My love/hate relationship with Ikea

The first time I visited Ikea was the day I arrived in Seattle last fall. Since it was on the way home from the airport and since we needed furniture, we thought it would be a good idea to stop by and browse on our way to our hotel. Well, we quickly realized that even Ikea furniture is out of our price range, shopping with two tired children fresh off a plane is a nightmare, and Ikea is large and overwhelming. We did eat at the restaurant and I really liked the meatballs.

We hadn't returned to Ikea until last night. I'm not sure why, but for some reason it just didn't happen. Then yesterday I decided I had had enough of the kids' dresser. We got it from some lady on craigslist last year; we bought S-Boogie's bed from her, and she threw in the dresser for ten dollars. She even had her boyfriend deliver it to us. Unfortunately I didn't look at the dresser before agreeing to have it, and we quickly realized why she was desperate to get rid of it. The drawers wouldn't stay on track, no matter what we did. The back was cracked, which warped the frame. For the last six months or so Little Dude's clothes have just been piled on top. Some day I'd love to have a car big enough to transport furniture so I could take advantage of the great deals on craigslist. But I don't. So I've just been hating the dresser for the last six months or so.

Yesterday another of the drawers fell out and smashed S-Boogie's fingers. I decided it was time to find a replacement, so Mr. Fob and I thought we'd check out Ikea first. And I was craving meatballs. Last night I decided that I really do love Ikea. First of all, S-Boogie is big enough to play in the kid area now. So we got an hour to browse with Little Dude. He happily hung out in the sling playing with the rubber duckie the ladies at the kid area gave him. First we found these beauties for our CDs. Next came the real treasure:a dresser was on clearance for fifty dollars. It was beautiful. We don't need a changing table at the moment, but it should hold the kids' clothes and hopefully won't fall apart any time soon. (I was going to link to the dresser but it's a line they are discontinuing. If you are near an Ikea and need baby furniture, see if they still have some of the Diktad line, it's fabulous.) We also ate meatballs, so my night was fabulous.

Then today I decided that I hate Ikea after all. Putting the dresser together was a horrible ordeal. It was made especially complicated by the fact that one screw was supposed to go in a spot where there was a knot in the wood. I was glad we had a few extra because I stripped two screws trying to get it in place. But we eventually got the dresser together and I'm so excited to put it in the kids' room tomorrow. Now I can stop being embarrassed when people come over (I'll post before and after photos tomorrow).