IKEA does it again!

My art room is in some serious need of storage!  I have a lot of art supplies and I would love to have it organized and contained neatly in one room.  I would be stoked if everything had it’s own little spot to live forever, or until I decide it needs a new home.  Right now everything is thrown into this closet… All mismatched storage thrown into a sad little closet.  Not to mention that those are the boxes that we moved into this house with! That’s right, not even unpacked, definitely rummaged through but not unpacked!  Shame on me! I needed to find some solution to this madness.  Who do you turn to when you have storage problems?  How about our friend IKEA! That’s right, take a browse through this guy…

and all of your storage problems will be solved! It’s where I found this…

It’s the Helmer Drawer Unit and it’s just $39.99.  Thought it would be perfect for holding/organizing all of my art and craft supplies, so I dumped one of these in my online shopping cart and kept browsing.  One other thing that has been on my list for this room for a while is a chair.  I have been checking craigslist from time to time and also checking out my options at local stores, but unfortunately I was having no luck.  So, what do you know, IKEA came to the rescue again when I found this…

It’s a Snille Swivel Chair which is only $19.99.   I thought it would work well for my room and I was in desperate need of a desk chair, it wasn’t love at first site but it will work!  So, I plopped this guy in my online cart also and checked out my two new IKEA items.   In a couple days these arrived…

and it was building time.  I started with the bigger lighter box which I assumed was the chair and I was correct.  Here are the contents of the first box…

Not too many pieces, always a good sign!

So I got right to work and about 5 minutes later I had this…

BAM, and I have a new chair! Next up was the Helmer Drawer Unit, which was not quite as easy.  Here is what you see when you open the box…

A few more pieces came with this one as you can see.  So here is everything laid out…

Looks like madness to me, how about you?  Basically I tried my best with building this one too, except it didn’t turn out as well as the chair.  Once I had the unit and the drawers assembled, the drawers weren’t fitting in the slots correctly and I could not figure out what I had done wrong.  In case you haven’t purchased anything from IKEA yet, I will forewarn you that their instruction manuals do not have words, just pictures.  This is great for me in most cases, except when I can’t figure out where I went wrong, at that point I need words!  So, finally I got frustrated enough and told Justin I needed some help.  Within 5 minutes he had it all fixed.  Turns out I put the walls of the unit on backwards, I had the right wall on the left side and the left wall on the right side, if that makes any sense. After all of the struggles this is what I had…

So, the verdict is that I still love IKEA very much!  Here is my art room now…

Wondering where my white rolling cart went?

There it is, just using a different wall to hang out on.

Don’t worry, I’ll be back soon to give you a breakdown of what I used the new storage for.

Willowcreek Antiques and Interiors(Rochester, NY)

While back in NY visiting my family, I got a chance to visit my friend Christina’s, mother JoAnn’s, antique shop!  I love me some good antiques so I was pretty stoked to check it out.  Here is what you will see when you arrive…

If this doesn’t get you excited to check out the inside of this shop I don’t know what will!  How cute is this barn? I love upstate NY with all of it’s beautiful barns and rolling hills.  Lets get to it and check out what they have!

Before you step inside you’ll notice this awesome bench made by none other than my friend Christina and her husband Dave.  As you can see it’s an old Ford tailgate made into a unique bench.  Sorry folks I don’t think this one is for sale!

In front of this bench I saw this great rustic white trunk.  If my memory is correct I am pretty sure it was only $35! This could be a great coffee table or used for blanket storage at the end of a bed!  This would have come home with me if I didn’t have to take everything back on a plane!

When I first walked in I spotted these vintage baskets.  JoAnn told me she believes they were originally from a library or a school.

I turned around and came across this adorable antique sink set up that was filled with soaps from a local crafter.  I love that JoAnn features local artists in her shop!  I am all about supporting local arts, crafts and farming!

If you head to the back of the barn there is a room that Christina told me her dad set up as the “man room”.  I loved it.  It is filled with all sorts of beer signs, tool boxes, antique fishing rods, jugs and flashlights.

I also wanted to take this vintage craftsman tool box home with me, at a price of $15, it is a steal.  Unfortunately, I was still battling the whole suitcase packing dilemma and being constrained to a 50lb. per suit case limit.  I would have loved to use it to store paint supplies for my art room.  It had a removable shelf inside which would be a great divider.

These antique paddles were also calling my name.  I could just picture them hung in the little nitches that I have in the tall ceilings in my living room.

Can you picture it? I also came across this other paddle that I was digging…

I believe they were $30 each.  Not bad!

Check out this jug lamp and little antique lunch pail.

