Skogsta Chairs and Parsons Dining Room Table

After stalking the Ikea website for a month waiting for the chairs to come back in stock, we got'em!  We now have a beautiful combination of skogsta chairs and parsons dining room table.  Our dining room has always suffered from identity crisis.  But it's finally starting to feel more like us.

A few weeks ago I shared this mood board for the dining room but some things have already changed.  As you can see we ended up buying four chairs instead of two.  After looking at the mood board a few times something didn't feel right.  I realized I didn't like the way the rounded back of windsor chairs looked next to the flat back of the skogsta chairs.  I was planning on keeping them and painting them black but instead we are just going to build a bench and use the skogsta chairs around.   I like the look of mix matched chairs but this room is small and I think it would look too busy with so many different types of seating.  We are going to keep it simple and use two styles of seating instead of three.

Now, can we talk about the parsons dining table for a minute?  Just look at it!  It's such a simple, white piece but it pops.  I love it, it has such a durable surface and it's easy to clean.  I got it from Craigslist to the tune of $20, yep, you read that right, twenty dollar bills yo!  Score!!  My hubby is so happy that he doesn't have to build another dining table or spend a couple hundred on a new one either.  Double score!!!      

Let's talk about the things that are not in the dining room mood board

• The curtains are a little bit faded from the light but it's not that noticeable, they are staying and so are the woven roman shades.
• The floating shelves are my besties, I love dressing them up with my favorite finds and plants.
• The new hutch stays in the corner right where it is, I will be refinishing it soon.
•  The light fixture in the mood board isn't the same one but it was the closest thing I could find. We got a few years ago from Overstock on clearance and it's staying.  It will receive some tweaking down the line.

We are happy that we purchased the skogsta chairs and the parsons dining table.  Those are the most important pieces we needed to get closer to the finish line, even though we move slower than a turtle.  But you know what they say slow and steady wins the race.  I know it's not a race but when you have owned seven different dining tables (and I can't even count how many different chairs we've had) we are just dying to finish it up.  We use this room on a daily basis and it's where all the family gatherings happen so it's nice to put the furniture limbo to an end and stop playing musical chairs.  The dining room is shaping up people! 

You can see pictures of the first dining room table we built here 
Our new dining room when we first moved in here
The vintage hutch we found for this room here

Anyone else out there have a room in their house suffering from identity crisis??  Can't seem to find the right furniture pieces or the right color for the walls....???    

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Ikea Kitchen Wish List

With the kitchen cabinet makeover moving in full swing, a little Ikea shopping trip is in order.  I made a mood board for my Ikea kitchen wish list of all the goodies we want to grab on our next visit. We are lucky enough to have an Ikea about one hour away but I still like to make a list so that we don't have to make multiple trips in a short period of time.

The first thing that I need to address in the kitchen is organization.  We have been living in this house for about a year and there's a great deal of disorganization. When things are unorganized, they just don't function well, and it drives me bonkers!  Which is why this whole kitchen cabinet makeover fiasco started in the first place, you can read more about that in this post.  I also want to take this as an opportunity to replace some of the kitchen's most daily used items that have seen better days and top it off with some pretty accessories!

