Category: At Home

China Cabinet Steal

When I was visiting CA about a month ago trying to nail down a place to live and turn in lots of job applications, my mother and I happened to wander through IKEA together because that’s a totally normal, fun thing to do in San Diego (and cheaper than going to Sea World. In theory). Well, we had successfully made it through the store without picking anything up, when something wonderful caught my eye in the “as-is” section.

This IKEA STOCKHOLM cabinet is not made of real wood but it seems like it is, due to a high-quality oak veneer instead of their regular “foil” veneer (which is incredibly thin and damages easily). IKEA has different quality items at different price points, and as the website shows, this goes for right around $300.

We had just come from putting down a deposit on the apartment we now live in, so the layout of the unit was very fresh in my mind. I knew that a small wall separating the kitchen from the dining area would fit the scale of this perfectly. By perfectly, I don’t mean down-to-the-inch, but a visually pleasing 3-4 inches of cushion on either side of it. I wanted this baby bad.

Guess how much I paid for it?

That’s right. Well, to make a short story long, when we spied it in the “as is” section, it was marked at $75. It was already assembled and we didn’t have room in my mom’s Corolla for it. They wouldn’t hold it for us, and we decided to roll the dice and see if it was there the next day. So, the following day my mom dropped me off at the airport to head back to Kansas and then hit up IKEA in the family pickup truck. Lo and behold, not only was this china cabinet still there, but it had been marked down an additional $25.

Let’s review. Original Price = $299. New Price = $50. That’s a 83% discount! 

Here it is, filled up with dishes and looking oh so beautiful in a space that is the perfect size for it.

I’m in love. I’m also already out of space to store dishes! 

One more thing: Do you have any tips on how to remove tape residue from glass? My razor blade didn’t seem to work this time. Help?

The State of the Home

If you were one of my very first followers, you might remember that as soon as I moved to Kansas in 2010 I shared a few photos at the very beginning — but they seem to have disappeared in the vortex when I moved some blog posts around. The posts are there, but not the pictures. Oh well. In the spirit of keeping anyone who’s interested up to date with my life and showing how to take a very standard apartment and infuse it with personality, it’s only fair to show you the crazy mess that is our place right now! Here’s the view from the entry…

When we moved in back on the 14th, it was box-a-palooza in here. I was up to my eyeballs in boxes, however I was attempting to open up a few of them and store key items, even as more boxes were being brought up… I felt like I was treading water but it kept me super motivated. To be honest, within the first four days most of our boxes were unpacked, save for the pile of about ten (seen below) that cannot be unloaded due to the fact that the boxes contain mostly books and we sold our bookshelf before moving.

(Spoiler alert–you’ll get a Bookshelf Shopping post before the next month or so is over.)

The kitchen is technically galley-style, but the pass-through (seen above) keeps it from feeling cramped. Also, the fact that the counter extends out to create a bar means that I have counter space galore!! In theory, I could put stools there for dining, but the silver ones we have are laughably too tall to work. They just barely tuck under the overhang and sitting on them to use the counter is just not possible.

I am in love with this counter space. In fact, I’ll be even more in love with it once I get those piles of random stuff under control and I can use it.

Here’s a shot of the kitchen:

The bedroom is kind of a wreck due to the fact that I can’t fit into most of my clothes so hanging them up at all seems like a futile project. Just keeping it real. The black dresser is mine from my parents’ house. They couldn’t wait to get it out of their place and into mine… and I was happy to accept. Those ridiculous drawer handles have got to be updated, though. As for our other dresser, We will be using the white TRONDHEIM from IKEA in the main living space as a sideboard/additional kitchen and office storage.

Ah, yes. The dog kennel. In our last place it fit neatly into the guest room closet. In our new place, there isn’t really anywhere to tuck the eyesore yet keep it accessible for when we need to crate Mosey. So, some kind of beautification project will be underway sometime.

Another thing to file under “keeping it real,” I am beginning to loathe that ENGAN wardrobe (you can see it in the first picture) with every inch of my heart. It was perfect for our old place but our new home has plenty of closet space in the bedroom. I tried to sell it to the homebuyers but they passed on it, so we had to move it out here to CA. It got damaged in the process (I knew it would) and we’re stuck with this monolithic wardrobe that is totally not jiving with my inspiration for our new place. Whew; rant over for now.

All in all, I am optimistic in regards to the direction the apartment is going! I took these photos a few days ago (last Friday maybe?) and things have already changed, big time. I’ve got a long list of topics to blog about and now that we have wi-fi, I can’t wait to share everything about making this place awesome!

Anything specific you’d like to see a post about in the near future? 

Loss Prevention

Our new apartment (a few more “in progress” shots coming soon) is on the third floor! This is great for getting rid of the extra pounds I put on over the last year, but not so good when it comes to my nerves about little Mosey squeezing out under the railing on our small balcony. If he can fit under the bed (his new trick, now that our bed is no longer on the floor), he can squeeze out under the rail. I mean, he could if he really wanted to.

Here’s a quick little project Doug took care of as soon as we moved in–while I arranged stuff in our closet and worked on some kitchen organization, he finished this up in an evening. The rails are too narrow for little Moze to squeeze out of, but the section underneath made me a little paranoid–he’s probably smart enough not to squeeze out and fall to his doom, but he might get his head stuck or something.

My dad had some extra chicken wire left over from a pigeon-prevention project he undertook at their home a number of years ago, so the cost of this project was only about four bucks for the zip ties. Doug simply cut the chicken wire into four long strips using wire cutters (included in this basic tool kit I snagged at IKEA a number of years ago) and attached the strips to the bottom of the fence using small 4-inch zip ties. It took about twenty zip ties so now we have 80 for other projects… yeah.

This simple task has helped set my mind at ease, because we love sitting out on our patio and Mosey loves watching the kids play in the pool and barking at other dogs. Not to mention, if he plays with toys out here, there’s less of a chance of them falling and getting lost.

And, unless you’re really looking for it, you can’t really see the chicken wire from a distance.

Ever taken any safety measures simply for paranoia’s sake? I don’t think that there was a real risk here but now I really won’t have to worry!!