Our trip to IKEA

Last Saturday morning rolled around and we had an easy morning, which was a welcome relief to our usual Saturday mornings of Jace running to school. We drove two hours to Tampa and then there it was, IKEA. Oh, you couldn't miss it the store was so big. When we walked in, we truly were not prepared for the experience we were about to encounter. We arrived a little before 12 and left at 3 PM! A full three hours of shopping, making decisions, and planning.

I came prepared and had brought a pillow from our couch. Our couch is a deep burnt red and is something from Jace's bachelor days. I would love to update the pillows and brought it along to try and match up to the red. We had talked prior to the trip about the things we wanted to look for, mainly a headboard and some pillows. When we walked in IKEA, we let the other customers take the lead and we followed what they did. Everyone was grabbing a big yellow bag. You put the straps of the yellow bag on a cart that doesn't have the buggy part. You also pick up something that looks like a grid, where you write down the price of the item, the item name, the aisle and bin number, and the item ID number. The store is a long maze and you must travel through the entire store; there are no aisles that you walk past or can skip. It is a wonderful marketing strategy-the more you see, the more you want to buy.

We fell victim to this strategy! The first level was furniture. We found a bookcase for Jace and then we rounded the corner and found another set that we loved even more. While looking at the bookcase we found a TV stand that we liked. We have a TV stand now but you know an upgrade is never a bad thing! We hummed and hawed about the TV stand and ultimately decided what we have now works just fine. Our next stop was the bedroom suites and we spent so much time here. We finally decided on our suite but didn't really know which color we liked best. After careful thought and consideration, we made our decision and I wrote down all the information for the suite on the grid. The ticket information said that the bedroom suite was temporarily unavailable but I was hopeful they could ship it. Oh they would ship it all right, to the tune of $250!!! We fell in love with the suite and more importantly, the price, and made up our minds that this is what we wanted but we will have to wait. When we get to Nashville, we might have to do a quick trip to Atlanta to pick it up sometime soon.

After we discovered the bedroom suite was not available, we needed a bite to eat. IKEA has their own cafeteria, complete with trays and all! We ate a quick bite and were so happy to sit down for a minute. We picked back up and headed to the ground level which was accent pieces and smaller items. At this point, we were getting weary and quickly scanned through everything. They had anything from forks, plates, dishtowels, curtains, curtain rods, candles, mirrors, you name it--they had it! Even though I came prepared with the couch pillow, nothing really stood out to us. I noticed that no one else brought something from their home and I was the girl who looked like I was ready to take a nap anywhere with my trusty couch pillow!

When we had come to the end of the ground level the real work began! The ground level opened up into a warehouse-type setting. You had to use your grid and find the aisles and bin number of the item you wanted to purchase. They had flat bed carts for you to use and you had to load up your own items. Jace didn't know he was going to need that much muscle for this shopping trip but I didn't mind seeing his flexed muscles in his Polo! We left IKEA with two new bookshelves and two toys for pup! But y'all I have to tell you we were plum wore out when we got to our car. Before we started shopping, we talked about going to Clearwater and exploring Tampa  but all we wanted to do was get home and lay down. Jace said our IKEA experience was similar to completing our wedding registry and I couldn't agree more. We were constantly thinking, calculating prices, and planning where we were going to put the item.

If you haven't been to IKEA, I would definitely recommend it. It's an experience! It is wonderful if you are on a budget, outfitting a new apartment or dorm room. It also has baby items for all the mommas out there. Now if only our bedroom suite would become available...