A return to slats & foam

 I have decided to name my new wardrobe Kia, as in IKEA and as in Kia- my babysitter from Sweden who just found me on facebook this week!

Walking through IKEA takes me back to my childhood, bringing a stupid grin to my face and a feeling of being home. IKEA Day 1 started at the IKEA restaurant- Swedish meatballs, boiled potatoes and lingon jam. For those of you who have been to an IKEA in the US there is one slight difference over here in Europe- they sell beer and wine here. Swedish meatballs taste even better with a 7% beer to wash ‘em down.

Walking through the IKEA maze can be overwhelming and confusing but around each turn I see something from my parents’ house that I had no idea was Swedish/IKEAish. Like the little straw containers for the bathroom, like the clean pine furniture, like the yellow and blue throughout. At one turn I fell in love with a bedroom set that now resides at our home in Lerino. For those of you IKEA virgins- as you walk through the showroom on the top floor you jot down the item number as well as the aisle & scaffold of the item you want. Then you end up downstairs in the ‘mercato’- all the small items for the home that go in your big yellow IKEA bag (trip #1) or in your shopping cart (necessary on trip #2). Once you’ve been fully inundated with furniture, decorations and every imaginable household item, you head to the warehouse to pick up the showroom items you’ve added to your list.  Poor-pinched-nerve-Pat had to load all the packages of our bed & headboard onto our cart, maneuver to the cassa (cashier), then maneuver to the elevator, across the parking lot and load into the big yellow Xterra. What in the world do the Italians in their lil Smart cars do?! We weren’t sure how to get the mattress home but ends up it comes all rolled up and very transportable. I had to say goodbye to the wardrobe though since we couldn’t fit the bed, the wardrobe and me all in the car.

Once home Pat had his work cut out for him (but unbeknownst to him, it was nothing compared to the next few days!) He put the whole bed and headboard together while I unrolled the mattress to let it poof back up. Yes, I said poof- kinda like my hair has been doing in this humidity! But something wasn’t quite right. The bed had a couple pieces to the frame but not enough to support our mattress/us. Ends up, you have to purchase the bed frame slats separately- a small detail we missed due to the language barrier. Add it to the list for trip #2.

Which brings us to the title of this blog- growing up my brother, sister and I all had IKEA beds which consist of a low self-put-together-frame, wooden slats and then a two inch piece of foam (also referred to as a mattress at times). We were always fine with this set-up until we got to the US and all our new American friends had big fat fluffy beds that you had to crawl up into. Hmmmm…Now, 25 years later, I’m back to slats & foam! But we upgraded to the slats that are slightly bent upward and thus have a bit of give to ‘em and push the mattress up. Our foam mattress is a deluxe foam- includes latex as well as a bit of memory foam. All this together with a US egg crate topper makes for a pretty comfy bed! I’m glad to see the slats & foam have improved over the last 25.

the nightstand/shelves can be pushed in or out. sweet!

Trip #2:

Well, we needed the slats as well as take two of trying to fit my monster wardrobe, Kia, into the yellow short bus. We were partially successful- we fit half the wardrobe, a living room table, shelves for the bathroom, wine rack/shelves, bookshelves and a whole bunch of mercato stuff. But the doors to my wardrobe are monster big and there was no way we were bringing them home on this trip either.

Pat spent the rest of the day/evening putting together our furniture. He’s good! You should have seen the place- disaster! Cardboard everywhere, plastic wrapping, screws, bolts, shelves, instructions, screwdrivers, etc! Oh, and we bought an IKEA drill (yes, IKEA even makes drills!) - trip #1 assembly ended with a nasty ripped blister on his screwdriver hand.

IKEA shelves on left and right. Paris posters. American Furniture Warehouse couch :)

more IKEA shelves & boxes. I even had to put the boxes together myself. Imagine that.

Trip #3:

Plan #1 was to send Pat on his own so he could try to fit the wardrobe in the car by putting the front seat down. Plan #2 was to take me with, leave me there (Yay!!!) while he brought the wardrobe home and then come back to pick me up. Plan #3 - take me with, shop together for more trinkets/mercato stuff and have the wardrobe delivered. It’s amazing the amount of stuff I can find at the mercato each time. Plants, fake plants (probably a better purchase for KT), cheese graters, knives, table runners, placemats, little dishes for coins, etc, bathroom towels, baskets, boxes, fake gerber daisies, vases, lamps and the list goes on and on! We finally check out and go to the delivery line, referring to my handy lil yellow Italian-English dictionary to figure out what the heck we were doing, and ends up- the wardrobe doors come in several smaller pieces- no need for delivery!! I did have to ride in the back laying down though since we still needed the front seat space for the long boxes of wardrobe doors.

Pat thought trip #2 was a lot of assembling, ha! Trip 3 was a doozy! That damn, but beautiful, wardrobe took forever! First the main wardrobe shell, then the drawers, rods, etc followed by the monster doors. IKEA instructions are very clear and succinct, except when all odd pages and pages 27-28 are BLANK. !!!!!!!!!!!  Seriously?!?! Thank God for internet and Pat’s resourcefulness. Hours/wine bottles/beer bottles later- TADA!!!!! My gorgeous wardrobe Kia! Now for hours of unpacking & organizing all my belongings J

PS- Kia has this great lil tray with compartments- probably eighteen  compartments. Guess what goes perfectly in there?! Yup- all my lia sophia jewelry!! I can see it all without having to set it out on Pat’s dresser. There’s even room for a few belts in there too. Ahhh, life is good.

THE wardrobe. more pics on facebook.