The K-Mart of Sweden

[sakon76]

The other day I found mention of the Ikea Hackers website in, of all things, an Avengers fanfic. Being intrigued, I followed up and spent a couple evenings perusing the site, looking for anything that would fit what Wonderful Husband and I need. Specifically, we have a wasted corner in our living room, tucked away between the media center and the fireplace we have yet to use. (Hmm. Should see about getting that cleaned soon, and maybe use it this winter....) We've sporadically discussed putting shelves to hold our DVD collection in that corner, thus enabling us to get rid of the particleboard media storage units we inherited through family.

I found mention of the Varde wall shelf and researched a bit farther. I didn't even know that Ikea sold non-particleboard items! It's solid birch.

So we took measurements, figured out we want three of the things, picked up my mother, and went to Ikea today. It's a good thing we didn't dally on this as we often do on things, because apparently the shelves are being phased out. OTOH, we were gleefully delighted to discover at the checkout that each unit was now reduced to $30 instead of $50!

To report thus far: they are sturdy, go quickly and easily together, and look decent. They do not, however, come with the hardware (8 screws each) to actually attach them to the wall. So tomorrow we'll likely hit up Lowes, get screws that are long enough, and toggles, and hang the things. Then start transferring the DVDs and possibly have me stop at Ikea again for one more set of shelves, as once we get rid of the current storage units, we will have nothing to put the living room phone on....

All this is part of my recent push to keep cleaning/renovating the house. We divvied holidays up with my mother while we were shopping, and she's going to host Thanksgiving this year, while we get Christmas since we'll be in the country for it again. It's always fun going to Ikea with Mom, as she is half Swedish, speaks the language, lived there for a while IIRC, and can be asked if the item names actually mean anything. (Answer: most of them don't.) Also, Ikea's Swedish meatballs, while tasty enough, do not hold a candle to hers.

Comments

[racerxmachina.livejournal.com]

I've plugged IKEA Hackers on the podcast a couple of times now, they are sensational! And yeah, Eric and I only buy whole wood from them when we get furniture, never particle board. There are usually a couple of wood choices in each line. Our kitchen table was unstained whole wood from Ikea, which we sanded, stained and assembled.