Ikea Kitchen Wish list

1. These Stodja Flatware trays will sit perfectly inside the kitchen cabinet drawers and will be perfect to keep things organized.  I have a smaller sized one already that I use to organize eating utensils so I will only need 3 of them.
2. I will grab a few of these Variera Boxes in different sizes to store snacks inside the top kitchen cabinets. We do not have a pantry so we make do with our kitchen cabinets to store food.  We've actually never had a pantry in any of our homes so we are used to storing things in the kitchen cabinets.  If you have a pantry consider yourself spoiled lucky!
3. I've always loved the idea of making food storage look super organized and stylish (who said food storage couldn't be stylish?) and I think I can achieve that with these inexpensive Ikea 365+ dry food jars with lids in different sizes.
4. Who doesn't love Ikea's Ranarp line of lighting?  I've wanted one since the first day I saw them but couldn't think of a space that I needed one for.  The Ranarp pendant lamp will look awesome against the dark woven shades.  
5. We have a few Fargrik coffee mugs already in teal and green that we've acquired over the years, but I love the black ones and at just $.99 ea I think I will give myself permission to to replace all 6 of our mismatched ones.
6. Most of our clear glass drinking cups have deceased so this Ikea 365+ clear glass set will be replacing them.
7. Our current Fargrik 18 piece dinnerware set (we have this set in green)  have served us well but they have seen better days.  They are very heavy duty which is why I love them.  They have taken 6+ feet tumbles  and haven't broken but they have chipped around the edges so I will just be replacing the set with another one of the same in white. 
8. I am vertically challenged so I require a step stool to reach the top shelf of the kitchen cabinets, I've had a cheap, metal and plastic one for years.  It's time for an upgrade! The Bekvam is solid beech wood and just $14.99.  
9. My dish detergent dispenser is a plastic hand soap one that I've been refilling and reusing and the cap is broken, so that's another kitchen accessory that needs replacing, this white Bestaende detergent dispenser should do the trick!
10. I need an extra colander for the sink this small Boholmen colander fits the bill.  It's all about the little things that make life easier.  I only have one big colander and sometimes I need more than one for a dish I'm cooking, so I have to drain it, empty the contents into another container, wash it to use it again (It's annoying).
11. I also need some new dish towels these Ikea 365+ dish towel set will look handsome in the kitchen. 
12. I am a bit of a sentimental person so while online window shopping at Ikea I saw this Iris oven mitt and the pot holders  I want to buy these solely based on the fact that my aunt's (who recently passed away) name, my daughter's middle name and my kids great grandmother's name (who also passed away) is Iris.
13. I'm loving his new Satsumas plant stand for the corner right next to the dishwasher.  It looks kind of mid century modern and I love the wood with the white combination.
14. And because every trip to Ikea cannot end with out me bringing home a new plant I want to buy another one of the Crassula potted plant since one of mines died last week :'-(

Our next trip to Ikea will be in spring, thankfully it's just around the corner, I can't wait!  

I will be sharing a post this week of the kitchen cabinet makeover so keep an eye out for that!  For more kitchen posts click here! 

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Ikea Kivik Review

We have owned our Ikea Kivik loveseat and chaise combination for almost 4 years.  When we bought it their wasn't much information or reviews out there for us to go on because it was relatively new to the market.   So if you are in the market for a new couch and you have been looking at this particular couch here is my opinion (not sponsored) based  on our 4 years of living with it.  First I will explain our reasons for buying this couch and then I will highlight the good and the bad in a pros and cons list.  You will see that it is kind of a love and hate relationship, I can imagine we have all encountered this type of relationship at some point in our lives.

Ikea Kivik Loveseat Chaise Combo

A few years ago we wanted to buy a more stylish, bigger, comfier couch for our growing family.  But like most growing families with only one income our dreams are bigger than our budgets.  We started researching high and low and comparing prices, sizes, materials,etc...  We saw a few couches before we made our decision and finally agreed that Ikea had what we were looking for at a price we were comfortable with.

Pros

• Comes in different sizes and combinations, so we chose the love seat and chaise combo that fit our space perfectly.
• Also comes in different fabrics so we chose the color and texture we wanted.
• The covers are removable and washable so with two little ones this was a huge seller for us.
• The cushions are made of memory foam which makes them super comfortable, we have all had our share of naps on it.  
• It is modern with clean, straight lines that fit our style.
• The price was right!  When compared to others we liked, this one came in hundreds if not thousands less.
• With regular re-fluffing of the back cushions they look good as new every time. 

