Sunday, March 29, 2009

:::ikea trip:::

yesterday was my last day borrowing my sister's car, so i decided that a trip to ikea was in order with my friend christina.

here is christina with one of the three shopping cart options available. those swedish, they're so innovative. we spent a good, long time walking through the store and filling our carts. there are so many great things at ikea, but there are also so many weird and just plain ugly things there as well. as i passed certain items i wondered who in their right mind would ever put something like that in their home, and many of the color choices made no sense to me at all -- who wants fluorescent green sheets, or neon orange shower curtains? it's almost as if half of their design team is made up of uber hip moderns, and the other half is comprised of 13 year old boys.


nevertheless, i think ikea is great at stocking items that are just what you were looking for, especially by way of containers. the jars alone had me swooning, i could barely handle them all. who knew i had a jar fixation?

above are some of my selections after walking through the store with very big eyes. i really wanted butter yellow towels, but i suppose these will provide a nice shock of color in a drab bathroom, while still coordinating with the blue bathmat. i love the combination of this shade of blue and a lighter yellow. for some reason it reminds me of wonderful old movies like summer magic and the music man.


the day before our trip i had gone through the entire ikea website and made a list of all the items that i wanted. on saturday morning, however i couldn't find my list. blerg. so, when we got to the cash registers i realized that i had somehow passed the table runners without noticing it. christina made the very generous offer to go all the way back for me while i sat on a leather couch relaxing. i couldn't help but laugh when she came back with every single runner they had, and had even memorized the prices (again, weird design choices here). now that is a friend!


we had lunch at the ikea cafe, and then headed back to dc. after hitting traffic we decided to go home on the george washington parkway instead. too bad it was a gloomy day, otherwise it would have been even more pretty than it was.


we were pretty impressed by our car packing skills. we managed to fit a bookcase that i bought through the trunk and into the backseat, as well as multiple little odds and ends.

last night i put together my bookcase all by myself, which made me very proud. i'm not great at construction type projects, and we've all heard ikea horror stories about trying to assemble things, so i was a little scared. thankfully, it wasn't too bad. i'm now a flarke expert. call me if you need help.

my room is coming together, slowly but surely. the knew influx of ikea finds has turned things upside down, s0 i again have a floor covered with piles of misplaced things. i am determined, however, to get my room to a point that i am just putting the finishing touches on it by conference this saturday. pictures to come.

4 comments:

Jill said...

IKEA with a friend is the way to go for sure. I know what you mean about the variety of stuff there and the bizarre nature of some of it, but there's something for everybody there.

I can't wait to see your new stuff in your new room!

Rachel said...

Great finds! I am really excited to see pictures. When I saw the picture of your bathroom, I thought, "This could easily go from drab to fab!" (OK--those were not my exact words.) It's like a blank slate, which is always fun.

By the way, my sister Megan reads your blog now and is a big fan. I was always telling her, "And then Reba said this," or "You should read Barbara Pym like me and Reba," or whatever, and finally I just said, "You need to add Reba to your google reader." So she did. I do what I can to spread your goodness around.

Sarah said...

Oh, the meatballs and ligonberries. Love them.

Aunti said...

Who's good looking new gren purse is that!!!!!