thirty seven

That's how many items we purchased at Ikea yesterday. It ended up being a fun trip since my brother and his lady came with. I am SO glad they did. Not only was it good for Matt to have another male to roll his eyes at and me to have another girl to toss ideas at, but two extra bodies make a world of difference. If you plan on purchasing large amounts of items at Ikea, bring at least four people that way you can rotate watching the carts while someone does the shopping and talking to employees. Here's our cute helpers:

The list came in extra handy. I'd also taken with me another list with pictures of the items and they came in handy when asking employees "Where is this (point to picture)?"

We used two carts, one for the furniture:

One for the accessories: lamps, rugs, curtains, curtain rods, picture frames, art cards, and stuff that I wanted and was going to wait for but since they were half off I bought them:

And that's what a truck full of a couch, a sideboard, a table, some stools, rugs, wall shelves, and .50 set pieces for my brother's studio looks like:

It was like playing tetris trying to squeeze all that stuff into the giant truck. The unloading into the car hole at #18 with four people took approximately 5 minutes. It was a good idea to get this shopping trip out of the way because the major hassle is getting to Ikea, checking out, and getting the stuff back, now it's just putting the puzzle pieces of assembly together. And tell you what? I love assembling furniture, just ask Ambre.