Apartment To Apartment: Ikea

Showing posts with label Ikea. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

The Besta of the Resta

For a while now Mom has been looking for a replacement TV media stand ever since I initially messed up the drawers on her old one. :-/ I'm usually so good at assembly but those drawers confused the hell out of me! As a result of repeated attempts to fix my mistake and shoddy construction, the stand drawers were beyond repair.

Enter: Ikea. Of course. On our last trip we went through the TV and media stand section extensively measuring and figuring out what would best fit in the space. We'd looked at the ones online and nothing really grabbed us. But what I didn't know was that they sometimes have custom models on the floor with parts that they assemble together to create a new unit.

For around $100, we saw one that would work and looked pretty cool. It was made up of multiple parts (which scared me because finding stuff in that huge warehouse at the end can be tedious and it's easy to forget a part!).

This unit was part of the Besta series; gotta love those Swedish names!

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I couldn't find the cabinet door on their website but if you are in the showroom and want to make sure you have all the pieces, you can ask an employee and they'll print out a parts list for you.

I think it turned out great. I love the dvd divider because it keeps everything in line. The door gives easy access to the XBOX and then you can just shut the door and hide it. It wasn't too bad to put together and on the Ikea Assembly Difficulty Scale of 1-10 that I just made up, I'd give it a 6 (just because I had to figure out how to put the drawers in and the cabinet doors myself with no directions provided).

Monday, April 14, 2014

Clean And Organized: Downstairs Visit

I got our command's monthly news letter last week and the ombudsman. The ombudsman, from my very limited understanding of Navy things, is the appointed spouse that conveys messages to the ship, has direct contact with the ship's command, and deals with issues relating to ship families while the ship is both in port and on deployment and generally is just a helpful authority for families. She wrote:

What I have learned is that everyone has their own way of coping with deployment. Personally, I ate junk food for two weeks. I also spent quite a bit of money on furniture. (Which seems to be a common deployment purchase. If anyone figures out why spouses seem to always redecorate the house, let me know.)

And I kinda laughed because that's exactly what I've done! (Minus the junk food part, I've actually been pretty good!)

I've gone through everything in the downstairs part of the house which is basically all of Russ' and my things. We squeezed everything we had in our apartment into a large great room and a bedroom with a tiny closet. I don't really have anything upstairs besides some kitchen items. So essentially, I've went through everything we own since he left.

It's been nice cleaning, organizing, and getting rid of things! The whole downstairs has managed to stay clean since Russ has been gone and I've arranged everything. That is not to say that Russ is at all messy. I, seriously, am the messy one. He keeps his mess contained to receipts and plastic bags he seemingly needs to hold onto- but that's it.

Anyway, this was a long intro. Here's about what the room looked like just a few weeks ago:

The three shelves we bought at Big Lots about three years ago for $39 each. I still think they're really cute but the weight of our stuff was starting to bow the shelves. When we decided to have a yard sale, I thought it would be the perfect time to change them out for something more substantial.

I searched Ikea, Amazon, Target, Walmart... for something that I liked that wasn't too expensive that would be a little more durable than our shelves we had now. I've always liked the Ikea Expedit, but for $199 it was difficult to pull the trigger on it. I've heard rumors that Ikea is phasing out the Expedit so I decided to jump before I'd regret it (and we hadn't bought anything for the tax return so...).

But. I'm not gonna lie. Getting this home was a bitch. There's no other word to describe it. Me, Brayt and Mom barely fit with this monstrosity in my Jeep. I had four, 5' boxes crammed in there so tightly, Brayt's leg went numb from being wedged in the seat very uncomfortably. This beast is also very heavy. The box said to put this together with a buddy and since my buddy is out to sea, it was all me. I did it, obviously, but OMG I wanted to burn Ikea to the ground and dance on its ashes during assembly.

Isn't that always the case with Ikea stuff though? At least... that's my experience with it anyway.