JoAnn also has many beautiful antique dressers at amazing prices.  I believe this one was $95!!!  You cannot find a deal like that here in FL, down here this antique could sell for close to $400!  Here is another that I am absolutely smitten with…

This one was $150 and I need to own it!  I love the drawer pulls and the fact that it is on wheels.

Both of these china cabinets were around $150 each, which is another great price.  I wish I lived closer!!  On top of the white cabinet I saw these antique glass bottles…

Thought about picking them up for my wedding, but I think I have enough glassware for my center pieces.  Someone please go purchase them and fill them with wild flowers!!!

These vintage trunks were so unique.  They even had writing from the previous owner on them with instructions for delivery.  I also think these would make great storage in a bedroom, possibly a little boys room? The possibilities are endless people!

This old wine barrel was beautiful!  And the burlap bags on top were pretty superb as well.  I could see them made into a couple throw pillows!

I had an awesome time checking out JoAnn’s shop and I wish her great success,  I plan to stop in each time I am back in NY to check out any of her new finds!  You should go visit her if you live close by(5377 Ridge Rd W, Spencerport, NY 14559)! Also check out her facebook page and take my advice, go visit her you wont be disappointed!

This is my friend Allison, myself and Christina outside the shop.

I will be back tomorrow with another post to show you what did come home with me and where it ended up in my home!

Window Shopping(TJ Maxx Edition)

I decided to try something new and take you all shopping with me. I thought it would be fun to go to one of my fav stores and show you a few things that caught my eye. So I headed over to TJ Maxx to see what they had to offer this month!

I think TJ Maxx always has some great things for my purchasing pleasure. You can’t go wrong with home items and sometimes they have some great clothing finds as well, not to mention that their pricing is amazing.

When I walked in I headed straight to the home goods area and I saw this…

Shelving full of shiny silver decorations! Caught my eye immediately, let me show you a few of my favs…

This guy almost came home with me. I mean come on a shiny silver dog sniffing the shelf! Please! And for only $5.99! Pretty much a no brainer that I would love this, but I couldn’t think of a good place for it in our house. So it stayed put for another shopper to fall in love with it. They also had these guys…

I really like this little sail boat and ship. Thought they would be awesome in a nautical themed room. They were both around $7 each.

From there I headed down the frame isle to see what kind of frames they had going on…

TJ Maxx always has great frames and for cheaper than you can buy at most other places. I was really diggin this guy…

and this wood one as well…

They were both $4.99, a steal! I then spotted this….

Such a pretty wreath, it was only $24 and I thought it would look awesome over a fire place mantle.

I then checked out there baskets because they always have a plethora…

Told you they have a lot! I think baskets are one of the best storage solutions, they really can be used in any room. Here are a couple that I could see working in a bathroom with towels tucked in them…

Next up I headed to the pillow isle…

I love love love pillows. Here are a few I fell for…

I wanted to take this one home with me for our bedroom…

But we already have 7 pillows on our bed, so I didn’t think Justin would be a fan of another.

Did I also mention that TJ Maxx sells dog toys…

Yup, they do. Lots and lots of dog toys…

Char man has gotten 1, 2 or 50 from here(he’s spoiled).

Lastly I headed to the clearance section, gotta see if they have any good sale items people!

This guy was like $3 and it was large. I could see this on a shelf or a side table just for decoration, or maybe filled with corks and set on the kitchen counter. Whatever floats your boat I guess.

This is a huge outdoor candle that was on clearance for $29, still to too rich for my blood but I thought it would be awesome on a patio table.

So, that completes my trip to TJ Maxx, which did end up being just window shopping. I didn’t leave with a single item, mark that one down in the books! Hope you enjoyed checking out the stuff that I am really into right now, maybe I’ll do some more window shopping posts in the future, we shall see!

 

New Anthro Finds!

I was out the other day and stopped at Anthropologie.  This is a dangerous place for me since I am a cheap skate and anthro is anything but cheap.  I usually like to go in and check out their clearance section. I love that when they want to get rid of things, they drop their prices significantly.  So I tried not to look around too much on my way to the clearance section because it would be to tempting.  While I was looking around I found this…

I know what your thinking… Hi flamingo! I love you! I thought the same thing!  But then I had to figure out what it was…

This is a view from the top of the flamingo.  It is a tape dispenser!  And guess what I need… a new tape dispenser!  Not really, but I am currently making myself an office so I figured it was okay to get it.  Oh and by the way it was originally $18, but on sale for $4.95! Score!

And I forgot to mention… the flamingo had a friend!

Yup, that’s a lizard stapler and yes he was also on sale for $4.95.

I mean come on people, how do you buy a flamingo tape dispenser and not get her lizard stapler friend?

Here they are in their new home…

Best $10 ever spent!