Ikea De-brief...

Well, I went into battle yesterday morning at the crack of... oooh, 9:30am (well they don't open til ten!).

I went prepared, with my shopping list, on which were printed the warehouse aisle/shelf locations of the large items (the internet is a wonderful thing!). 

I found a trolley, located a Man with Muscles (hee hee, no lifting allowed for me!) and went in pursuit of my Bargain Table.  The website said they would have only 5 in stock, so I was slightly anxious - after all a discount of £70 is not to be sniffed at! However, they were well prepared, with a huge pile of the tables in the middle of the warehouse (cue photograph, which I never thought to take! This will have to do...)

So, I bought the table for J's room and these for my New Workroom (woo hoo!)

The staff were so helpful and even sent a chap to push my trolley to the car and load the stuff for me. 

Once they were in the car, I went back for Round 2!

I went to the Showroom and spent ages playing with desks and office chairs.  Finally I decided that, lovely though they are -

 

- the glass or draughtsman's table tops and adjustable trestles were just to large for my small workspace. I was quite sad, as I'd rather set my heart on that big white table, with the drawer unit supporting one end and one of the trestles at the other (with the idea that I would buy the other trestle later, so I could adjust the height of the table and even tilt it if I needed to).  But if I had bought those, there would not have been room for anything much else! 

In the end I went for this idea: -

The desk fixes to the middle of the shelf unit, which leaves plenty of room for other stuff. I am considering the idea of a folding table-top - maybe the same as the one we put in J's room.  Then I can have extra work space if I need it, but it will stow away when not in use.

I had to settle for a white desk, although the bookcase is birch finish, because the birch ones were out of stock.  However, the drawers I have bought (and the others that I would like to buy) are white, so I hope it will all go well together.  We will see!

So having brought home my treasure, this is the current situation -

The piles of timber are my new shelves (right) and J's new table (centre).  The box on the left contains the desk and somewhere is buried the box with my drawer unit in!

J now has his new chair (red!). The tall, narrow blue thing is a DVD storage unit.  However, once he has fetched all his models from the dining table (Saturday afternoon job), this will be a display unit for J's favourites. It has no shelves yet, as he needs the models in order to decide where to put the shelves - so great that they are adjustable!

Next trip, I will pick up a silver or red one, to be put in the convenient little space between the wardrobe and the window.  We think it will be an ideal home for paperback books.  It has a bracket to screw to the wall, so no danger of it falling on anyone's head!

That's the Story So Far... watch next time for the next exciting installment!