It's an IKEA Miracle!

I can't believe it all fit! Any guesses as to how much stuff this actually is?!




Damon and I spent a fun, KID-FREE weekend in Schaumburg, Illinois at the IKEA store! Yes, it is possible to spend a whole weekend there! (It's amazing how much you can get accomplished without the kids.) A great big thank-you goes out to my mom and Don, for taking care of our kiddos for a whole weekend! Did I mention we were KIDLESS??!!! Not sure who was more tired, grandma and grandpa, or the kids. They had a great time going to Jack's game, swimming, a trip to CR, movies, playing outside, going to church, out to eat, and two visits to great grand-parents Quint and Berends. Whew!

We arrived at IKEA right after lunch on Saturday and set to work doing our shopping. We had done a lot of research online ahead of time, and had some good ideas of what we were looking for, but needed to see things in person to really know what we were interested in. Can I just reiterate how relaxing it was to look and shop without any kids?! Usually Damon and I end up on each other's last nerve when we try to shop together with the kids, but this was totally different! We stayed there all day until almost 8 o'clock, then purchased the items we'd picked up along the way. This first pass mostly just consisted of the accessory-type things we had encountered, that you can't live without because they're so cheap. Did you know that lots and lots of really cheap stuff adds up?!


Then we had a really nice dinner at the Weber Grill Restaurant. It was great - a bit on the pricey side - but worth it if you have no kids with you! They serve burgers, BBQ, chicken, steaks, and other special dinners. They cook all the food on HUGE weber kettle grills in an open kitchen, where you can watch the chefs at work. Outside was a huge charcoal grill statue that could cook 2000 burgers at once, if it really worked. I had the Beer-Can Chicken - a half chicken grilled over a beer can, with a garlic spice rub, and their special loaded baked potato that had bacon, broccoli, butter, sour cream, and cheese sauce. SO YUMMY! Damon had ribs and beef brisket, baked beans, coleslaw, and cornbread. To start out with they give you these yummy rolls with smoked cheddar butter and regular butter. At the end of the meal, they send you home with a small packet of their signature spice rub. It was a fun experience. The light shades were all grill lids and there was a statue of the typical dad in a hawaiian shirt with his grill. The restaurant even offers grilling classes. Anyone who is a fan of grilling would like this restaurant.


During dinner and then later on back at the hotel we were able to make our final decisions, and checked a few more things on the website so that we could make our big heavy purchases the next day. We stayed at a very nice Quality Inn very close to IKEA. We were ready and waiting with our list, waiting for IKEA to open at 10am. By 1:30 we had made all of our purchases. This was the scary part: finding all of our parts and pieces and boxes in the self-serve warehouse. All the big items have tickets on them in the showroom, directing which aisle and bin to find your parts down in the warehouse. You had to make sure all your numbers were matching up, and some of the dressers and beds came in more than one box, so we just hoped and prayed, and double-checked that we had everything we needed. Luckily everything we wanted was in stock - another thing you don't really know until you get down to the warehouse. Although we checked stock availability online ahead of time for that store, we weren't sure how much to trust it. Our back-up plan was to drive to the newly opened store in the Chicago suburb Bolingbrook (which is smaller) if something was out of stock in Schaumburg.


To celebrate, we had lunch at The Cheesecake Factory across the street at Woodfield Mall. Another yummy experience! We even spent a few minutes walking around inside the mall, which was huge.


I'm sure we'll be posting before-and-after pics of the boys and our bedroom, as projects get finished. I'm sure it'll take us all summer! The plan for the boys room is to first paint, (blue and green and maybe some red accent?) then put up their new IKEA bunk beds. Damon is going to build a desk, built into the length of their closet, using table legs from IKEA and add shelves above. We got some cool accessories for their desk like some magnet boards, these plastic chairs and these "drawer" trays that attach to the table legs and then swivel underneath the desk when not being used. I hope no one tries to sit or stand on them! The chairs will match their new bedspreads. We also got them each these cool reading lamps that give Will his little taste of the Spiderman room he so desperately wanted, but is not getting. If you enlarge the image, you can see the plastic spider web grill and plastic spider, designed to keep little fingers away from the hot bulb. We are so excited, and so are the boys. As a special surprise, we brought them back stuffed dragons that I fell in love with on my last quick trip to IKEA in Minneapolis, on a Women of Faith weekend. They are quite long and already have been tied in knots, and dragged around the neighborhood. My hope was that they we can wind them around the bunk bed rails, but the boys may have a different idea. Sam says his dragon has a leaf tongue. Will named his Dragon "Fire."
The answer to how much stuff you can fit into a van:
1 set of bunkbeds, 1 twin mattress, 3 six-drawer dressers, 1 wardrobe, 1 queen headboard, 5 kitchen chairs, 2 desk chairs, 6 table legs, 2 laundry stands, don't forget 2 dragons, and other little miscellanous accessories. -All packaged flat and with room to spare!!! The packaged flat part means you put it all together yourself. Or I should say Damon does. He's in heaven.