IKEA date night

Date night has been a little lacking these past weeks as Saturday nights are spent passed out on the couch after a full day of work, and weeknights are spent (trying to) catch up on household chores that didn’t get accomplished on the weekend!

We originally were going to do the “wait at the doors when the store opens” trip to IKEA first thing in the morning, but I convinced Christian that we could turn our little shopping spree into somewhat of a date night.

Our mission? Get the materials for our first IKEA hack! Haven’t been to the IKEA Hackers website?? You are missing out on a lifetime of furniture recreation opportunities! Go there….NOW….I will wait…..

Ok, so back to “date night”: our mission was to purchase PAX wardrobe sliding closet doors for our newly built upstairs hall closest, as well as interior shelving to help create storage inside. After conducting a lot of research, we quickly learned that other sliding doors are either a) way overpriced, or b) just plain ugly. IKEA Pax are inexpensive and come with a 10 year warranty! We’ve had the full wardrobe system in our bedroom and its been going strong for 3+ years.

But back to date night. Our first stop was food, including this odd sparkling pear drink that was rather delicious:

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Horse, or no horse, we were getting meatballs:

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After a romantic dining experience in the IKEA cafeteria (for future date night reference, they are licensed!) it was off to pick up our goodies. Our original plan for interior shelving was to use Expedit, but we quickly realized that adjustable shelving was way better, so we instead picked up the deep Billy Bookcase. For the exterior doors, the glossy white ones we wanted we on sale (score! Like these ones but in white). A few $1 ice creams later, we were ready to rock and roll

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The best part of the night was actually fitting everything in our car. Saving on the doors + saving $50 in delivery = successful trip to IKEA!

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Mark my words: never buying a car without a hatchback again!

Happy shopping 🙂

The cat came back…

Yes, that’s me.  In this post, I’m the cat.  And I’m back.  Likely sporadically, but I’m still back.

I’ve truly missed sharing random blog updates with the e-world.  We’ve completed projects big and small, and bless my husband for still continuing to say “we need to capture photos for your blog!”.  The truth is, I like sharing with the world, inspiring others and cataloging our adventures.  So here goes.

In all honesty, the “cat” is in reference to some cat prints that my dear friend Beth gave me waaaaay back when.  It was a set of three black & white cat prints from IKEA, which I lovingly framed (in IKEA Ribba frames, of course) and hung above my bed for years.

Enter Christian: not so much a cat lover.  The framed cat prints hung above our the bed in our guest room for a good few years until I recently decided that it was time for some more personal (and grown up) art.  One thing I’ve really been trying to do around the house is to add more personal touches.  Enter Angie, owner of Etsy shop Romantica Home.  I just love her prints (and, might I add, the 8.5 x 11 prints fit perfectly in the $9.99 IKEA Ribba frames – victory!)

Here’s an example of a cuuuuuuute pic that would be adorable in a kids room:

Tricycle Print / Custom Chevron Kids Print / Tricycle Art / Custom Home Decor / Personalized Tricycle Print / Free Shipping Worldwide

I immediately fell in love with Angie’s “state art” series.  Being from Canada, we of course improvised by making “Province art” prints.  I requested Ontario and BC, to commemorate where Christian and I were born and raised, and added green hearts on Toronto and Vancouver.  Angie was super helpful and speedy, and one week later my beloved prints were hanging proudly above our guest bed!

IMG_1024I’m really digging the white and grey against the bright cantaloupe-coloured walls.  Can’t believe I didn’t think of swapping out those black frames sooner!  (PS – Sorry for the reflection of my taking the photo – haven’t quite mastered the stealth photo-taking thing yet)

Oh….and the cat?  Well, it did actually come back.  We moved the mirror atop our guestroom dresser in our bedroom because the mirror in our bedroom is now on the fireplace mantle (more on that another day) so, I had to fill the hole with something…enter cat picture in black frame.  This cat really does have 9 lives!

That’s all for now…be sure to visit Angie’s shop on Etsy to see what else she has in store 🙂

M.