ikea love

Last weekend, I took a long, long road trip to visit with some fantastic friends in Delaware.  More about that later.  On the way home, I planned a pit stop at one of the Ikea stores in Baltimore.  I was a first-timer and boy, was I enthralled! 

There were some really awesome things there and they were all SUPER cheap.  Like, Walmart cheap, but much nicer-looking, and seemingly better quality, too.  How do they do it?  One will never know. 

Katie chose to stay with me, rather than go to their kiddie corral, but isn't it so great that they have a staffed play area for children?  And, it was decorated to the hilt, too!

So, off we went, taking a big yellow bag to fill on our journey through the maze of home goods.  I found a table/organizer/thingie that I really want to organize all the homeschooling junk in the kitchen, but thought I'd better table that purchase until after I'd spoken with Mr. Hull.  Isn't it fabulous, though?  It is hip-high and big enough for all our stuff, with project-drying space along the top.  Maybe we can look forward to bringing it home when we visit Atlanta and Charlotte in a few weeks.

But, I did actually buy some super fun things. 

Katie picked these out.  The elephant is a cover for one of those flat-sided exercise balance balls.  I thought the ball was included because I apparently can't read Swedish, but that's fine.  I bought the ball on ebay when I got home so we'll actually have the whole thing set up in about a week.  They had them out to play with in the store and she had so much fun bouncing and flopping on it that, for what I thought was $15, it was a no-brainer.  The utensil set was actually on sale for a dollar or two, and the stuff is really heavy duty, so I don't anticipate that the dishwasher will melt these.  We had been running really low on forks and spoons for her, so this well help a lot.

I bought this nifty chalkboard for our homeschool.  I'm thinking I will hang chore cards from the hooks and use the caddy area for... something.  I had wanted to paint a chalkboard on a big wall in the kitchen (as in, paint the whole wall), but Mr Hull nixed that idea, so this will work instead.  Again, only $15.  Super!

 

Finally, just for me, a set of four bird placemats.  I thought this package contained one thick, pliable cutting board.  However, again, I don't speak Swedish, so I didn't know.  Perhaps the fact that there were other placemats  pretty close by should have clued me in.  Oh well.  I like them.  And, the fishy ice cube tray.  I think I'm going to use it mostly for jello-jigglers though.  Fun!

I must add, when I was searching for these photos, I found a lot of this stuff on ebay for much more than I paid for it.  Do I see a lucrative business opportunity in the future?  Perhaps if I lived closer to an ikea.  However, I don't think the gas would pay for itself.  Oh well.  Another day.