Cons

• We moved and it fits in our living room but with the chaise combination it leaves us with only one furniture placement option, in front of the window (this is not the Kivik's fault though).
• Which brings us to another problem because the light coming in from the window is fading the fabric and turning our grey couch into a purple spotted couch.  Thankfully Ikea sells covers separately at an affordable price. 
• We sometimes have to disassemble it with the tools provided to remove a slipcover we need to wash.  
• We have to wrestle the slipcovers back on because they are very tight and the seams don't line up straight after putting it back together.
• I have to fix the back and seat cushions everyday because they become deformed and slide forward from sitting (not a huge deal but doing so multiple times everyday is a bit annoying).
• The chaise cushion always sticks out a few inches from the couch, even though it is supposed to sit still with the Velcro but it doesn't work.
• The couch weights a lot so I cannot move it by myself to clean under I have to wait for my husband so that we can move it by dismantling the chaise from the loveseat because it's impossible to move in one piece.

Cushions become frumpy after use

After fixing doesn't stick out as much

Before fixing chaise sticks out a lot

After a little fluff and puff good as new again

We've had the sofa for quite some time and overall I have to say we are pretty happy with the choice we made almost 4 years ago.  It fit our style and most importantly it didn't leave us couch poor.  Fast forward 4 years the couch still looks good, it's still comfortable and it hasn't broken or become soft on us.  Sure from the long list of cons you would think I hate it but the reality is we still love it and we agree it was money well spent.  The pros outweigh the cons for us considering how much we spent and that this couch is pretty bad ass to withstand the abuse it gets from two rambunctious kiddos.  I mean my kids jump and play on it all day, they spill food and drinks on it and we are able to just remove the covers and wash them even if it's a pain to put them back on.  We aren't planning on replacing it anytime soon because we have bigger (more expensive and important) things to worry about replacing.  It doesn't fit perfectly in this house as it did in our old one but nothing ever is perfect, we just try our best to make things work when their is no major need to replace them.  If you want more details on our living room you can visit this post from Our Home Tour Page.      

Trones in the Kitchen

Last time when I shared the Lightening up the Kitchen post, I shared this picture below of where the refrigerator is placed but I left out the after pictures from this view.

We switched out the old refrigerator that came with the house with a stainless steel one and we added a little floating recycling center on the wall to make it more functional.  The door-less cabinet is still in the same state and I know now it looks a little off  and the fridge isn't as close to the wall as it should be because of the baseboard heater.  I really feel like the fridge should be moved to face the other side of the kitchen for a better flow between work stations.  If we do that we would have to move the cabinet on top and replace the trim, it seems simple but there's a lot more work involved that we don't have time for right now.  Instead we focused on making it more functional for the time being.

To keep the recycling at bay we utilize the Ikea Trones.  I know their description says they are for shoes but when I saw them I thought they would be great for recycling and I was right, they are.  Ours are black so they look good with the bottom black cabinets but they come in different colors.  I styled these pictures for this post but usually I have a bunch of crap on the tops of the trones.  I really want to keep the tops clear so I plan to add a wood top to them to make them more decorative and custom.  I'm hoping this will encourage me to keep the top clean and pretty.

I made the chalkboard frame on the wall with simple 1x2's and a cheap backer board panel painted with chalkboard paint.  I wanted it to look a bit rustic and old so I painted and distressed the frame, drilled holes for the twine and found that big black bracket in the basement and thought it would look cool if I used it to hang the chalkboard from.  It is another functional piece for the kitchen to write grocery list, reminders etc...The old wooden bowls I bought from a thrift store.  I bought some saw tooth hangers from the hardware store and nailed them to the back of the bowls to hang them on the wall.  I have always had a calendar in the kitchen no matter where we live it's just a habit to write things on it like appointments, days off, vacations and other important events.  It is very handy for our family.

As you can see our kitchen is open to the dining room.  I know some people prefer closed off dining rooms but I really like it this way, in fact I wish the the kitchen was open into the living room too but that's just not the case.  We would love to some day open these rooms up in to each other but that seems like a project outside of our DIY-able knowledge and budget so for now we will work with this layout.  Still something to consider for the future.

For now we are enjoying slowly making improvements and making the house more functional for our family's needs.  We recycle a ton in our house everyday and having these recycle bins in the kitchen where most of the action happens is very convenient for us.  They hold a lot and are easy to remove and carry them outside to the recycling cans on waste pick up day.  Their simple lines make them an attractive solution and also makes them very easy to wipe clean.  Needless to say we love our recycling center.  

                   

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