IKEA, the new father's best friend

We got to IKEA yesterday at 9:30 a.m. because someone - me - had misread their opening time.  Luckily they were serving a free breakfast.  A free breakfast that normally costs $1.  A huge savings of two dollars to start the day.

Not bad.

In order to get to bedrooms to get our PAX wardrobe system and Kompliment drawers we had to get there right when they opened.  We'd been checking availability online, as they suggested, and there were 9 wardrobes at the Paramus IKEA.  There is an IKEA in Brooklyn and one in Long Island.  They are within minutes from us here in Queens.  They also consistently do not have what we needed in stock.  The IKEA in Paramus is almost twenty miles away, as is the one in Elizabeth, NJ.  That's a full day's trip in this area.  While we have everything at our fingertips here, the trip twenty miles outside the city has to be planned.  You rent the van, you gather your cash for tolls (which you pay to get into Manhattan and again to enter Queens, but not to enter New Jersey... what does that tell you?), you plan the trip across the tri-borough bridge, through the Bronx, dip into Manhattan and across the George Washington Bridge into Jersey.  It's an easy drive.  Just takes planning.

So, we beeline to the kiosk and order.   As we leave, we decide to walk through the children's section. 

I am suddenly aware of how adorable a sun shaped light is.  I covet the light shaped like clouds.  I would like to pair them with one shaped like the moon. 

I have never noticed the giant leaf.  It's a leaf that hooks to a bed post or... whatever, and swivels to act like a shelter.  It shades a small person from the sun shaped light.

I have to have one.

Cribs. We look at cribs.  We look at blankets.  We look at burp rags.  We look at little hanging netting thingies that be used as storage for... stuff. 

I'm overwhelmed.  I love it. 

We make purchases we did not intend to make... 

It is IKEA after all. 

We look at dressers.  (I am thrilled by this because I've been wanting a new dresser for a while but the wife has countered with "Where the hell would we put it" every time I mention it.

So, I moved her to a place where I can get another dresser. 

Today it is her idea.  We look for something just big enough for us and a child's clothing.  I realize just how much we are looking ahead.  Every time we think of getting an item, we ask, "Baby?" and reassess. 

Getting two eight foot tall cabinets into the van and into the apartment proves to be a challenge, but not as big a challenge as building them. 

It is IKEA after all.

Armed with a screwdriver and a hex key, I am able to assemble two monstrous wardrobes a dresser and an end table.  With a cordless drill, I can do it even faster.

We are now the proud parents of two gigantic new custom closets.  (What we added in space in our new place, we lost in closet space...  there wasn't one, unless you count the small coat closet in the study.)

One word of advice to the weekend do it yourself-er.  (like my brother...)

Put the hinged doors on first, then decide where to put in your railings, shelves and drawers.  It will save you the aggravation of having to move everything after it's already been installed.  Something they don't tell you. 

Also:  Measure twice, cut once...  or drill once, as the case may be.

That one is free.