Adventures in ikea-ing

We have a tiny kitchen. TINY. And we like to cook, therefore we have a lot of cooking...gear... ware... Our kitchen was crowded. You couldn't open cabinets without things falling out and attacking your face. Dealing with that everyday gets old. So we decided to alleviate some of the space issues by getting something to keep in the living room to store some of our prettier dishes in. Of course, we went to our go-to for furniture, ikea.

Side note, are you guys the same way? Can you not leave ikea without getting a bunch of other crap? We always leave with candles, a picture frame or two, and usually a plant (Brendon loves plants. More on this later, it deserves it's own blog post). Plus other stuff we stumble upon. DAMN YOU IKEA! We are such suckers for you. Also, 50 cent hot dogs? You know we're in.

Anyway, I was hoping to get something like this to house our dishes that didn't necessarily scream ikea:

 

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Unfortunately that was a tad (WAY) out of our price range. So we settled on this:

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YES, one of those giant box things. Could you get any more ikea-y? It matches all of our other black-brown stereotypical blocky ikea furniture. I'm just going to pretend that I'm Lisbeth Salander and living in Sweden in a swanky modern ikea furnished pad. Did any of you who have read the Girl Who Played with Fire find it just a little odd that the pieces of furniture she bought were mentioned by name? I mean I know Sweden is proud of ikea and all, but jeeze.

Putting this sucker together was rough. It's a big mofo and we didn't realize just how big until we had it all spread out over our living room floor. It is also VERY heavy. But we put it together (after about 10,000 "that's what she said" jokes. It's just way too easy when putting together furniture. My favorite was "just one more screw". Inappropriate?) and then bolted it to the wall so if any curious felines decide to wreck havoc on top of it, it wont (hopefully) come crashing down, destroying all of our dishes in the process.

Of course this happened immediately. They're like, "oh you built this for us? Sweet, let me get in it." Fortunately they seem to have lost interest in it quickly.

 

I have to say I am a fan. Our kitchen cabinets are SO much neater and way less cluttered. Plus we have extra storage for other stuff, such as the 9,000 knickknacks we own. And we got a couple of little wooden boxes to keep some of our video game controllers and gadgets in. And see those two frames up top?

I matted and framed our wedding vows! They're a little beat up from being in our pockets our whole wedding day, but I like it. They have character. Also, notice Brendon's ball-in-a-cup? Cute isn't it? (not cute.) Please tell me you guys have seen that Family Guy episode ("Oh no, I missed the cup! That's okay, because there's a string attached to the ball attached to the cup!")? If not, it's still ridiculous that he owns, and plays, ball-in-a-cup. I told him if he can catch the ball 10 times in a row he'll get a special prize. His record so far is 5, he's got a ways to go.

Our little apartment is becoming quite homey! If only we could get rid of the stark white walls we'd be in business. And I am reeeally hoping we don't end up moving once our lease is up because number 1, moving sucks so bad, and number 2, we've got a crap load of stuff attached to our walls. Plus, even though this apartment has all kinds of flaws and it's a little bit on the not so classy side, I'm becoming quite attached! I never ever thought I'd say that. What are you doing to me Austin?!