New Camera Meets Ikea

File this one under "It seemed like a good idea at the time." With Christmas behind us, it seemed like a good time to restore some order to this house, which is pretty much overrun by toys at this point--a product of a too-small house and generous relatives. So I said, "Hey! We should go to Ikea!" It's just the place when you want storage options that are one step up from the milk crates you used in college. We'd tried going the Target route to save money, but that stuff always looks so...temporary. Not that Ikea is great shakes either, but it's at least a step up from press board and plastic.

Oh, but the price we paid. And I'm not talking in terms of sheer dollars (though I nearly had a heart attack when I realized what our purchases totaled out to). We loaded up the girls bright and early Saturday morning, arriving before Ikea even opened. I'd promised the girls they would like this store--and they did. For the first few hours (yes, I said HOURS). I have no idea what it is about that store that takes hours and hours, but it took us hours and hours. Literally. I walked in declaring Ikea to be "Disney World for grown-ups." By the next day (keep reading), I was calling it "Hell on Earth." The worst part about that first trip is that by the time we got around to paying, the lines were INSANE. I guess a lot of other people had the same idea. But what could we do? After shopping for two hours, there was no way we were leaving without the goods.

Fast-forward to us arriving home and Dean beginning the process of assembling it, only to realize the table we bought the girls was too large for our space and that the storage shelves we bought looked awkward where we had intended to place them. Oops. This meant a lot of rearranging of furniture and some disassembling as well. Fun times!

Luckily, my mom came to the rescue and babysat while we returned some stuff and did additional shopping. This time, we were there an hour and were ready to make our escape when we realized that what we'd specifically set out to get was now completely sold out. This meant another hour roaming Ikea trying to find a new solution. We capped off our fun "date" night with a dinner at TGI Fridays, which.... Yeah, that place sucks pretty large. Or maybe we are just spoiled by the plentiful options of city dining. Honestly, the ribs I had were very good, but the service and ambiance were definitely lacking.

Long story short, after about five hours of Ikea madness, we finally arrived at a storage/table solution I'm happy with. And since we just got a new camera (the storage card for which can only hold ten images right now until the new storage card we ordered arrives), I figured I'd treat you to some photos. Exciting stuff, I know.

We returned the original, too-large table for this white table. It has shelves under it, which is a huge plus. It's also larger, allowing for more sister-friendly coloring. I like that the shelving unit doubles as a bench. It eases the pain of having a dining room that is pretty much toy central. The girls conned us into buying the pink plastic stools and kitty cushions. After several hours at Ikea, I figured they'd earned them!

This was plan B when they were out of the shelving units we had already purchased (see above). It's a wall unit, which has actually worked out pretty well. It's a good place to store things I don't want Sadie to have access to (like markers!).

Below the wall unit, we have another shelving unit, which has become the home for various Little People residences. It sort of detracts from the look I'm going for, but the Little People stuff doesn't really have a good home anywhere, and the girls love it. Plus, the giant bin of Little People is in the storage unit below.

And here are the girls because they are cute. And yes, I did label each bin with a photo of its contents. Anal? Maybe. I fought the urge for a long time. But the truth is, when you have all your toys in bins, you need to have some sort of organization. Otherwise, things are thrown any old place. And when someone is looking for the Ariel baby doll with the robe, guess who they expect to locate it for them? Mom, that's who! Now we have a play-doh bin and a Lego bin and a blocks bin and a dolls bin and a barbie bin and a princess bin. The trouble will crop up when we get toys that defy this genius classification system.... Oh, and the other problem is that I'm the only one who actually ever puts stuff AWAY. But at least the photos make the process easier on me. Plus, it's simple now for the girls to just grab the entire bin of blocks, for example, and pull them out to play.

Took some photos of the fish tanks since our new camera has an "aquarium setting," though Dean later informed me that was for taking photos of people at the aquarium, and I (rather blondly) asked, "Why would people be in an aquarium?" Ah, yes. The third frog died today, btw, which is why he's not in the photo. Bollocks! The photo below is the 10-gallon, which is currently home to four zebra danios. Now that it seems to be fully cycled, we'll add a few more fish next week. (I'm letting Ella choose a "birthday" fish.) The second photo is of the 6-gallon tank, which is home to four neon tetras, though the pet store guy said we could add a few more if we wanted.

You have to admit this is cool--Dean built this handy aquarium stand (for the 10-gallon tank) to go OVER an existing radiator. (Our radiators are neat looking, but they limit what we can put along the walls.) Look what a nice job he did! Those doors close to conceal the aquarium underneath, and there's also a shelf for storage. (And no, that radiator is not currently on.)