Let's get outta this town!

After months of shopping and worrying about the holidays, presents, and meals... mama bear and I needed a break.  So our first day on vacation.. we set out for Pittsburgh, PA.  Ikea here we come!

Our first stop was of course at the Steel Trolley Diner to enjoy a good ol' cheeseburger and chocolate malt.  The best malt EVER, in fact!  After lunch... it was just another hour until we hit Pittsburgh.  Surprisingly, it wasn't too busy.  We shopped and shopped and oh'ed and ah'ed over all the new rooms and ideas that ran through our brains.  If you've never been to Ikea... you must go!  It is an "inspiration station"!

So we packed our bags after stopping at a few other stores and headed home.  Now coming home from Ikea is usually an eventful homecoming.  It typically entails hours of putting together new furniture and rearranging or reorganizing to fit in your new finds.  Today was no different, although my time involved putting furniture together was very quick. You put enough Ikea furniture together and you can get pretty fast.

So my organizational dilemma today was Ethan's books.  We don't have a bookcase and the small shelf in his closet currently storing his books is at it's capacity.



So this day at Ikea... we were on mission "bookcase".  The new bookcase would be going in our basement so it needed to be 'child friendly', match the rest of the furniture, and have a space for toy bins.

Mission accomplished. 

I found a small bookshelf and put it together in 20 minutes!!

 Ready, Set, Build!

All the pieces.

 All done.

Complete with books and bins.

It fits in perfectly with our other playroom storage. 

A couple other new purchases: road rug and new green stool.