And all the cardboard left over. :(

I got the boxes at the bottom for $6.99 for a two pack. I really love the extra storage they give me. There's extra video games, an entire box just for card games, Russ' spiral bound Navy books, and other things that needed storage. I absolutely love it. I think it really makes the room look more 'grown up'- just ignore the various stuffed animals, please.

I got this cute basket at Ross for $11.99 and I love it so so much. Our Ross always has awesome baskets for really cheap. The next door over at HomeGoods this basket would have been almost $20.

I used our other cube shelf, that had previously housed sewing machine crap and some of Russ' work clothes in fabric bins, to put our books on.

Below is Russ' wardrobe and some random shelves that house some craft supplies and a lot of Russ' computer/tech stuff.

I'm really planning on getting a dresser to up our clothing storage capabilities. I've been considering either of these Tarva unfinished dressers from Ikea and refinishing them in the same or similar style of our nightstands.

Source $149

Source $99

Sorry for the poorly-lit photos...

After buying the first basket, I decided the next day to go back to Ross and pick up its mate. It's slightly bigger and was priced at $13.99. I placed our board games in there mainly because I had to find someway to use it after I bought it (that's what you're NOT supposed to do, right?). I usually try to only buy something if I know its purpose immediately but I knew I'd regret it and most likely would get a lot of use out of it. Plus, it's cute and now they match.

That concludes our little tour- WOW was this long-winded. Maybe I should put a disclaimer at the top that you should only look at the pictures because this. was. wordy.

Friday, April 4, 2014

Counting the Days

With Russ gone, I've been trying to stay busy. That's harder now that I don't have a job and am trying to focus entirely on the business (which has been sloooooow moving since it's so hard for companies to return calls... but anyways).

I decided before Russ left that it would be cool for him to see a snippet of everyday that he's been missing. I know it doesn't even begin to make up for the time he's lost at home but I thought it would be better than nothing. So, everyday I've been making a point to take a picture of something. It could be what I'm working on, what's happening, something cute, or just a snapshot of the day.

So here it is:

1.) Russ' ship leaves on deployment day.

2.) I spend my time drawing schematics of the food truck.

3.) I spend part of the day sweeping and wiping down the food truck (it was quite dirty).

4.) I went to my first movie alone to see Veronica Mars (and it was AWESOME).

5.) I went to SeaTac to pick up Mom from the airport.

6.) Zelda and I take a self-portrait.

7.) I tried out a new chocolate chip cookie recipe and it is amazing and I've discovered our go-to bakery basic chocolate chip recipe.

8.) I checked the mail and got our official Bake My Day LLC name registry from the state of Washington.

9.) Spring is coming but Winter is trying to hold on during its last day.

10.) It's the official first day of Spring and our little flowers are making an appearance.

11.) Mom and I have breakfast at a local cafe that's WWII & Navy-themed.

12.) Mom and I spend time reorganizing the garage and collect things for a garage sale.

13.) The three of us go to Ikea (on a weekend, we ARE crazy!).

14.) Double rainbow!

15.) Beautiful day for the first lawn-cutting of the year!

16.) My Ikea shelves are put together and lookin' fine.

17.) Mom and I begin to put together care packages for Russ and the sailor onboard that we "adopted."

18.) Gizmo lounges as he's prone to do.

19.) Brayt and I visit the Fremont Vintage Mall and it's awesome!

20.) Rainy Seattle.

21.) Ian squints at me lovingly.

22.) April Fool's Day special on National Geographic!

23.) Our cherry blossoms are blooming in the yard.

24.) A self-portrait to start the day. (I still feel weird taking these...)

I hope Russ enjoys seeing a slice of life while he's gone. I'm contemplating putting these together in a book to print out for us to keep when he gets home. This is an interesting time in our lives that is worth documenting, I think.

Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Ikea Strikes Again

Thank you, Ikea, for allowing me to tackle this crazy-looking pile of random game room stuff and make it look a little less blah.

Yeah, there's still some plastic containers and it doesn't look perfect. But, it adds some height to the area, gives a spot for "currently playing games" (and there are a lot...), and camouflages some of the crazily-placed outlets behind the shelf that the TV uses.

