If you read my post from Friday night, you know that we went to IKEA Saturday.  It’s about an hour and a half away from where we live (Columbia to Charlotte) so we planned to get up and hit the road, so that we would be pulling into the parking lot shortly after they opened.  We looked up online to see what the hours were, 10am. Great!  If we left at 9, we’d be there by 10:30.  We pulled off the exit and apparently everybody and their brother wanted to go to IKEA on Saturday just like us…it was shocking to see all the cars that were already in the lot.  The cars AND the U-Haul trucks.  Now, those people were serious!

Once inside the massive retail store, we mentally ran back thru our list – what exactly were we there for, again?  First stop was the cafeteria so we could get something to drink.  Andrew was almost completely deterred – pancakes?!  Back to the show room, “game face, babe”.

We found several things we really liked, including a china cabinet that we decided would wait a few more months.  A child’s table and chairs – that we did purchase.  A few other kid items, like plates, bowls and cups and a cute basket for Eliza Jane’s room.   We didn’t have much luck with the kitchen cabinets.  Their sizes were a bit small and after pricing it all out, they were more expensive than what we could get at Lowe’s.

Yesterday I put together the table and chairs that we got for the kid(s) while R was sleeping.  The boxes weren’t terribly intimidating but I’d seen plenty of pictures and comical videos that people put up online showing how difficult the IKEA instructions are to follow.My favorite part of their instructions was this ridiculous cartoon…

So the chairs weren’t difficult at all;  I mean, they only had a few pieces/parts.

The most difficult part was that the seat had zero holes for which I was to screw in the bottom…

Nor did the instructions tell me that I needed an electric screw driver… I guess based on the cartoon above, this is where the question mark appeared above my head.  Maybe I should have plugged my phone into the IKEA store..and magically it would have all made sense? hehe.

Andrew got out his SKIL and I made short work of those little chair bottoms.

And after about 20 minutes I had two adorable chairs!

The table’s level of difficulty was about the same.  I do well with pictures so the IKEA instructions work well for me.  This time they did tell me that I would need a screw driver (though the electric part wasn’t included, I knew I would need it).  The most difficult part was screwing in the table frame to the table top…the holes I was supposed to line up were the size of the top of a pin.  Are you kidding me?!

 After plotting a few different strategies, I thought, I’ll get two in and just wing it from there, they have to be measured right.  And what do you know, they were!

Shortly after I’d finished putting it all together, R woke up from his nap.  When he saw the new table and chairs, he was so excited!

 All evening long, he kept wanting to get up and down, up and down from his chair to read books and play with his puzzle.  This is how we measure SUCCESS!  A kid who wants to sit at his table and read books!  Love that kid.

What did you do over the weekend?