IKEAland

Damn you, IKEA.

J and I went there the other day to get two things: curtains and a front "foyer" table that we had already picked out.

They were out of stock of both. Sooo frustrating.

What's more frustrating is that we shouldn't have needed new curtains. We bought these - actually, I think I pressured him into buying them before we even closed on the house - months ago from IKEA:

For some reason, I thought I had bought these WILMA curtains before. Which I think I had. I remember previously cutting off the loops at the top because I don't like them and just sticking my curtain rod through the top hem - as though the tops were designed for either-or.

So J and I brought home the only six packages they had, and I got to work. I went through and cut of all of the loops and then sewed them back up so they wouldn't look half-assed.

The first place I tried hanging them was in my craft room closet, since we removed the doors on our first night. And guess what? They didn't fit.

The reason they didn't fit was because that top hem wasn't meant for hanging. It really was just a hem.

After a few more painstaking attempts at fixing a pair, literally starting over, I got one set hung up for my craft closet. I tackled one more pair and gave up.

So we wasted $60 and probably 4.5 hours of my time on these stupid curtains. This Sunday, I was fuming!

One of my goals, then, on our trip this week was to buy these:

At three dollars more per pair, these VIVAN curtains appeared very similar in quality to the WILMA pair, but these have the loops concealed behind the hem, which doesn't bother me at all. I should have bought these in the first place.

These were the ones that were out of stock. So we were faced with a dilemma.

We checked these LILL curtains out, at $4.99 a pair, but they reminded me so much of mosquito netting that there was no way I could buy them.

And then we found them. At $14.99 a pair, the LENDA curtains were much more substantial in weight, which I liked.

Though I thought I wanted light, airy curtains, when I felt these I knew they would be a good choice. A negative is that I'm stuck again with the loops on top, but I could probably sleep under the weight of these, so I thought the trade-off was worth it. We bought two sets since our front living room window is quite wide and one pair would only barely cover it if they were pulled taut to the max.

Whew. With that curtain drama done, we were off to find out "foyer" table. We had found the EDLAND "nightstand" before in, surprisingly, the dresser section, so this week we trucked over and found it. AND it was cheaper than I remembered, at $149. PS: It's more of a grey than black, like it looks in this photo:

However, it was missing its slip which tells you where to fetch it. We figured it was a mistake, so we just checked the slips of the pieces around it (from the same series) and assumed we could find it that way.

But of course that bugger was sold out! And IKEA's website says it's still sold out of the College Park location. Total bummer. And I'm too lazy to drive to Owings Mills if it's in stock there. Though I am going to Baltimore this weekend.....

Ah, the woes* of IKEA shopping.

*Thanks, Angie, for sharing. So funny I wish I'd come up with it.