Hurt so Good!

While I have continued “researching” my KitchenAid beauty, I was all set to make the fateful call to customer service and place my order for that bad boy, when something happened.  That something was Ikea.  Now Ikea and I have not been friends.  Ever.  Every single Ikea trip I made with a friend or brother/sister was straight up painful, awful, mind-numbing, etc. My Ikea hatred began when I naively allowed my old college roommate to drag me in there once under the guise of “running in really quick to see if they have some fun house decor.”  Cut to four hours later and me tired, hungry, cranky and completely burned out…I swore I would not enter those automatic doors again.  But, of course I did.  Always with aforementioned roommate, and always for a “quick” trip that lasted hours and hours.  I finally learned better (at some point) and refused to go for about the last decade.  Home decorating is just not my bag-and as Carrie Bradshaw so aptly stated, “I like my money right where I can see it-hanging in my closet.”  Why would I spend money on tacky pillows and unassembled furniture when there was denim and heels to be had?  The last time I can remember even being in the vicinity of Ikea was about 3 years ago with my mom and sister, and I waited in the car for them while they had their own “quick trip” and enjoyed a productive, hour long nap.  But last week was oh so different, and oh so magical.  Which brings me back to heels.

I accidentally looked at the creative apartment decorating section in Lucky magazine years ago, and saw this amazingly cool way to display pretty shoes: in a glass front cabinet.  I ripped that page out and carefully filed it away in a section titled “things I really want but will prolly never have” and forgot about it for the most part.  Until I walked through Ikea’s warehouse sized store and found such a beauty in the As-Is section.  It was a gorgeous, 6 ft+ piece, in a lovely gray/brown color, with six shelves on which I could display all of my currently boxed up heels that I have waiting for a special date.  The “damage” for this piece, was that it was simply being discontinued, and was therefore $80 off from the regular $320 price.  So I pushed pause on the KitchenAid purchase, and I’m oh-so-glad I did!  I will likely still buy a KitchenAid in the relatively near future, but there was no waiting on the cabinet-literally.  We had to wheel that dragon around the store while we waited for a friend in a more hospitable environment than my honda civic to come rescue us and deliver the piece safely an hour away from the store.  No paying and putting it on hold, you want it, you slide it down on your minicart and enjoy.  And I did!  Made it home in one piece (and I super love that the As Is section is no assembly required!), as I still remember my old roommate pounding a bed frame together until some ungodly hour of the morning and showing me her blisters the next day.  Eeech.

I’ll be moving here in the next couple of weeks, and I cannot wait to plot and plan the shoe arrangement!   More importantly, the pain of Ikea has faded and now I see it in it’s full glory…and I like housewares now!  And furniture!  And lighting options!  Who would have thought?  This recent foray into the baking world has led to more domesticity than I intended…and I kind of like it 🙂