Boulder to London

We ventured out to IKEA today to work on furnishing our flat. For those of you not familiar with IKEA, it is a giant home store that has everything from furniture to linens to lamps to kitchenware…you get the point. I’d compare it to putting a Bed, Bath and Beyond next to an American Furniture Warehouse and then throwing in some of Target and Wal-Mart. Needless to say, the place is huge. One of my coworkers recently spent 12 hours there with her mom as she tried to furnish her new place. Another coworker warned me that I should go early to avoid the crowds, but that they are open until midnight if I wanted to go late.

We checked out their website and found that they open at 9. Since we don’t have a car, we had to walk about half a mile to the train station, take a 10 minute train ride, get on a tram, and then walk another 5 minutes to the store, before arriving about 9:30. The store was not very busy when we arrived, and it was actually in good order. Melisse was there a week or so ago in the afternoon and found the place really picked over and in a state of chaos. We made our way through the furniture section and checked out some of the furniture that we had ordered online. One of the chairs was really comfortable, but we’re a little concerned with the cover that we chose. I guess we can order a new cover if it is too bad. Since we weren’t there to buy furniture, we exited into the home section. Cruising through the kitchen section, we quickly picked up a few small items including a spatula and a French press. We were disappointed not to find a wine rack since we had recently ordered a case of wine, but maybe next time. From the kitchen section, we were channeled into a sort of home/living section with throw pillows, rugs, drapes, etc. We found a couple of covers for the throw pillows on our couch and a cushion for the wooden desk chair in our living room. We skipped bedding and made our way to lighting. In lighting we picked up a few floor lamps and some light bulbs. By this time, we had filled one bag (you can use carts or big yellow shopping bags as you go through the store) and still hadn’t gotten the plants and pots that we hoped to get. I was feeling pretty good at this point as we had gotten most of what we needed and it still looked like we were going to be able to carry things home without incident. As we entered the last section of the store, we spotted a throw rug that we liked. It was rolled up in plastic, so it wasn’t too hard to carry, but now I’m packing two floor lamps and a 4’ X 6’ rug as I make my way through the store. Melisse picked out a few plants, pots and some candle holders to round out our purchases. By this time she’s carrying a lamp shade, 3 stalks of bamboo, a heavy glass vase, rocks for the bamboo, the cushion for the chair and some other odds and ends. We wished we could have gotten some more plants, but we were really pushing what we could carry on the trip home.

We got through checkout and embarked on the journey home. I had the carpet over one shoulder and a large shopping bag in the other hand. Melisse had the lamp shade in one hand, and the rest of the items in a shopping bag of her own. As we exited the store, the rain started to fall. We only had a short walk to the tram stop, but found that we had an 8 minute wait once we arrived. We tried to keep everything dry as we huddled under the little structure with a few other people waiting in a similar predicament. The tram came and it was a little more crowded than I would have liked. I ended up upsetting one individual when I accidentally hit him with my over-stuffed shopping bag. We got off the tram at the train station and just missed our train home. We found a dry place inside sit down, rest and wait the 15 minutes for the next train. The train came and we once again fought our way on. The weather looked like it was breaking and we hoped that it would hold out for our walk home. Unfortunately, we had no luck. It rained on our walk home which seemed much longer with our load. It probably took us 10 or 15 minutes to make our way down the crowded sidewalk, and we arrived safely with everything in good condition. The stuff looks pretty good and we look forward to our furniture delivery coming later this week. I’m hoping this is our last trip to IKEA for a while.