Ikea

Furnishing our home has been one of the most fun things and one of the most time consuming things I've ever done. I get cold feet sometimes when we are making big purchases so I usually have to "sleep on it" before I can make a decision. Also, we went from 900 square feet to over 3,000 so there is not one room that didn't need some type of new furnishings to make it functional.

 

So far we have just gradually filled it as we find things. That's the way I wanted to do it rather than just going out and buying items just because we needed it. We are still using sconce light boxes as night stands! We tend to have a more traditional, classic style as opposed to modern so it's harder to find those coveted pieces (within our budget).

 

When I first heard about Ikea years ago I had in my head an european, modern, dinky apartment furniture selling store that did not fit my style. And maybe it did start out more in that market but perusing Pinterest over the past several months I learned that Ikea was way more than high gloss apartment furniture.

 

So we decided to take a trip after Christmas to find some furniture and home goods for the house. Our closest Ikea is in Cincinnati (actually West Chester)!  I had searched the website and Pinterest and had a list of things I wanted to look for, and we got tips from a few people who had been before so we were ready for the journey. 

Since we were in the area we stopped at the Gap Clearance store in Hebron, Ky. I went to this store for the first time in 2011 pre-babies and bought about 50 wooden child-size hangers for 10 cents each! I kick myself now for not buying everyone they had because they no longer carry them  :( I found some great maternity deals and a few things for the babes, Marcus found a few things too so it was a good stop for us.

 

And then it was on to Ikea!

 

We just so happened to be there for "Ikea Family Week" and if you spent $100 your food in their restaurant was free (you gave the associate your restaurant receipt and they deducted it from your store receipt). Granted this was pretty much warm cafeteria food but it was free so no complaints here! We actually ate twice :)

 

Five hours later we had our loot and were ready to head back to Kentucky. Marcus took this picture and I didn't realize you couldn't see the pallet, it's full as well hidden behind the cart. And we couldn't get everything in this trip because some items were out of stock so I get to go back! :)

Here's a better view of the haul. Still shocked it all fit in our RX300 and neither of us had to ride on the luggage rack home :)

So what all did we get? Here is a little preview. 

This is probably my favorite piece. We will use it as an armoire wardrobe in Jack's nursery. We decided to go with white furniture for him and I love it!


We bought three pieces of the Kallax series for a playroom storage unit we are building. These pieces are great because you can mix and match them to meet the needs of your room. They have four options for bins-baskets, cloth bins, doors or drawers. We went with baskets but since we are going back we will see if we like them first and may change our minds.


We bought this dresser for Jack's nursery that we will use as a changing table. His room is a big size for a nursery so we opted for a longer piece that will give us extra storage and changing space.

That's about half of the furniture plus we bought textiles for the house. We thought after we went through the showroom we were finished shopping and all we had left was to pick up our items in the warehouse. Wrong! Half of the bottom floor of Ikea was more sections to shop in. It's the store that never ends.

Finally, we checked out and loaded up (everything fit to our delight). We stopped for some Mellow Mushroom and headed home. My Mom and Gran Stan kept Georgia Grace for us so we didn't have to put her through the shopathon.

The next day I immediately started working on the $1.99 white 8 1/2 x 11 frames I bought. I put some of Georgia's artwork in them and a letter and colored picture from Fitsum, our Compassion child, and will hang them on the walls in the playroom. They're really easy to disassemble so I can change the artwork out as she brings more things home.

We haven't tackled the furniture yet. I have a sweet, awesome husband that is willing to put all of it together! He will earn a jewel in his crown after he gets it all finished. As I mentioned in my last post, we have made a schedule of the rooms we hope to complete each month. First up is the kid's spaces so lots of furniture assembling evenings are in our future. As labor intensive as that sounds, there's no other stage of life I would rather be in (coming from the pregnant wife, not the laboring husband HA!)

So there's our first Ikea trip in a nutshell. We both enjoyed it more than we imagined we would and even though it's a long drive I'm already eager to go back. Fingers crossed that Nashville or Louisville will get an Ikea someday!