Says The Girl Who Doesn’t Like Ikea

Remember how I was anti-Twitter and didn’t see the point? Remember when so many of you encouraged me to join because it was SO COOL AND YOU’RE JUST GOING TO LOVE IT!!!…? Remember that? Well I joined (click here if you want to follow me) and I have yet to see the light. I just don’t know why it’s so cool. It’s fun to read some clever tweets from bloggers I love, but other than that, it just doesn’t make my skirt fly up.

Sue me.

Same goes with lentils. There’s quite a buzz about lentils around the interwebs. They are cheap and healthy and easy and so tasty. I freaking beg to differ. The first 4 may be true, but tasty, they are not! In fact, I made a soup with them a couple weeks ago and literally GAGGED while I tried to eat it. As in, I almost vomitted from my own cooking. Not cool. Not cool at all!

Let’s talk about this other craze.

Ikea. Seems like everyone loves Ikea. I don’t really get it. Some of their stuff is just plain ugly. Most of their chairs are made for little people, and I’m almost 6 feet tall. It’s just not practical. I like nice wood furniture. Traditional, beautiful, homey. Not skinny and plastic and short.

But I will give them this: they have cheap stuff. (Oh and their organizational items make my heart flutter.) Over New Years we spent a few nights in Austin. We spent one of those nights with some friends of ours in their new house. They had this desk and shelf get-up in their office that Stephen was crushing on. Turns out, it’s from Ikea and it’s affordable. I spent the next weekend cleaning out my scrapbook room so we could make it into a fully functioning office, television, and craft room. That desk fit those goals.

This weekend was Ikea’s semi-annual sale which meant you got 10% off of your entire purchase. Normally that wouldn’t be an incentive for me to go there, but since there was an item we knew we were going to get eventually, I figured that we might as well go get it when we could save 10%.

So we packed up and drove across town. Then we circled the parking lot for 82 hours until we could find a parking spot. We walked into the store and I made a beeline for the restroom because I have a bladder the size of a poppy seed an 82 hours in a car make me want to explode. My immediate reaction was how RIDICULOUS the design of the bathroom was. What a terrible mood to set. It stunk and it was all retarded shaped so that you had to weave through the line in order to get out. Seriously? Seriously???

We headed upstairs and got our map. Incase you’ve never been to an Ikea, the layout is sort of like one of those human mazes that you think you’ll die in. We had two goals: find the desk/shelf doo-dad and get a few of those sturdy cardboard boxes to put in the shelves. That’s it. Nothing else. Look but don’t touch.

So everything was going as planned (minus the massive amounts of people walking in strong currents like the exodus, we hadn’t really planned for them). We found the desk and shelf set and wrote down their number on our map so we could get it once we made it to the warehouse. And then we walked. And then it happened. We stumbled upon the rugs. No pun intended. Oh wait, lookie there… looks like it’s time for a quick back story.

Once upon a time a couple named Stephen and Chelsea bought a house. It had ugly red tile all over the giant living room and entryway. They immediately decided that they needed a rug, pronto. They went to their local Big Lots and found a rug that was neutral and large and cheap– all three requirements for their rug purchase. They bought it. Several months later that learned to hate the rug. It was rough and slipped on the floor. It was not a good rug. Bad rug. Bad bad rug.

And back to the present. Or not so distance past. We saw the rugs hanging brilliantly across the room. I saw this ginormous rug that looked like it would fit our living room. Two other parties were looking at this rug. I said, “Oooooh!” and “Ahhhhh!” and wandered over to get a look at the price. Rugs are expensive. Giant rugs are giantly expensive. So when I saw $299, I almost fainted. In fact, I started sweating almost instantly. A rug for $300 that I like?? Typo? I conversed with my husband. He wasn’t sold. Something about dog hair and impulse buy entered the conversation but I couldn’t hear him over the loud noise of saving money. I wanted the rug. So did other people. There were two rugs left and I was surrounded by people. I was sweating and my head was pounding. “But how do we get it home??? What if we grab it and run? Then what?? How do we get that home?” Stephen was confident he could tie it to the top of the Murano. “We’ll take it!” I yelled.

He ran over, grabbed the rug and weaved his way dangerously through the millions of bargain shoppers. It was scary. We made it down to the warehouse, gathered our other items, and checked out. Sure enough, he fit the rug on top of the car. My hero.

I still won’t say that I love Ikea because, well, I’m not a liar. But I will say that we got an awesome deal and our living room and office look much better!

So here is the photo of our massive rug. Ignore the disheveled looking living room, we pushed everything to the sides of the room to unroll it. While you’re looking at this, picture a very strong carpet smell singing your nose hairs.

Not too bad, eh?

Check out the before of the office. (Not technically the “before”– I would have had to take that last week and it would look like a land pit.)

And after we Stephen put together the desk and shelves. I asked if he wanted help but he’s a man, so… no. I put together the green boxes.

I love it. I think it looks great. And I must say, it looks quite classy for Ikea furniture! Stephen spent some time yesterday setting up the monitor, printer, etc. etc. etc. It’s coming together and looking mighty fine.

And now if I can do anything about it, I’ll avoid Ikea for another 5 years. I can’t handle that much claustrophobia again for a long while.

ToT Questions will be posted shortly.