Excellent excuse to go shopping

Chris made the ultimate sacrifice on Friday - he drove 2 1/2 hours to go shopping with me at IKEA. Okay, 5 hours round trip. But it was worth it! And we had a really good time.

Technically we went down now so that we could buy the hood vent and ensure it got framed properly. Didn't want to go to install it and figure out that we'd put a stud where the vent hole needed to be.  And we did indeed buy the hood. Love it! And at $100 less than what I'd found locally, the trip paid for itself.

The reason for the trip

When you drive that far, you really want to make a day of it so we wandered around and found some great ideas as well as some things that we'll be able to make use of sooner rather than later. We also had lunch (Swedish meatballs, of course), and met my brother and SIL for a leisurely round of "did you see what we found?!?".  A red plastic octopus may have figured prominently.

Design idea for the bathroom

I loved this hutch/drawer combo. Chris will be able to use it as inspiration for the bathroom storage solution we'll need downstairs. The bathroom doesn't have a built-in linen closet so we'll need something enclosed for storage. I'm not a fan of open storage in the bath as it tends to get musty.

Another design idea IKEA

We are opting for wardrobes instead of permanent closets in the new house. I like the flexibility that a wardrobe gives you. Don't like the bed against that wall? Move it! Anywhere! No closet doors to worry about. Anyway, we built space for closets, we're just not putting up the walls (future house sale consideration - we can always add the walls before we sell). This wardrobe has a nice clean design that won't draw too much attention in a room. Not sure if we'll go this route or build honking big curvy wardrobes like the one in Disney's "Beaty and the Beast".

Juice glass!

And I found juice glasses! Remember how juice glasses used to be small - around 4 or 5 oz instead of 16? I've been looking for some for a long time. Oh, and they had to fit my hand comfortably. And IKEA had them! At $1.49 for six glasses, I think the purchase was justified. 

We also picked up a brindle cow hide that I'm going to use to repair some cat damage to the arms of my leather chairs. That'll be a fun project and I'll be sure to post pictures when I finally get to it. Don't expect that any time soon though - gotta build the house first.