Furniture Shopping and Bedroom Decorating

Since we know we'll need some new things for the new house, we decided it was time for a little pre-shopping.  You know, pre-shopping--as in when you just go shop for ideas and think about what could work in the space you have, but aren't ready to actually buy anything yet. The perfect place for our pre-shopping was IKEA, so we headed up there with the kids in tow.

We seriously love us some IKEA.  Once, when we were totally broke and still pretty newly married, we decided to go to IKEA to get some cheap but nice furniture for our house.  Only problem was the closest IKEA was in Chicago and we were in Minnesota. So we left super early, drove 6+ hours to Chicago, got there and bought two dressers, two nightstands, and a few other odds and ends.  Then we drove 6+ more hours right back home, all in one day. True story! What can I say--we were young and crazy back then.  Oh, and we didn't have kids so we could do things like that:)  And we still use both dressers and nightstands in our bedroom, although a few years ago they received a paint makeover. Hopefully that story illustrates how much we love the pretty yellow and blue Swedish store.

Love, love, love this store!

Anyway, back to the present.  At IKEA, we looked at almost everything.  Lamps and lights, beds and bookshelves, closets and cabinet hardware.  Our kids were angels.  Really--they were extremely well-behaved the whole time we were there.  We wanted Evan and Marea to zero in on what they want their bedrooms to look like and what furniture they want to have, so we spent quite a bit of time helping them look at options.

Marea had an extremely difficult time making a decision about her room.  This is classic Marea behavior.  She can never make up her mind about anything. Drives me bonkers sometimes. At this point, she's contemplated the following ideas for decorating her bedroom: dolphins, blue and pink, dance, disco, ballet, horses, Christmas, sparkly, royal (as in for queens and princesses), lime green and pink, purple, red, flowers, garden, polka dots, floofy, poofy (yes, these were 2 different categories according to Miss Marea) and there's probably a few more I'm forgetting. I think she may have finally settled on lime green and bright pink with some sparkle thrown in for good measure, but with this girl, you never know. She may wake up and change her mind again tomorrow. 

This is floofy.  Floofy is good and could be part of M's room.

Chandeliers are sparkly.  Sparkly=perfect for Marea.

M really, really wants a day bed with a trundle.  Not sure if this is the direction we'll go or not.

And here she is testing out something that could be a potential window seat.

Evan, on the other hand, makes decisions rather quickly.  He is very humble and easy-going about this kind of thing.  I love this about him.  He debated between a golf-themed bedroom or a Northfield Raiders room.  He spent about 5 minutes looking at ideas, then decided on a Raiders room, which will be maroon and gold.  Done.  See? Easy-peasy. Love him!

Evan wants a loft bed like this one. 

Or like this one, but without the crazy sister.  Eric may attempt to build a bed for Evan.

Ev wants a small couch under the loft for reading and hanging out with his buds.

And the boy needs a desk. Badly. So this is an option.

 As for Eric and I, we looked at several items. Bar stools:

Not going with clear acrylic.

Definitely no red.  And Marea says this is her "Yo! What's up?" expression.

 

Chairs:

Shelving:

Media Storage:

And there was tons of other stuff we looked at for Eric and I, too.  Way too much for one little ol' blog post. In addition to the IKEA trip and furniture/decorating planning, the sheetrock/mudding/taping is almost done, as is the siding. Here's a sneak peek of what's happening next at our home on the Lane!

Our hardwood floors are waiting to be installed!

The siding is almost done being installed, as is the stone on the front columns!