We Found Love in a Swedish Furniture Place

Who has two thumbs and has never been inside an Ikea?

THIS GAL.

Until yesterday! Yep, late on Tuesday night, my mum and I made the decision to do a quick 2-hour sojourn to Orlando in search of the Great Swedish Meatball and Furniture Emporium. 

And I was totally that dork with a camera, walking around and snapping pictures like a tourist. Whatever. It's Orlando. Everyone's a tourist there.

Unfortunately my body hated me on that trip. I started out the day with burning eyes from my contacts, which eventually led to a killer headache, and on top of all that, I was more tired than usual. I didn't get as many pictures as I wanted, and by the end of the four-hour shopping excursion, I was dragging worse than my trooper of a nine-year-old brother.

So I didn't get as many pictures as I normally would have, but I got enough!

My brother was in rare form. My mum and I were prepared to have an unhappy little camper on our hands for most of the day, but to our surprise, he was more enamored with Ikea than we ever could've expected! He had some pretty colorful commentary throughout the day.

One of the first things that drew an unexpected "Ooooh!" from him was this papery light fixture. I've seen it all over the DIY/reno blogs from Ikea enthusiasts, but I was always dubious when people would say "It's not as girly/flowery in person as it appears in pictures." Um, those are definitely paper flowers. But it turns out, they were totally right. Those ARE flowers but in person, they make such a fluttery spiky design that the girliness isn't predominant. This picture, of course, totally contradicts what I'm saying.

I was trying to capture the non-girly essence. This isn't something I'd put in my house, but I gotta say, I totally get the appeal.

For one shining moment, he thought Ikea sold afforable laptops. Alas, they are "eProps," which was so entertaining to him that he forgot to be disappointed.

"If you just bought one thing in this store, you'd be living in the lap of luxury."

I kid you not, he actually said that.

He sat down, contemplated the table setting, then said, "By the looks of things, we're having soup tonight!"

I forget the context of this one, but he was peering into the sink in this kitchen and exclaimed, "I LOVE clogging drains!"

Upon discovering (and loving the concept of) storage ottomans, he said, "We could use them to store orange juice and cookies!" 

Then he became convinced that every piece of furniture in this lap-of-luxury store had a hidden storage compartment. Including this weird woven chair.

I went bananas over this area rug with a tree ring pattern. The resemblance was not lost on Shane, who was determined to count the rings and determine the age of the rug.

(It was 18 years old.)

Believe it or not, Shane wasn't the only one geeking out over all Ikea had to offer.

Mum loved the idea of being able to slide these panels over the television to hide it when not in use.

And she loved every version of Ikea's attempt to make pleasing corner cabinets. She loved the upper turntables and the bi-fold cabinet doors on the lower one.

The three of us agreed that this kitchen was our favorite. We don't have deep drawers in ours, so it was an entirely new concept to Shane. 

And I loved this gas range and oven as well.

While I don't like the starkness of white marble on white cabinetry, this entire island had storage out the wazoo! The shelves on the sides are also a nice decorative touch (though anything on display there would be in clear danger of Lucy's tail).

I also jotted down a lot of the items I thought would work in our new house, but didn't have the presence of mind to snap actual pictures of them. Blogger fail. 

Image courtesy of Ikea

This is the Liatorp, a big square coffee table with a glass top and a pullout drawer that is divided into four spaces. It'd be perfect for what I have in mind for the living room.

Image courtesy of Ikea

I was eyeing the storage systems primarily, so these Pax wardrobes were calling my name. $500 for a new closet sort of makes me want to cry, especially since it looks like we'd need two of these, but it's good to know there are options out there.

Image courtesy of Ikea

This beautiful behemoth is called Elga. I'd like to get Elga just to refer to it by it's proper name, as if Elga is our head housemaid and we are characters on Downton Abbey. But more to the point, the size of this thing is more fitting for us, and at $540, it makes me feel less weepy than the concept of buying two Pax wardrobes.

Image courtesy of Ikea

And I was head over heels for this rug. It's only $20, as if it's made specifically for me.

Mum was still on the lookout for a futon for the guest/entertainment room, and while she found one she liked, she ended up leaving without it. (She does this a lot, whereas I take more after my dad and tend to buy things on the spot... when I have the money.) 

As she stood there contemplating it, along with the different mattress thicknesses and fabric choices, Shane and I were running low on energy.

After that, we went downstairs to the non-furniture goods. Mum bought six or seven new wall-mount picture frames to supplement our new family wall gallery while Shane sat on every piece of furniture in sight.

We dashed into the "As Is" section (most of it was display furniture that was damaged and sold as final sale) and then, after four hours of shopping, we finally got to the checkout line.

Thanks to my Ikea Family card, Shane got a free frozen yogurt cone at the bistro, and our Ikea adventure came to an end.

In a perfect world, I would've met the lovely Jenny on this excursion, but since the trip was so last-minute, it didn't work out this time. It turned out for the best, I was dead on my feet in the checkout line and wasn't myself for the rest of the night. 

I came home, plugged in my dead phone, took some headache medicine, and fell asleep. What an exhausting but awesome day.