Wordless Wednesday: I love Ikea but...

AAM Monday: Project Life Week 37

This was a week when it was still hot hot but I did make it up to Ikea and on north to see the late sunflowers in their fields. It's an amazing sight! I cleared out more and Dick made a few loaves of bread to test out a jalapeño bread recipe. He got it the way he liked and it went well with a posole dinner for the guys.  A good week!

AAM Monday: Project Life Week 42

Doing things while on vacation tends to take me a lot longer than when working on my beloved iMac. I really should take it with me!!!!  as if...

The main stories of this week were the trip to the Romanian festival and subsequent stop at Ikea for new beds.  This was followed by the plan with a friend to exchange our queen sized frame for their double bed mattress. After a lot of moving things about in our house, the plan fell through. That's what it is about plans - they don't always work out.

I have a lot of decluttering and still moving furniture to do when I get home. At least the hot weather is over, isn't it???

The Fruits of His Labor

Saturday we spent a lot of time in Ikea but then when doesn't a trip to Ikea take a long time?? Good time I think but it's a rare time that I don't walk out feeling really tired.

After the long time IN the store, we came home with two items to be assembled. But no, no not Saturday night. We have enough sense to not start a project when tired. (Just guess how we now know that...)

Sunday, I came downstairs and saw someone had put out a drill and hammer. Uh oh. He was ready to start! I still wasn't ready but praise be...he didn't need my help at first. ( I kind of hoped he wouldn't want my help at all and that's kind of selfish but that's how I felt. ) So I went back upstairs to do something or other and happily heard banging and hammering downstairs.  After the main part of the work was done, he did get to assemble the drawers on the current table. We got to talk while he put the bits together and it was fun.

A new table for the kitchen was assembled and will serve as an additional table when we have company. It's a modern pine drop leaf table. We had just the spot for it and he didn't have any assembly issues. Next came the Helmer metal cabinet. I worried that he'd ask for help now....

No he didn't, but he did bring it up to my studio to assemble since that's where it was to go. It was fun to watch, even tho my desk space kept getting smaller and smaller as he worked. Then it was finally finished and I had to move stuff around to fit it in and was ready and willing to get started. It's a big goal to get more things out so I can get a couch/bed in here. But now I have the little red cabinet that I have wanted for so long. It wasn't expensive - $39. - but it was the assembly bit and when he was willing I was so so grateful. I now have a dedicated space to place my printer giving me the needed real estate on my desk top. See that binder? It's my "Yesterday and Today" binder and now I have space for it while I'm on the computer. Yeah!! Thank you so much!

Wordless Wedneseday

Ikea Hack for Crafts Table

I really like this hack on Ikea bookcases done by Kimberly Michelle. Look at the link to see the rest of the work she and Mr. M did on it. Nice up to date look with basic stock.

This is ...how I recycle

A bit late but I thought I had done this post and scheduled it to post yesterday. I guess I thought about that more than doing it. ;-) This week's theme came from Angela's Mum. Thanks Mum!

Nothing exotic here, but I think we made a really neat spot for the daily bits and scraps that end up going out back to the compost pile. We designed that pull out drawer to use Ikea Trofast bins - the drawer front is a standard Ikea one from the rest of the renovation. The cutout board holding it, slots thru two simple slots on each side of the cabinet frame. I thought of putting a door on the standard waste bin section below, but figured why mess with simple.

We use very few bottles or cans, so they aren't recycled - yet. The newspapers and most large paper items are stored in the hall closet , well the dining room closet, in a wine crate that has rope handles. (I made these all by my lonesome almost 20+years ago!!). All that paper goes out weekly including the paper that goes into a tray by each of our computers.

Fairly current magazines go to the local hospital on about a monthly basis, and I have made it a goal to go through some of my old hoards and pass them on also. I decided to go through some cooking mags and sort them by month rather than year, so I can take 'appropriate' ones each month to the hospital. If I get some that are cut up a bit too much, they can still go with a note that they are for the psychiatric section where they continue to be used for art therapy.


Other working household stuff that does not go to one of the best charity shops near us, the Lutheran Mission,

often gets put on freecycle. The problem there is I find great stuff incl boxes of magazines asking to but cut up. I often share my 'wealth' with my Artist Way group if I can.

Books that we read usually come from used book stores, and when we are done with them, if they don't go onto a friend, go into boxes to be taken to one of the biggest book sales around us Stone Ridge Book Sale . Besides the tax benefit we get, we can usually find time to go to one of the wonderful restaurants in Bethesda.

Recycling is picked up at the curb weekly but it isn't sorted, nor is there any penalty for not recycling. :-( In time that will come I believe, esp after seeing my friend in Maine's major recycling works.

I hope this gives you an idea or two...and I look forward to checking what others do to recycle. Angela over at Three Buttons has a list of regulars if you want to see more ideas about recyling.

IKEA....can you make this for me?

Having seen this over at the Roadsidescholar I am wondering if Ikea can't come up with a similar one, but not at Europhase prices - soon? Like by June? July?



My only real complaint about a lot of Ikea lighting is the piss-poor wattage. So listen Ikea, I want a shopper-friendly price, and good high wattage option, and maybe led brillant. Oh and with a dimmer option. Please.

Okay???

On my desk...March 12

I had thought about this meme from Kirsty at Kootoyoo. Last night, and woke up early fed up with the way the tables are. This is my first full year of using the room, and I found I could not reach the window with the table up against it. (i.e. in the side by side arrangement) So I had moved them apart and had my chair w/back between the tables. This worked ok, but I hated seeing the back of the well loved Imac as I entered the room.

There is ongoing clutter tho the shelves are pretty well organized - it's still the boxes that are still packed and the decisions of how to store things I have never used - or at least for a long time.



So shift and push and get the tables back to back - and look what I see while I'm sorting out.

But will you see the tables as they are now ???oh, no, because my new effin' card reader is doing nada. The blue light is on but nobody's home. Grrrrrr. But I am working on a project for dh...so shhhhh!

Next week...another view, and hopefully less crapola.