Blablabla (oh yeah… flat! again)

Yeah I’ve not told you about my Ikea adventures yet have I. Would make a nice title for a book. IKEA ADVENTURES: The Curse of Self-Assembly. Or something like that anyway. Meh, just thinking about writing an entry makes me tired. And I still need to go shopping, and I was meant to go to the new flat again too but I don’t think I’ll bother. Work at 7am again tomorrow…

… yeah so anyway, Ikea on Saturday. God, I hate Ikea. It’s actually been too long now to still get too worked up about it so I’ll just keep it short by saying – geez, fucking ages waiting for someone to help you in the downstairs pick up area, being sent from one guy to the next cuz they weren’t trained yet or had something else to do or just couldn’t be fucking arsed…. and they were out of stock for a few things – now I have to go back again!? I don’t think so!

The “best” bit was this tho:

• We wanted a 40×202 birch Billy. There weren’t any left in position 10-08 (where they were supposed to be), but we could see a wrapped up lot of… something on the top level – you know, the one you can only reach with a forklift.
  So we went in search of someone who could check / get it down for us. Which took us ages to start with. Then the guy checks his computer and goes “oh yeah go check 10-11 innit.” We didn’t much trust him (why would it be somewhere else?! how stupid), so Jana went to check straight away (while I tried to keep our place in the long queue), but she took so long I gave up and went to join her.
• Of course there was no 40×202 birch Billy at 10-11. We managed to kidnap a little helper guy and asked him if he could get someone to get down the Billy from the top level. He said yeah, he could get some forklift guy to take it down but we’d have to make sure the number was correct first so could we go back and get other guy to check the number…. *grrrr*
  We couldn’t be bothered with the other guy again so looked up the number on their PCs ourselves – but it was impossible to make out on the package (I actually climbed up there myself!)…
• …. eventually Jana managed to drag original guy to the aisle… he went back and forth a bit and then pointed to position 10-06 saying “well I told you 10-11 innit?” The fucking cheek!!!! I snapped “well 10-11 is hardly 10-06 now is it??!?!” and off he went (probably cursing me). Seriously tho!!!! 8-|

Oh yeah and (now I’m on a roll…) their idea of helpfulness… when we first got to the bloody big hall thing and found out that we even had to pick out the things we wanted delivered (of course we hadn’t written down the location for most of it!) we went to one of their computer terminals and looked them all up and some guy walking past went “you can ask him over there if you need help innit!” – why would we want to do that when there’s already people queuing there and here we can peacefully do it by ourselves??!?! (esp. considering how useful them guys are innit!??!?!)

Yeah so on top of all that shit they didn’t have the TV bench I wanted (they’re getting 20 in this week – neat! Cuz I really wanna drive all the way to fucking Croydon again!) and only 3 of the chairs (I wanted 4. well actually maybe 3 will be sufficient. *hmph*).

So that was my Ikea experience. I did buy quite a lot of stuff all the same… I was gonna link/list it all first but meh. Short version: Billy / Benno (shelves) with doors, Viken bathroom cupboard, Bjursta dining table, 3 Gilbert dining chairs, 1 Allak office chair. And lots of little things. (OMG I actually knew all the names by heart! scary)

And a lovely, beautiful leather sofa bed. In red. Made to order. Why am I going on about it? Because of course I found out on Sunday that it won’t fit in my fucking piece of shit of a flat!!!!!!!!! Okay we did have our doubts… well, we figured it might be awkward squeezing it around the corner in the narrow hallway. Ikea guys (where I ordered it) told us if it didn’t fit I’d have to pay a £50 fee and I decided to take the risk.

Sunday morning Ikea call “to discuss my order” (eek! never good news) and turns out it’s not quite like that… if it doesn’t fit in the flat I have to have it shipped back at my own expense. Great. Girl from Customer Service was cute tho and I told her I’d go and measure and estimate and get back to her. Which I did. And found out that my front door is only 72cm and lounge door is only 68cm!!!!!!!!!!!! (this thing was 88cm at its narrowest point – well, fully packaged anyway)

This means… I can’t have a sofa that’s longer than 2m (the height of the door frame), as the only way to fit it through the doors is some sort of squeezy rotating (or if it’s longer than that it has to be seriously narrow). In practice this pretty much reduces my options to a futon or a foldable foam thing. Or something like this, which just doesn’t look very comfortable. At all. UGHness¹⁰!!

I’ve sorta semi-set my mind on the idea of a “squishy corner” now – just have my old mattress, a beanbag or two, and lots of pillows, to make an uncoordinated heap of fun! I could have boxes/chests underneath for storage and higher-upness (sitting on just a mattress on the floor is kinda weird) – and this would still allow me to have people over as my mattress could go back to serving its primary purpose of being a mattress! And if K&T come to visit (or any other “couple” I have visiting) they can have my bed and I’ll sleep in the lounge. 😀 And should I ever be too lazy to get up while watching TV I can just shove the pillows on the floor and crash on my perfectly comfortable “sofa”! Yes yes I like that idea! :] (I like it when I like things, rather than being full of anger and resentment, hehe)

God I’m still talking. I really need to be off soon. Painting is now totally officially done btw – well except the kitchen door but I am totally officially ignoring that for now 😀 (yes that counts!!) and I am generally pleased. Oh I must share with you my favourite view in the flat. It’s the view from the loo bathroom:

It’s the simple pleasures!! Just look at the juxtaposition of those two colours – it is divine!! (it actually looks even better in real life) It gives me pleasure everytime I sit on the loo wash my hands in the bathroom… I wish I could do something like this by design. I mean I did choose the green carpet – yellow walls vs. yellow carpet – green walls opposition (am very excited, if scared, about how that will turn out) but this particular gem was pure chance. I luuurve pretty things!!! They make me happy. 🙂 Shame the yellow bit will soon be covered up. 😐 Might have to change plans – just so I can keep seeing this from the loo bathroom!!! 😀

Right I really need to run now so you’ll hear about scary/annoying Rita and other things some other day! :*