New apartment, part 2

It starts, of course, with the Internet. After all we are geeks.

So we begin at IKEA’s website. And we open tabs for items of furniture we like. Then we begin weeding them out. Then we add our favorites to a list. Which soon looks like this:

Then we take that list to the store and see what those items look like in person. Then we cross some things off the list and add others. And we take notes on some things such as how tall is that chair arm and how tall is that end table thus how well will they likely work together.

Then we take a break and go to Houston to deliver our RV to PPL Motorhomes there.

Then we come back to Minneapolis and go to the store again. We find more things to consider.

Finally we make a list of the items we think will work best for us that are actually in stock at our local IKEA. As we travel through the store one more time we get items from our final list entered into the store’s computer system in three different departments. We go to checkout to pay but they don’t want enough money. Something is wrong. The last clerk entered our items but did not save the entry. A phone call fixes that and we blithely hand over our credit card for more than $2000. Which is not bad for an entire apartment’s worth of furniture.

Then we take that receipt and the picking list to another counter. There we spend another $100. For that, other people will pick all our furniture off the racks, pack it into a delivery truck, and deliver it right into our living room. More than 700 pounds of furniture we don’t have to handle until it is home.

Then we spend the better part of three days doing this:

I read the instructions as we inventory the parts then I walk Dave through the steps of assembling our new furniture.

Then we go back to IKEA and buy accessories.

After discovering that apartments don’t come with nearly as many cupboards and cubbies as motorhomes do we make another trip to buy another end table which we haul ourselves this time. It takes both of us to move it from the shelf to the store’s cart. A good Samaritan helps load it into our car. At the apartment, Dave drags it from the car onto the bottom shelf of one of the grocery carts the apartment keeps for use of us residents. Then he drags it off that shelf onto our carpeted floor. What can I say; we are not used to lifting huge 75 pound boxes. But, it is now home and assembly begins again.

Then we order what turns out to be a huge TV from a different vendor. This time UPS delivers it to our living room. And the maintenance man is here doing small fixes as we are ready to set it up so he offers to help lift this time. We like our maintenance man. Thanks, Paul.

We have been in this apartment nearly two weeks but I think we are almost done now. I hope.

TTYL,

Linda