Road Trip

Jeff and I have been remodeling our house now for about 10 years. Technically it's been since February, but it seems much longer. We ripped out the old carpet and installed bamboo floors through most of the house, converted a bedroom into an office/studio, tiled both bathrooms and installed all new fixtures and painted every wall I could find. Our last big project to complete was the kitchen, which is about 80% done as of now. Here's what a half done kitchen looks like:

We have no countertop yet (that's plywood) and no sink, but that's our project for this weekend.

We opted to buy our cabinets from IKEA, which is awesome because they are totally cool looking and cheap. However. The closest IKEA to us is in the Chicago suburbs which is a 4.5 - 5 hr drive. Since we began planning the kitchen, we have taken 5 trips up to the store and 3 of the 5 were done in one day. Ouch. We've been really happy with the cabinets on the whole, but there were some "issues" along the way. Nothing that probably wouldn't happen during any kitchen renovation, but stuff that made the distance a real pain in the arse. We had one last trip planned to return some extra cabinet fronts they thought we wanted and to get a cabinet that we DID want that they neglected to add on. There was just SO MUCH FREAKING STUFF that we didn't have time to go through and inventory (our bad) and got home to find stuff either missing or wrong. Anyway, we went last Saturday and brought our friend LM with us, which was super fun because it's usually just Jeff and I and we are boring. Here's what we saw at a rest stop somewhere in Illinois, but I don't know where:

Very nice, sir. I could put a coin in that slot and win some money.

Anyway, we finally made it to IKEA (YAY!)

Shopping at IKEA is always stressful for me because there is just an overwhelming amount of crap to look at, most of which I want to shove in my cart. My brain nearly explodes and I am not kidding. There is all this cool stuff that is dirt cheap and you're like "oh, it's only $5" but then you get to the checkout and all those little buggers add up and they give you your total and it's like HOLY LORD WHAT DID I BUY? Anyway, we found the stuff we needed plus some stuff we didn't need but bought anyway and LM got an amazing deal on an office chair ($14.90!). I also bought an office chair but mine is BARBIE HOT PINK and I love it. Jeff does not love my chair. This is what the car looked like with all our stuff and LM:

You can see a bit of my pink chair to her left. We spent about 4 hours in the store (it takes THAT long, people) and then stopped for some healthy nourishment before the long drive home:

mmmmmmm........hot beef.

Well, we made good time going home UNTIL we got pulled over in Funk's Grove, IL (totally not kidding, that's what it's called) for going 82 in a 65, which is really not that bad since the highway is just flat and straight but the law's the law and we got nailed. The best part was that the cop came to my side of the car so she didn't get run over and Jeff couldn't see her very well (it was very dark by this time) and kept calling her SIR! After she went back to run his license we told him that it was a woman officer and then he felt horrible. About that time a gigantic mosquito flew into the open window so we tried to kill it by slapping at it, which I'm sure looked totally normal to the POLICEWOMAN who was right behind us. God knows what she was thinking because we were flailing around and the car was shaking. It's a wonder we didn't get arrested. Anyway, she came back and gave us our ticket but was very nice about it so we thanked her. We thanked her for giving us a ticket.

All in all it was fun and as much as I hate the drive, I am already making a mental list of the stuff I want to get next time we go up.