Oy, IKEA!

I have a love-hate relationship with IKEA.  The part that loves it thinks it has practical housewares for a family budget.  The part that hates it thinks it just has over-priced junk.  Here we are about to have baby #6 though, and I really wanted to get 2 more Hemnes dressers with matching nightstands.  We have the black-brown stain for Gavin & Teague and they really give you a lot of bang for your buck (I mean they hold A LOT of clothing!).  Anyway, we decided to get the gray-brown stain for Kaleb & Hiram and the white stain for Noé & Six.  With a Saturday to-do list a mile long, we decided to check one thing off our list and go Friday night.  Oy, what a waste!

Ottawa boasts IKEA's largest store in North America and anyone who has shopped at IKEA before knows it takes hours to walk through.  After touring the beautiful showroom and fun-filled market hall we finally came to the aisles of flat-packs.  With our aisle and bin numbers in hand we had 15 minutes before closing to get our needed items.  White stain nightstands, check; white stain dresser, out of stock; gray-brown nightstands, out of stock; gray-brown dresser, out of stock.  Are you frickin' kidding me?  So home we go feeling very defeated (I only have 3 weeks to completely overhaul 2 children's rooms).  Once home, I searched online.  I could order the 2 dressers and have them shipped to me for an additional $100, but alas no gray-brown nightstands.  Since we're a bi-national family and we'll be in the States this summer, I checked the US site- sure enough I can order the gray-brown nightstands there.  What to do?  Time is of the essence for the dressers, and could the nightstands get broken during our summer trek?  Last night I was told they re-stock the store every morning at 5:00 and to check online before they open at 9:00 in case any of our items became available.  Well, I did that this morning and no the gray-brown stain and white-stain did not become available, but the plain white became available for all 3 pieces.  The dresser was now also in stock in blue and the nightstands were in stock in red.  So I gave up my aesthetic color choices for necessity and we drove all the way across the city again and were finally able to get the dressers and nightstands we need.  We also were able to visit some other stores to get Hiram a big boy bed, a new kitchen table, and last Saturday we bought a new mini-van that we'll get this week.  Now we just have to assemble everything!!!