advice to ikea shoppers

IKEA. We love the place. Where else can you get shoe storage, a kitchen faucet & swedish meatballs?
As we prepared for our bathroom remodel we kept coming back to the items we loved at Ikea. They were our style, they fit our space and they most importantly fit into our budget. We looked for reasons why we should choose something else, but in the end concluded that for us, they were the perfect choice.

Here are the steps we took in finding & buying the stuff we needed to complete our bathroom remodel at Ikea:
1) WE DID OUR RESEARCH We looked... and looked... and looked. We looked for vanities, storage units and ideas for almost a year while we saved up the money to complete the project. For me, I like knowing that I've seen what's available and make the best choice for our space. On one of our many trips to Ikea, we thoroughly checked out the pieces we were considering. We checked out the sizes, finish and overall stability of the pieces. Once we had gathered that information, we came home and remeasured our space to get a feel for how those particular pieces would fit into our bathroom.

2) WE PURCHASED Once our minds were made up, we weren't hesitant at all to swipe our credit card. We had done our research and knew we were happy with our decisions. Here are my suggestions for making a big purchase at Ikea (especially on a busy day like Saturday or Sunday).

• Before you even leave the house, make a list of everything that you need to buy. Include the article # of the item (which can be found online). An Ikea employee can use this article number to bring up that exact item in their system. They compile a "Self Serve" list and a "C&C Full Service" list and print them out for you. From there, you gather your "Self Serve" items while they gather your "C&C Full Service items." It was very simple to do since we came prepared with the article numbers.

3) WE ASSEMBLED Dare I say this was the fun part? Ha! Once we were home it was time to put everything together. My advice? Clear a nice, clean space to work... put on a movie... make sure you have all of the parts and pieces you're supposed to... and follow the directions. Ikea assembly can be slightly tricky sometimes, so just take your time and have a little fun with it.

(p.s. this post may be linked to any number of these blogs)