I Heart IKEA

When we moved here we brought with us only things that would fit in our baggage allowance. Therefore, we could not bring any furniture with us - so we decided that as soon as we got to Brisbane, we would finally buy a king bed. Since arriving in Australia (can't bring myself to call it "Oz" just yet) we've been sleeping on an old queen bed of Jordan's parents. Or rather, I've been sleeping on it and Jordan has been sleeping on a mattress from his sister's old single bed. Every night he would complain that the bed was "too f-ing uncomfortable" and would invariably end up sleeping on the aforementioned single mattress on the floor. Plus Kubes ends up in our bed every night (by 4AM I'm too exhausted to make the 5 meter trek back to his cot - its easier to just roll over and put him next to me), so on the rare occasion Jordan managed to make it through the night without ending up on the mattress on the floor, it would be a tight squeeze with the three of us. Which is why we decided that the bed we buy has to be a king bed.

So off we went to this cool furniture mall chain they have here in Australia, excited and hopeful because we were going to buy it in an adult furniture store - and by this I mean a store that sold furniture that was not IKEA. To date ALL the furniture we have is from IKEA except for an old leather couch we inherited from Jordan's parents when they moved from Florida to Egypt and a desk from Office Depot.

But to our great chagrin and dismay we couldn't find a single bed that we liked enough to buy. Did you know how expensive non-IKEA furniture is? For a nothing special bed we would have to pay like $1500 and for something a bit nicer or original, upwards of $2000. Not including a mattress. And those start at $1000. So Jordan's mom suggested we go to - where else - IKEA.

Resigned to the fact that its IKEA or a getting a mortgage to buy bedroom furniture (we also need a dresser and bedside cabinets but were willing to settle for a great bed first) we decided to swallow our pride and go to the big blue and yellow store.

And then a funny thing happened when we got there and walked through the door. I got this warm and fuzzy feeling in my stomach...and it hit me - the layout, the font on the displays, the restaurant - it was just like the IKEA in Toronto! It even smelled the same - you IKEA junkies will know what I'm talking about. Not that I expected it to be any different - but for some reason, and I don't know why, but it made me feel like I was home. The only other place that makes me feel like that here is Starbucks - but I won't get into how much I love Starbucks today - I'll save that for later. Anyway, I was also excited to see that there was a bunch of new stuff that I hadn't seen before (which goes to show that its been a while since I've been there). Then, after only a few minutes, we found THE bed. It was just what we were looking for. And there was also an awesome matching dresser with this cool mirror attached to it! Plus, we realized we could get the bed, the dresser and a mattress for less $1200! However, just as I started to plan out what kind of new bedding I would be able to get for it, the furniture gods decided to knock us down because we found out that IKEAs in Australia don't sell king beds. At all. I was near tears and Jordan got so mad, he was thisclose to storming out of the store and cursing the Swedish chain to hell. I was especially mad because I really wanted that dresser - but since its a very dark shade of brown, it wouldn't really go with any other color and since finding a decent bed is going to be a challenge as it is, we didn't want to make it more difficult for ourselves by limiting it to a single color option. So we've decided we can put up with the crap old bed we are using now for a little longer and if we don't find anything good before I go back to Canada, I'll just buy the IKEA bed there and ship it over (PwC is giving me a shipping allowance to ship stuff from Canada to Brisbane - sweet, I know).

But the moral of this story is that even though I was SO disappointed that we couldn't buy the bed (Jordan felt better once we bought him a 50 cent soft serve ice cream), it made me realize that for all my IKEA bashing I actually love the store. It and its furniture are my destiny - I can't escape it. And I can't wait to go back, even if its only to buy some picture frames and candles.