3 posts tagged “ikea”
...after I look at the IKEA site, I figure that I can get an end table, a coffee table, a side chair and a matching footstool for the side chair for about $10 total more than the ottoman alone.
Need to discuss with P tonight and then transfer money & place order. We need to make a decision on this so I'll stop rabbiting about in circles about it.
It's been a nice low-key holiday this year. We decided not to go anywhere in part because of our impending move (just 2 weeks from now, eek!) and also because I didn't feel okay about going to Michigan and having a visit with P's family again without having the opportunity to visit my extended family--in particular, my grandmother who is 86 and who has slowed down considerably over the last few years. We're going to try our best to get up to see her this spring, probably over Memorial Day weekend when my family traditionally has a camping trip. As City People, P and I are planning to stay at a relative's house instead of roughing it. We are not Camping People. (I spent enough of my childhood huddled in unheated tents or by a campfire while it poured down rain, thankyouverymuch.)
I've been off work most of this week; I came into the office this morning to deal with email and voicemail, of which there was very little. Fifteen emails, half of which were just notifications, and no voicemail at all. So I've been marking time until 12:30, when I can leave and not come back until next year, muahahaha.
As for the move, well. I've started packing and we're going to buy boxes this weekend and we're trying to bribe local friends with booze and pizza in exchange for hauling stuff, so I'm hoping it'll come off. I'm also trying to coordinate the new furniture, because if we can get it delivered the weekend we move in, then I don't have to have my nasty old furniture in the new apartment at all (I say nasty because it was originally dumpster furniture and while it's served me well these last few years, I don't know the provenance of it and that sort of bugs me). If not, then it will likely be delivered the following week and I have a conundrum: do I go without a couch for a week or do I have the old loveseat moved into the new apartment and bribe the delivery guys to haul it 100 yards to the dumpster when they deliver the new? The loveseat isn't terribly heavy (unlike the couch which is a sleeper-sofa), so me and P can haul it to the dumpster if we have to and I guess we need to have something there to sit on, but it's really not big enough for two people, either. Then again, if I order the new furniture today, it will be at most 3 weeks for it to be delivered--so I clearly need to order it this week just in case it is going to take 3 weeks--if it's going to take less, I can arrange for it to be delivered on the day we take possession of the new place. Then again, I just looked and the couch we want is available with the cover we want, but the footstool isn't. But they're both available in our backup color (which I'd also be okay with--possibly more okay because a beige couch is probably more versatile than a light medium green one is), so do I get just the couch in green and then try to get the footstool later or do I get both in the backup color? Because every time I've checked local availability, the green never seems to be in stock, so we'd have to get it delivered which would mean more delivery charges, argh. Or I could just go with a coffee table, but I was looking forward to the storage in the footstool because we desperately need storage. But then again I can always buy baskets to go under the coffee table or something. Argh.
I need to stop thinking so much.
When I'm bored at work, I sometimes like to browse the IKEA website. I harbor fantasies of getting rid of my truly awful couch and loveseat--both found abandoned next to the dumpster at the complex I live in (at the time, I was really broke and had no living room furniture at all apart from a papasan and some plastic shelves) and replacing it with a couch and side chairs from IKEA. I'm getting married in October, and while we are going to register at a few places, I'm hoping we'll be given enough money so I can buy at least some of the following:
- Lillberg sofa (natural) - $189
- 2 Lillberg chairs (natural) - $158
- 2 Frojsta side tables - $50
- Frojsta coffee table - $70
- 2 Truve lamps - $26
- Benno TV unit - $99
- Billy bookcase - $99
- Something to hold our DVDs and CDs - $100
That comes to just under $800 to completely re-do my living room. Of course, it's all contingent on us getting up to IKEA at some point and actually putting our butts in the furniture and seeing how comfortable it is (and, for me, to see if my butt will fit into the chairs!)--and if it's not comfortable we'll revise. The big thing, for me, is to get a new couch, another bookcase, and a new entertainment center and more media storage. I'm willing to forego some things in favor of a more expensive couch if that's necessary for our comfort.
The part that really amuses me about pricing this stuff out, though, is that my spinning wheel? Cost $500. That's more than half of what I estimate I want to spend on furniture at IKEA. And it's got this really clean, modern look which has sort of solidified my desire to have the living room have pale woods and neutral fabrics--with punches of color to come from accessories like pillows or the bright orange vase I just got at the Crate & Barrel outlet a few weeks ago.
I used to be really torn between two decorating aesthetics: those of Martha Stewart Living and Mary Engelbreit's Home Companion. One clean and modern, the other fussy and eclectic. Now, I'm not torn. I want to purge the house of anything fussy or frilly or cluttery and I want everything to be put away in its proper place. Which is really funny, because I'm a bit of a slob and I hate cleaning. But if I have a place for everything, I'm less likely to let stuff pile up, too. It's a catch-22.
