Because, IKEA.

I'm something of an IKEA junkie. Even as a kid, I loved it when my mom would take us shopping there. I'd imagine myself living in all of the tiny fake apartments they set up to show you how space efficient their furniture is. I'd make wish lists in my head of all the snazzy and stylish things I would buy when I was a grown-up with my own house and a job. I'd "test" all of the couches and beds...thoroughly. And the meatballs! Call me lowbrow, but I could eat those Swedish meatballs with gravy, lingonberry sauce, and chips until the cows came home.

Awesome Bathroom Storage, My Son the Junior IT Guy,
A Boy and His Rat, Couch Coveting FTW

On Saturday we took a trip to the IKEA in Croydon with Victoria as something of a last hurrah before she went back to Vienna. We had a scrummy lunch of meatballs and chips - followed up with their Krokant cake and apple cake - then hit the showroom floor. The Husband and I didn't really have anything in mind to buy other than possibly a small storage box for under the bed, and a cute stuffed animal for E. Despite seeing him hugging that stuffed rat in the collage above, he was most sold on the rocking moose we found. Since that wasn't an option, we tested all the stuffed animals and came away with a 4-foot-long stuffed snake that he now drags around our flat.

In one of the loft-style flats they had set up, I found this gorgeous mirror (covet) and the incredibly fun vintage Singer sewing machine. Of course, the real fun got started down in the marketplace. We found 4 stemmed glasses to replace some of ours that have been breaking. (Seriously, I know they're about 25p each, but they break when I wash them!) I also found giant 2" Julebukks in a clearance bin! At £2.25 a pop, these babies were a steal. And being the Christmas junkie that I am, I couldn't pass them up.

come with me, my pretties...

My other incredible find? £4 duvet cover with pillow cases. Oh yeah! Our black-and-white graphic floral print duvet cover was great when I first bought it, and I loved how it could go with whatever other colours I wanted to fit into our room. But after a while the black-on-white-on-black-on-white with the teeny tiny flowers and vines started to feel a bit too busy and visually demanding. I'd frequently catch myself looking at it when I'd tidy during E's naps thinking, "I really want to replace this". And so I did. I admit, I was initially torn between the design I chose and a gorgeous blue-on-white toile...

to die for! (via, IKEA)

coveting so hard... (via, IKEA)

...But all things considered, I know our bedroom still has a few more stages of evolution to go through before I settle on a permanent look, so rather than set myself on the toile irrevocably, I opted for the slightly cheaper Bladvass duvet cover:

via, IKEA

I think it works pretty well in our space:

definitely not so loud any more

And so, I left IKEA having spent less than £25 (not including lunch)...which to our family feels like quite the achievement. Especially when you remember that we dropped around £700 once when we were kitting out our brand-new-married-people flat back in 2010. But we love our house and the things in it, and we love the value we get out of our IKEA furniture. So that is basically why my mantra with IKEA is:

Shut Up and Take My Money
via, Geekzenith