Hello Ikea

It’s taken us 12 months, but we finally found the strength/time/energy/motivation to go back to Ikea.  It’s nothing against Ikea itself (we love their products and prices!), but the shopping experience tends to be exhausting for us.  The store is so massive to walk through and it’s always overcrowded.  There are dozens of unattended over-stimulated children climbing all over every. single. display. (Why aren’t they in the ball pit? Where are their parents?)  It takes forever to check out because the lines are so long and it’s an annoying drive to get there.  Worse - since we put this errand off for so long, our shopping list grew longer and longer - making the trip all the more overwhelming.

As we started to unpack the office boxes we realized there was nowhere to store anything.  All I was doing was creating precariously tall piles of stuff.  We needed some shelving and storage before we could continue, so we finally took the trip with our long list in tow.

What did we need after a year of living in our house?  Here’s the basic recap:

• An Expedit 2x4 cube shelf (half size) in white for the office
• A white Billy bookcase for the office (with the height extension of course)
• Curtain rods (dining room, guest room, office - what we had didn't fit the windows)
• Curtains (living room, dining room, master bedroom, office)
• A floor length mirror for the bedroom
• A not-too-tall wardrobe for the basement to hold coats (since we don’t have a coat closet)

It doesn’t sound like that much, but cramming the boxes for 3 large pieces of furniture and a giant mirror into our small SUV was a little harrowing.   Plus at two windows per room, it was a lot of curtains and a lot of curtain rods - even at Ikea prices it added up fast.

Then there was the marketplace.  It’s dangerous.  Before walking into the store we agreed that we would only get what was on our list and not fill up our cart with all the inexpensive temptations in that section.  What could we possibly need?  Apparently a lot.  We didn’t last 2 seconds.   Suddenly we remembered we needed a new plastic pitcher to replace the one we threw away.  And spice jars for the herbs drying in the basement.  And a $4 welcome mat for the front porch.  A spray bottle.  A couple more glass storage jars.  Some cute fabric to make new pilllow covers.  And a vase that matched the living room wall color and an aqua tray and a cute plant...

The good news is that we shouldn't need to go back for a loooong time.   Hopefully.  Or next time I’ll just have to have Mike blindfold me before walking through the marketplace.  I see a good deal and I can't stop myself.