The House

We shop a lot at Ikea. 

When we first came overseas, we arrived with 7 trunks of stuff to an empty apartment (it is a longer story than that, but eventually that happened).  To furnish our apartment we initially found a local furniture factory to make furniture for us.  It seemed simple.  Unfortunately we were new to working with different business customs and did not know to specify that solid wood means a solid piece of wood - not wood glued together to form a "solid" piece of wood.  We did not even know we should tell them to use dry wood.  It was a wooden furniture factory; we figured these were pretty standard.  Within a year of receiving all of our furniture, most of the pieces were cracked, drawers were falling off of the tracks and the stinking knobs refused to stay on.  Of the furniture we bought from said factory, we still have half of it (cracked and missing knobs for sure).  The other half was at some point left by the curb or given away. 

With all that said, when we initially bought our furniture we did not know Ikea was in this country and we especially did not know they will ship ANYTHING (other than dishes) directly to your home.  Goodness, we would have bought everything there!  In the US I bought a grand total of 3 things from Ikea.  Here, I would grocery shop if they had everything we needed.  So, when we go to the capital for one of our medical visits, we usually make a trip to Ikea since it is near the hospital.  I also usually have a running Ikea list on my computer.  These visits are usually bi-annual, so it helps with remembering everything we need.

I like Ikea for 3 reasons.  First is that they have some sense of quality control and checks and balances for their products. I have accidentally bought toys painted with lead paint online here before, but I feel like Ikea is very protective of their reputation and will not let that happen.  Second the furniture is inexpensive enough that it is pretty non-committal.  We never know when the Father might call us elsewhere, and it will hurt to give everything we own away but it will not hurt as bad as if I spent a bundle on high quality furnitre.  Thirdly, it is one-stop-shopping.  Aside from the obvious things, I can get almost everything I need there in mostly normal colors.  Local items tend to be overpriced and come in various bold hues, decorated with cartoon characters and flowers - seriously I am not exaggerating.  Ikea at least is usually simple.

Ikea is a funny thing here.  For the locals it is like the cool place to hang out, meet friends for lunch, take naps on the bed displays, take modeling quality pictures of yourself in the room displays, and in general a great place to soak up some free climate controlled air.  I, on the other hand, sprint my family through the whole 3 floor store (one of the largest in the world) while dealing with the grumblings of my husband as I seem to have an infinite list of things to buy in the never ending store that always seems to trap us inside.  I am so familiar with our Ikea that I notice when they change one of their hundreds of random room displays.  Sad?  Maybe.

After a HUGE (typical) Ikea trip, we make our way over to the shipping counter to hand over a small fortune to have all this newly purchased stuff sent to our home several hours away.  This is a fee we gladly pay.  In our earlier years we did not know Ikea shipped.  On 3 separate occasions, KB and a pregnant LB carried our stuff (once including a baby mattress) back to our city on a train.  My 26 year old KB almost threw out his back on one of these trips.  To say I love their shipping counter is pretty accurate. 

Usually 5 days later our Ikea massive shopping trip arrives to our apartment.  It is always a fun day as we unload our huge box full of drinking straws, napkins, new kid plates, fabric, organizing containers and other really unexciting items.  Usually I am excited about a new furniture purchase - like my new rocking chair for Baby Brown (name yet to be decided) or the toy organizers that have really helped clear up space in the kid's rooms. 

When it is all said and done, we are usually left with a pile of over sized boxes.  Typically we chunk them, but this last time KB got creative and made the kids a house with a yard and a fence.  This is something that I always considered doing, but ended up deciding it was too much work and forgot about it.  Thankfully KB is not as lazy as me and did it.  I made the mistake of saying out loud that we should paint the house and was then daily berated by my #1 until it happened.  

I cannot believe it, but it has been more than 2 months and it is still standing and they are still playing with it.