKEA kitchens.
Customer Benefits: Customers will have access to the same options and benefits as when shopping online at IKEA.com or visiting their local IKEA and IKEA Family members will be able to earn 50 bonus points when they book a planning appointment at any of the Best Buy or IKEA locations.

This collaboration is a strategic response to a shifting retail landscape, one where 80 percent of retail sales are expected to be in brick and mortar stores in 2025. As this number continues to grow, IKEA and Best Buy are investing in new, immersive, in-person experience that offer personalization and convenience.

openings

SOUTHERN EXPOSURE

Southern Living unveils inspirational Idea House in Texas Hill Country

Photo courtesy of Laurey Glenn/Southern Living

The 4,000-square-foot Idea House in Frieden, a development in Fredericksburg, combines stone, brown siding, and a metal roof.

The 2026 Southern Living Idea House opened for public tours on September 18 in Fredericksburg, bringing the magazine's long-running showcase-home series to the Hill Country.

The 4,000-square-foot house is in Friedën, a planned community about three miles from downtown Fredericksburg. The development is expected to include roughly 230 to 250 custom single-family homes when complete, along with commercial space, retail, offices, multifamily housing, trails, lakes, and green space.

The Idea House program is part model home, part design experiment, and part brand statement for Southern Living. For more than 35 years, the magazine has worked with builders, architects, designers, and landscapers to create homes in different parts of the South, usually pairing regional references with current home-design trends. Past projects have included homes in Nashville, Louisiana, Georgia, coastal Texas, and the Carolinas.

$Southern Living Idea House 2026\u200b$ This room really plays with textures, including an abstract art piece that looks a little like crushed velvet.Photo courtesy of Laurey Glenn/Southern Living

Texas last hosted a Southern Living Idea House in 2018, when the magazine renovated a 1980s fixer-upper in Austin's Northwest Hills. That project leaned on local architecture and design talent to turn an older house into a more open, family-oriented home.

This year's Fredericksburg project is a new-build contemporary farmhouse. The exterior mixes limestone, brown siding, and a dark metal roof, with separate wings arranged around a broad drive. The home also has floor-to-ceiling windows, multiple porches, and a backyard fire pit, which are meant to connect the interiors to the surrounding Hill Country setting.

The design team included a secondary private casita, a feature Southern Living says was intended as a nod to Fredericksburg's historic Sunday houses. Those small in-town homes, traditionally near churches, were once used by German settlers who had to travel long distances into Fredericksburg on weekends for church, shopping, and social visits.

$Southern Living Idea House 2026\u200b$ Dark wood cabinetry and brass hardware frame the kitchen’s veined stone backsplash and large island.Photo courtesy of Laurey Glenn/Southern Living

The interiors were split among three Texas designers: Jean Liu of Dallas, Marcus Mohon of Austin, and Paloma Contreras of Houston. The broader team includes builders Melanie Sparks and Chris McGinley of Kurk Homes, architect Andrew Bray of Mustard Architects in Fredericksburg, and landscape designer Melissa Gerstle of Dallas.

The kitchen uses dark wood cabinetry, brass hardware, pale pendant lights, and a heavily veined stone backsplash. It is more formal than a typical farmhouse kitchen, but the long island and six counter stools keep it oriented around gathering rather than display.

One bedroom takes a more traditional approach, with a four-poster bed, exposed wood beams, and green scenic wallcovering wrapped around the room. A matching green chair near the window and a pale patterned rug keep the palette tied together without making the room monochromatic.

$Southern Living Idea House 2026\u200b$ Green scenic wallcovering surrounds a four-poster bed beneath exposed wood beams.Photo courtesy of Laurey Glenn/Southern Living

Southern Living editor-in-chief Sid Evans said in the release that the house was designed to take cues from the Hill Country landscape while showing "a home that's as warm and welcoming as it is stylish and innovative."

Public tours run through December 20 at 518 Interlaken St. Tours are scheduled Thursdays through Saturdays from 10 am to 5 pm and Sundays from noon to 5 pm. Tickets are $44, with part of the proceeds benefiting Operation Finally Home, the Hunt Preservation Society, and the Gillespie County Historical Society/Pioneer & Vereins Kirche Museums.

$Southern Living Idea House 2026\u200b$ Look out for this cover on newsstands to pick up a copy and learn more about the home.Photo courtesy of Laurey Glenn/Southern Living

Southern Living is also scheduling several event weekends during the tour run, including Volvo test-drive weekends and a Holiday Classics event from December 4-6.

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