My Love-Hate Relationship with Ikea

Well, we do it every once in a while... go to Ikea. I think everyone sort of feels this way about Ikea: you hate it but you love it. The prices are amazing and they have amazing meatballs, but by the time you get down to the section where you're loading up all your goods, it feels like you've been there forever!! And then sometimes, after a few months, the furniture sags, or bows or breaks... I've had awesome luck with some furniture & terrible luck with others. But I just can't stay away...

We made the trip because we needed a few things (and are young, fabulous & broke, of course!) How adorable is the fabric above??? They're curtains for one of the kids' rooms... I'd really like to put them in Christian's new bedroom but worry they're too girly for him (although like he'd care at 2 years old... it's really more like are they too girly for Daddy?? :) I have been wanting to do something with picture books, so we'll see if I can make it work... I also got the curtains below for our bedroom. They're really more a placeholder until we can afford more linen, but you can't beat Ikea's prices and now at least we have something up!!

We also picked up the HUGE table below in the damaged furniture section for only $150. We were planning on paying the whole $400 for it until my husband thought to check the damaged section. (he's the best!!!) I really don't know where the damage is & honestly, if I know Ikea and my family, we'll damage it pretty quickly ourselves. It's going to be in my office/ the family room as a worktable for projects, laptops, etc. and can also do double-duty as dining space for huge parties. The little rolly chairs were only $25 each and I'm planning on spraying the legs a shiny chrome:

These pics (above & below) are of our family room which is being finished this week!!!!! I'm SO excited!!! We're having wall-to-wall seagrass installed & then we get to bring in all of our furniture & (finally!!) unpack & get organized. It'll basically double the square footage of our house because we haven't been using it all all this whole time... Below is one of the Tullsta chairs we see everywhere. For $129 and with white washable slipcovers, these babies were what got us to Ikea in the first place. We picked up a pair to go by our wood burning stove in the family room..

Anyway, I'll have some "after" pictures of the new family room very soon!! yay!!

And if you didn't get the chance, check out my previous post on what we've been up to! :) hope you had a great weekend!!!

xoxo,

lauren

**** Check out this site that Joni from Cote de Texas just let me know about: http://www.bemz.com/index.php/page/shop/prod_id/3/3/13/24/0/11/front/model_id/60/showbox/color/pattern_id/85/

They make custom slipcovers for Ikea pieces at awesome prices!!! What a great idea for an upgrade!!! *****

Affordable Design – The Trollsta Tray Table by IKEA

Good design doesn't need to be expensive, good design can be affordable. I am a firm believer that the best design is always a compromise in the choices that are made. It is the refined eye who sees what you can use as an inexpensive alternative. Of course expensive things are beautiful - one of the reasons is the time, materials and effort spent in the creation of these pieces. We try to highlight these pieces in our Eye Candy of the Week section, but being current with the times we also would like to feature some affordable alternatives that are unique, elegant and cost effective.

Trollsta Tray Table

For all of those fans of Moooi, Marcel Wanders, Jaime Hayon or Marteen Baas for instance - IKEA has this piece that will echo the designs of these great talents.

PRODUCT
Trollsta – Tray Table [ Black ]

WHERE TO GET IT?
IKEA

DESIGNER
Wiebke Braasch

MATERIAL
Table top: Steel, Pigmented powder coating
Underframe: Solid birch, Tinted nitrocellulose lacquer
Axle: Steel, Galvanized

KEY FEATURES

• Removable tray.
• The tray has an extra wide edge and high sides; prevents spills and makes it easy to carry.
• Easy to fold up, easy to move

PRICE
$ 79.00 Canadian Dollars