IKEA

I have been to IKEA once before, when I visited Atlanta a few years ago and it was love at first sight.  I purchased a few baskets and some other knick-knacks at the time and have always wanted to return to the one in Fort Lauderdale.  But, I've never never been able to sell Husband on it.

We received and catalog and Husband decided we could go and check it out.  We drove down there yesterday and had an absolute blast.  It's like a shopping carnival.  Really!  Where else could one go and buy every solitary thing ncessary to stock a vacant apartment, house or condo (groceries excluded - well, except frozen Swedish meatballs)?  You must spend an entire day there to see everything and I would suggest not bringing the children.  The bottom floor was a blur as Lallie was just finished by that point.  At least we could keep handing her interesting $0.49 toys to keep her occuppied!

They have some fantastic chairs.  Lallie insisted on sitting on every.single.solitary chair and couch, proclaiming "I like this one" with great enthusism.  We thought we'd never get out of the living room section!  This slingback rocking chair was SO comfortable, I could fall asleep in it.

Though 75% of IKEA is contemporary, which is not our style, there are quite a few Pottery Barn-ish type things.  I was surprised at how many things both Husband and I agreed upon as we never agree on anything!

We walked away with a trunk-full of stuff, for $80.00!  And, no I would not consider it junk....well, not all of it :-)  Really, we found some quality items that will serve as decor in our home.  We also purchased a few toys for Lallie.  We will be going back to get furniture at some point as it was surprisingly comfortable, and all their couches are slipcovered, so they can be removed and washed....or replaced!

The basket was only $12.99 and now sits on our kitchen table filled with those decorative landscapy ball things (you know the twig and moss balls?)  The frames were $4.99 each and quite frankly, pretty darn good quality.  You'll see in a future post what we're doing with those.  The kitty cat, can you tell it's female (look close)?  LOL!!!  We died laughing!

Alas, we could NOT leave without trying the IKEA food!  All three of us gave it the thumbs up.  Swedish meatballs, mashed potatoes and ligonberry sauce for $1.00, chicken tenders and fries, swedish cookies (a whole package) and mac n cheese for Lallie.  It was actually very good and we almost bought some of the meatballs on the way out!

We will be visiting IKEA much more often in the future!  (By the way, it wasn't strange at all for us to be taking picture at IKEA, everyone was documenting their special trips.)