Musings: April 2011: Part II: Clearing out my mental and physical spaces or 'Time and space and IKEA'

Bernie: April 24, 2011
Continued from PART I [READ]

On the physical side this is where IKEA comes in.

Neither Joey or I had had the IKEA experience before (well actually I had been in the first store in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but it was mass hysteria and didn't stay very long). We had heard about it but so what? A huge store full of furnishings and accessories? So what.

But a few Fridays ago, I had to go down to New Haven for a consultation on a back problem I have and we decided to go to IKEA just down the street from the office to look for that clothes storage furniture.

What a crazy, cool, amazing place!

We spent a few hours and found some storage units that we could insert baskets (tied in well with baskets that were on there way-out too:) into that would give Joey more clothes storage area than two small dressers would (when we set them up two deep) and give us table top area for the plants, leaf candle platter, a ceramic sculpture that Joey created for a show we did together, and other items!

We didn't buy anything that day but took our measurements...

IKEA has these tape measures all over that you can just take and use.

...and decided to come back on Wednesday of the next week, if it all fit, and buy some of the Expedit units with baskets. After dinner at Frank Pepe's on Wooster Street in New Haven, Connecticut we discussed how we thought it would all all look and were really excited about the prospects.

My clearing out continued on Monday and Tuesday "making room" for the IKEA Expedit storage units that we are planning to buy.

I finally got all the National Geographic Magazines and Wired magazines moved out and stacked against the wall down by the door. Took two of my old paintings (Obama-Ophrey and Hill-Billery) off the walls (I plan to hang two more of my The palms will remain series and then create a Salon-like arrangement at a lower level on the walls of some work that Joey and I have collected or has been given to us). I also sorted out piles of Joey's CDs and got newer and older art work into bins.

I was now feeling really great about that "room" for both the physical and the mental something new.

Although my back was less enthusiastic about the process.

On Wednesday morning we drove to New Haven in Joey's Honda Element (my Toyota Yaris is a cool little car and great on mileage but has very little cargo capacity)and we were ready for the full IKEA experience now.

It is a huge store, but how do you actually buy something?

Well there is a shopping list brochure with all the instructions, little IKEA pencils and helpful people all around to answer questions. We took care of getting shopping list filled out for the Expedit units that were were going to buy and the wicker baskets that slide into the Expedit cubbies.

Then we decided to have lunch.

Joey at IKEA

Lunch at IKEA.

The New Haven IKEA has this large very large dining room and the different seating areas positioned around it gives you some degree privacy (although we are here on a Wednesday morning) but it is very nice. Couples and families having lunch. In the cafeteria style ordering area Joey was served Swedish Meatballs (she had to try them, I said would wait until I was in Sweden, but I did have a taste) with cream sauce gravy, mashed potatoes and Lingonberry Preserves. I had Salmon with dill sauce, broccoli potato croquet and orange and yellow carrots. Everything was very, very delicious. (For those of you who would like the nutritional information here's the link.) Oh and Swedish Almond Cake for desert (more like a tort). Joey's Lingonberry Juice which could have been more delicious with a shot of Absolut was also pretty tasty.

This huge store full of beautifully designed and proportioned furnishings and accessories was full of ideas for modern small footprint lifestyles. It ran so counter to the cold hulk of an empty dirty cement structure of an office building easily in view through the tall clean windows of the IKEA dining area we were sitting in. A building whose only use now was as an IKEA billboard hanger. What a striking contrast to have as a view. What a fitting contrast to our overdone bloated American dream of a big home with rooms we hardly go in filled with stuff we hardly ever use. So can you tell I have become an IKEA convert?
  
We continued to wander after lunch. Coming across beds with drawers under them, and a massive display of lighting, kitchen accessories and other innovative storage products. Thin wall units with pull out bins, whole kitchen cabinet setups, kids rooms with fun storage areas for everything from clothes to toys. Bedrooms for adults where there's a place for everything.

So we got a shopping cart and started toward the Marketplace to get the baskets we would use in the cubbies. WARNING do not try to maneuver one of these carts if you actually (through some stroke of luck, or planning) did mix the Lingonberry Juice with Absolute! Because ALL the wheels on these IKEA shopping carts move. It's like you are on ice. What a trip (ok, I was on some pain meds for my back) but really whose brilliant idea was this! I think they just did it to mess with the Americans (more IKEA shopping cart stories). What cracked me up more was my favorite Joey quote that came from behind a display of kitchen accessories when I asked if we were ready to go, "I'm just trying to see if there is something we can't live without." LOL! Ok, time to go...  

We couldn't leave without a bottle .

Then it was off to find the Expedit units in the warehouse ( it's sort of like that scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark of the huge warehouse where the Ark was relegated to. But only organized! It was easy to find the item, load the boxes on a trolley and head for the checkout gauntlet. Try and resist buying something there, I dare you. (we want to go back for the two person hammock we saw but first we need to decide if we have the trees to hang it between). We escaped with just one jar of Lingonberry Preserves (actually Joey went back* form wine glasses the next week).
 

*Should have gotten another jar of those preserves too.

Back in Canaan the set up when very smoothly.

The first page of the directions was written in a dozen or more languages.

But all it said was to follow the pictures or call if you get stuck. The actual directions were all pictograms! Not a single word! Amazing!

Here is Joey working on the assembling the first unit.

You do need two people.

We followed the directions.

This is the back unit with cloth baskets.

The finished assembled Expedit unit. There are two units on each side of the Love Seat. The units against the wall have cloth baskets that slide out easily. Joey will use these for seasonal storage.

In setting up our Expedit units we actually we did something new by doubled up the Expedit units (there is a log of ideas here but I didn't see the one we created one), maybe we'll get listed!

The right side (Joey's side) with the Leaf Platter that we use for candles and Joey's sculpture and a ceramic drum she made (oh, don't be scared if you are ever sleeping on the Love Seat and the drum sounds. The sun through the windows stretches the leather drum head and bindings, cool... after you figure out what it is...)

The left side (my side, of course) with the snake platter, my basket of "learn to speak" book (that I never learn to) and the Solstice Cactus (that is still blooming) and a cool container that looks like a pouch that Joey made me out of clay.

Joey says, "The Swedes are going to conquer the world", I'm not sure about that, but they sure are going to show us all how to organize the stuff we have in it.


So now that one side of the upstairs is cleared and organized it's time to start on the studio side and the northeast eave closet... my mind is opening up to the possibilities...