Furniture Fun!

I found shopping at IKEA yesterday a lot of fun! Mark said he didn't get it at all. I'm wondering how my blog readers feel. Is shopping at IKEA fun or not? How about shopping in general?

Usually, I'm not a big fan of shopping of any kind. I have never had enough money or time to really enjoy just going out and buying things for myself. I do like to shop for holiday presents for other people, but for the last five or six years the shopping has mostly been from my laptop! LOL! Mark does all the grocery shopping for us, and has for so many years that I can hardly remember ever doing it, and he does NOT enjoy that experience at all. It's a chore he has to do, and he does it well, but there's no real enjoyment there.

We didn't spend much time in the store because we had a very specific shopping list, knew where to find them, and didn't look at anything else, just like Mark does grocery shopping! We got a sleep sofa that is identical to the one in our living room that we bought last spring at IKEA, five more DVD towers identical to the ones in the TV room, bringing that total up to 13, and three brown bookcases like the one in the dining room to line one wall of Mark's den. He can put one of these pieces together in about forty-five minutes and will do one a day until they are done, starting on Monday.

I'm so excited for the DVD towers because we'll finally be able to empty the last boxes of VHS tapes out of the family room and den. The sofa in the TV room will allow us to have two more people sleep over, in case we have a houseful of company some day. (See me crossing my fingers and hoping that this happens? I guess you blinked because I did do that! LOL!) I also am excited to see the bookshelves in the den. Currently there is a broken metal shelf that is probably over fifty years old, a leaning wooden bookshelf that I bought in 1968 at a drug store, and a nearly useless old computer table. These things are falling apart and do not hold enough books and things. They are currently full and yet there are several unopened boxes still in there. These new book shelves will hold everything and more, I think, plus they will just look so much nicer. On the opposite wall, there are two file cabinets, an antique "secretary," and an antique library style glass door book cabinet. We will never get rid of those items, but they are also packed tight and can hold no more. The fourth wall has my father's giant wooden desk facing that window and opposite are the French doors leading into the room. It's going to be a beautiful room when it's done.

Much to our surprise, everything is being delivered this afternoon between 1 and 4 for the small fee of $59. That was faster and cheaper than we expected. Mark is going to spend all day out of the house at a NARFE District meeting. He'll be gone from 8 to 4:30, so I'll be here accepting the furniture delivery. We dragged the old sofa out into the garage last night, and the bulk trash people will pick it up Wednesday morning. We cleared other things out of the room to make it easy for everything to be delivered into the same room since that's their rule. If they come early enough, I'll have that sofa unwrapped and assembled before Mark gets home. It's really already assembled. It just requires a lot of unwrapping of cardboard and plastic wrap, draping the cover over the frame, and stuffing the cushions into their zippered covers. That was the part that was the hardest on the last one. I was never satisfied with how I did on those cushions, so maybe this time I can do it a little better. Otherwise this small, sofa is really attractive, sleeps two in a sturdy double bed, and is fairly comfortable to sit on. My little house will now sleep EIGHT!

As I started off saying today, I was excited to shop at IKEA and now I'm excited to have the new stuff in our home.