Superbowl Sunday at Ikea

[dreamshark]

Superbowl Sunday is a great day to go out anywhere and do almost anything, because of the crowds that aren't there. I had seriously thought about going skating (outdoors!) but that would have meant skating 3 days in a row, which didn't work out so good last week. And we had this great expanse of empty wall staring at us from where the piano used to be.

So into the mini-van and off to Ikea to buy shelves. The store wasn't empty by any means, but not crowded either, and parking was a snap. Blessedly, the shelving solutions are in the first part of the 90-mile hike that is Ikea. We had some very specific needs in mind, which required some creative use of the signature modular shelving systems. Let's just say that they could offer a few more sizing options to make the modular thing really successful. We're trying to create a wall of floor to ceiling shelving with a 3-foot wide mail station in the middle. The 16" wide Billy shelves are perfect, and with the optional 16" extender section on top they exactly reach the bottom of the ceiling molding. The question is, how to fill in the space over the little mail desk? The matching Billy wall shelves were too narrow to span the gap. We finally realized that we could use a Benno single wall shelf across the top to hold the sides together. A couple more of the same type of shelf could be trimmed to mount between the two upright sections. Yay! After much deliberation on color, we finally settled on the beech.

We suffered a slight setback when we got down to the warehouse where you actually pick up the furniture you picked out upstairs. The upright Billy shelves were there, but the Benno shelves were out of stock! Ack! We decided to get the Billies now, and come back later for the cross shelves.

We dined in the elegant splendor (not!) of the Ikea cafeteria, picked up some heavy-duty hangers, a bag of frozen meatballs, and 4 jars of Lingonberry Preserves, and headed home. I then retired upstairs to futz around with my new computer, which was having sound problems. Richard, in an astounding burst of energy, assembled the first Billy shelf, which fits perfectly and looks just lovely. Last night he put up the other one, including cutting a little slot out of the side to fit around the top of the closet door molding. They fit beautifully, and look amazingly good. The beech finish doesn't match anything, but since there are already 4 different woodtones in the living room, one more just adds to the casual wood crazy-quilt concept. In fact, the beech kind of mediates between the golden oak floors and the maple mail desk.

Comments

[nancymcc.livejournal.com]

Gosh, this sounds familiar. There's a spot in our living room that's been begging for floor-to-ceiling shelves. I picked out the Billy-plus-extension several years ago at the IKEA in Seattle, but we had no way to get them home (and they charge tons for delivery).

Portland's IKEA finally opened this summer (it was being planned in 2001, but it's right next to the airport, and then....) I was counting down the days, and then I didn't actually get over there for months! I was worried about crowds.

So now we can pick up shelving in our van (which we didn't want to drive to Seattle due to poor gas mileage). Or we could take light rail there and get a discount on local delivery by showing the rail ticket.

I need to sit down select from amongst the dizzying array of configurations. I'd also decided on Beech, but I'm a bit worried about it. We have lots of different woods, too, but I thought some of the Beech in the store seemed very orange. Does it feel orangey at home? Fret, fret.

Orange might be bad with the big sectional couch -- it is a deep cranberry red (and red-is-my-favorite-color Jerry will be visiting tonight, so I hope to impress him!)

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

The other color that we considered was the "medium brown." I wanted to go with the beech because I thought the orangey tone would go well with the golden tones in the maple desk and the oak floor. Maybe I'll post a picture.

We were annoyed that they did not offer these particular pieces in the "dark brown" (which is essentially the dark walnut that we needed to match our dark woodwork). They do have some other shelving options in that color, but they weren't the right size and shape.

[galacticvoyeur.livejournal.com]

My impression is that Ikea stuff is sized for modern construction - straight walls, level floors, lower ceilings, not for old houses with weird small rooms (like your office.)

We went to the new Trader Joe's in Maple Grove during the stupor bowl. No traffic. No shoppers. Everything you could want in a shopping experience. Plus a new can of Joe's Kona coffee!

[dreamshark.livejournal.com]

It's hard to complain about the fact that the shelves are straight rather than wavy, inconvenient though that may be. :-)

Actually, I think they handle the variation in ceiling heights fairly gracefully by offering optional extender shelves to put on top of the standard 7-foot ones. That worked perfectly for us. My complaint is that they don't offer additional shelves in a variety of widths. We wanted some 36" shelves to bridge the gap between the two towers.