Day 278- Man walks into Ikea.... Leaves with kitchen.

It's pretty happenin' over here in Maryland. 9:30 on a Friday night and we are still assembling cabinets. Woot.

We are assembling cabinets still, simply because we left Ikea with 71 boxes. 71. Those boxes represent our entire shelving and sink covered in lovely cardboard. Generally, I'm pretty psyched about the lack of plastic. The only thing that we bought that was disposable plastic were the baggies all the hardware came in! We've been sending lots to the recycling plant, because we have 71 boxes worth of cardboard. Good thing trash comes twice a week.

The haul

After all our plumbing/electrical/insulation/ drywall extravaganzas we finally made it out to the big blue and yellow store. This was our third trip to the store. Once to just wander and browse, once to really look at the cabinets for pricing (at that time we got to use the CAD software Ikea makes free to everyone, really cool stuff. Someone smarter than I could probably show you the design, but I can't figure it out), and the last time we went in for the kill.

Going in for the kill took 3 weeks of intense cabinet selection deliberation. We went to Lowe's, Home Depot, and a independent place. My dad even asked his guy in CA if we could get them at discount. But Ikea gave us:

1) The best bang for the buck
2) More configurations and options for our space
3) A 25 year warranty

I would love to have solid wood cabinets, but it just wasn't in the cards.

ANYway, in terms of time spent at Ikea; let's just say we are more like crocodiles killing a wildebeest than a cheetah taking down a gazelle. Between ordering cabinets, wandering the "as is" section and waiting for our 71 boxes, we spent 4 hours at the land of blue and yellow. And I didn't even get meatballs.

Getting ready to haul the haul

Yes, I make that face in most pictures. I'm either really cool or mostly awkward. I will let you decide.

Once the boxes were safely ensconced in the house we got to assembling. Turns out that I am slower, but slightly better at following directions then the Hubbs.