Nesting and rearranging

For a while now, I've had this unsettled feeling at home. You know, the sort of feeling where you wander from room to room, with an itch to do "something," but you don't know what that something is? Well, my something turned out to be a slight rearrangement of furniture in the living areas of the house, allowing for not one, but TWO trips to Ikea in a single day. I'm quite proud that on the first trip, I managed to wrangle an entire Expedit shelving unit into my car all by myself, got it home and into the house all by myself (not without falling up my back steps and tearing a brand new pair of shorts open from hip to thigh), and then assembled, placed and loaded the fucker, again, all by myself. (Spouse had banned further Ikea furniture from the house, but I overruled him, because all other options cost roughly four times what this cost.) So, I feel a little more settled. (Am I the only person who walks by new pieces of furniture a million times and admires my own handiwork?)

Squirt Approves of New Furniture


On the second trip, we got a chair for the living room. I had always felt a little barbaric in our living room...we had only a couch and a recliner. The layout was not "conversational." If you visited me, it was like coming to the movie theater...you could sit and look at my TV, which is an arguably awesome 52 inch HDTV, but that's not why you came over, right? You came to chat with me about how cool my pets are, or what an old codger my husband has become (ask me how many times he called the police to report noise violations recently)! Now we can do this face to face, you seated across the room from me. It is, sadly, very exciting. There were other accessories purchased, a drawer knife rack (no more knife block taking up space on my counters!), some pillow covers (matchy matchy!), some throw blankets (more matchy matchy!).

So, here are two Ikea related observations. I got there so early on Saturday, the store wasn't actually opened yet, and I had to kill time in their restaurant. They give out free coffee in the morning. And (here is the observation), it is tasty! In fact, it is so tasty that I will actually make a point to get a cup on future visits. Secondly, you know who I would like to meet? The guy who has the job of "undesigning" the furniture, so that it fits into flat boxes. Because this chair here...



...it was in a flat box. And that just blows my fucking mind.