$25 well spent, I say. I'm loving the game room part of the house- it's so darn cozy! I love that it's full of fun, meaningful, and interesting stuff.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Getting Some 'Rast' Ideas

During our last trip to Ikea (which is amazingly only like 25 minutes away!!), I wanted to check out some dressers to see what could possibly fit in our tiny bedroom. I had scoured the Ikea site before our visit and measured what was most likely to fit but, you really need to see a piece in person before making any decisions. And also something that looks pretty online can be really cheap-looking in person.

I had originally wanted something like this to fit near our closet and maybe slide our queen sized bed over toward the wall a bit more. My mom has the red version and I loved the sturdiness, legs, and hardware and thought the white one would be cute in our room.

It was just too wide and tall for the space I wanted it. I also didn't care for spending $199 when they had a few other unfinished alternatives for less.

After deciding that I'd be okay with refinishing something, I checked back to ikeahackers.net which is an awesome resource for some great ideas using Ikea products. There's everything from wardrobe hacks to cat litter box hacks. It's very interesting to see what people have come up with to solve some of their home problems using inexpensive Ikea fare and a little ingenuity.

I stumbled on some incredibly beautiful hacks using the Ikea 'Rast' dresser. Surprisingly, the dimensions were so perfect I figured that I could buy two and use them on either side of our bed as night tables for even more storage than I had originally planned.

This is the good, old, knotty-piney Rast dresser. It's pretty solid and was pretty simple to put together (even for Ikea standards):

At $35 dollars each, the price was right and I knew it wouldn't break the bank to spiffy these babies up.

Here's some inspirational hacks that I was contemplating:

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But ultimately, this captured my heart. I liked the idea of the stained top being durable and I could stain it to complement our platform bed. I also like the idea of the white drawers being able to go with pretty much any type of bedding I could get. This could be a design that would last a few years without being the wrong color and I wouldn't have to worry about refinishing it when I choose different bedding.

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I'm pretty excited to get my materials and get started. Yet, I'm still wondering how I'm going to keep all the cats away from me while I'm working. :/ That could be a problem...

Friday, August 17, 2012

Design Friday: Home Office Edition

One of these days I will have a beautiful home office... so today I daydreamed and made a little design board of what it could possibly look like based around an awesome Seattle poster I stumbled upon on Pinterest. There's a lot of stuff from Ikea (of course) because that's mainly what's in my price range and an item or two from West Elm and Z Gallerie that I could probably not afford. Oh well, it was fun!

1.) Ikea, 2.) Random Google search for "globe," ha, 3.) Ikea, 4.) Pinterest: originally Fab.com, 5.) West Elm, 6.) Ikea, 7.) Ikea, 8.) Z Gallerie, 9.) Ikea, 10.) Ikea, 11.) Target, 12.) Ikea

Have a great weekend! :D

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Whitewash This Project

It's that time of year again... time for the air conditioning to not work! I've been dreading this day all Spring long but secretly hoped that I was wrong. Nope. It's been about three to four hours since I've complained about it not working and now I've finally got someone here working on it (and he's more drenched in sweat than I am...). Makes me feel bad.

But I've been working on two projects today and one of which I'm saving for tomorrow. After debating for a while what to do with my picture frames from IKEA, I decided to take one (.66 cents each, I still can't believe it!) and whitewash it with acrylic paint. I wanted some of the wood grain to show through and it's a great way to insure that I can easily change the color down the road.

After a minimal drying time I took some spare fabric from my other project and cut it for the frame. Cute, but it still needed a little something.

Then, I remembered a quote on Pinterest that I pinned because it seemed to fit Russ and me so perfectly:

I thought of typing and printing it out but ultimately laziness won and I just decided to freehand it.

After practicing it with permanent marker and black pen. Pen was the clear winner because I liked the way it made the writing more delicate.

I think it's adorable! And I'm done in time for Russ to get home so we can play the "What's different about this room?" game. He really hates that but I love to see what he notices and doesn't. We definitely are silly.