Love The One You're With

Hubby devolved into an obsessive IKEA website devotee, rearranging and designing virtual kitchens well into the wee hours of the night.  I did not pick up on this warning sign, naively going about my day, using my kitchen sink with abandon, washing pots and produce willy-nilly without a care in the world.

A few weeks later, watching as brown cardboard box after brown cardboard box was carted into my basement by two wiry men in identical dark blue clothing like Thing 1 and Thing 2, I broke out in a cold sweat.  Hubby’s hobby was becoming my reality and I wasn't fully prepared. 

We are now 4 weeks into the kitchen rehabilitation and we have had a few adventures, like when an unsupported, seven-foot tall cabinet went into severe tilt while Hubby was trying to load it with groceries.

As I looked over the remnants of my former kitchen, the circa 1990's slate grey countertops sawed in pieces, the carcasses of mangled cabinets ripped from their berths, I said, “We are really in this now.”

"No turning back," he confirms.

I realize that we are deep - really, irrevocably deep - in the club of IKEA.

I am reminded of that song that goes, "If you can't be with the one you love, love the one you are with."

I remember that in times of stress, a good strategy is to Find Your People.

I took a trip to ikeafans.com and it did not disappoint.

If you are chin high in furniture and furnishings with funky spelling and questionable pronunciation, this is the site for you.  This site contains forums that explicitly explain what Swedish-tinged, vague illustrations do not.  There are blogs detailing kitchen renovations day by day, making my current situation feel so much less catastrophic. Here you can find those long lost instructions on how to install shelves and posts like "Top Five Things To Do With Flat Pack Boxes."

As any IKEA customer knows, flat pack cardboard boxes are part of the IKEA lifestyle.  Not to brag, but bullet #3, Make Cardboard Castles, has been thoroughly mastered by the two princesses-in-waiting in our house. We now make giant treasure maps and dance floors.

I then took a trip over to positivefanatics.com, also for IKEA clients.  Here you can commiserate with somebody who has tried to retrofit the very same VARDE cabinet that is making your knuckles and brain bleed.  You can find the exact location of those missing 1'4" wooden dowels that are packed in a different box, taped, inside an unmarked flap.  You can even get a jumpstart on your next IKEA project courtesy of this scoop, "IKEA Fans Score Coveted 2011 IKEA Catalogs Two Weeks In Advance."

It is nice to know that when you are in the trenches, you are not alone.  Those days when you think you might lose your mind from the hammering and your back is stiff  from washing dishes and strawberries in the bathtub because the kitchen sink is not hooked up, you can always Tweet to Your People, those @IKEAfans who have gone before you on this adventure of 50 boxes of kitchen.