Here’s an update on Elisabeth’s apartment: We made it to Florida and thankfully for us, but not for them, the hurricane is headed up the east coast, although it was so windy and rained so hard, it felt like Irene landed here. Can I just say something right off? I HATE IKEA!! How they stay in business I will never know. Yes, I know. They are extremely profitable worldwide and even on a Tuesday night, they were so packed it was like the Russians were in the Bahamas, but boy, they don’t make it easy on their customers. What an ordeal!!! OMG! I had no idea how awful it was going to be. We should have been filmed for a reality show. By the time we made it to the checkout, Elisabeth and I were cussing each other out – “I hate you!” “Go back home!” “Fork you!” and other such niceties.
We almost tore each others hair out we were so aggravated with each other!
Seriously, when you are buying a lot of furniture at IKEA, it gets pretty awful. Here’s what we ended up buying: sofa with chaise, chair, ottoman, dining room table, 4 chairs, chest of drawers, and an armoire. When we first got there, Elisabeth looked up our order on their computer and declared that everything we wanted was out of stock. I almost blew a gasket because it took us over an hour to get there during 5:00 rush hour traffic – and then to find out it was all out of stock?? Well, I was not a happy camper. But, the nice man (and he was really nice) at IKEA told us she was wrong and it was all in stock. So, armed with our helper that we brought from home, Ben’s trusty 300 pound, 6’4” employee James, we tried to load all these huge boxes on the carts. The boxes were so high that even James couldn’t see over the top of them. Nor, could he lift them on the cart they were so heavy – of course we had to ask for help. I kept thinking if James couldn’t lift the boxes, who on earth could? I mean, James is built like a wrestler and he was beaten down by these huge IKEA boxes. Ben, as predicted, stayed at the hotel with the puppy, who by the way, was extremely well behaved on the plane ride.
Poor Lucy. Poking her head out from her carry on case, under the seat during the plane ride. She did really good though, after we tranquilized her with pills from the vet.
After three hours at IKEA, we finally limped out, having arranged for everything to be delivered two days later. Elisabeth was mad at me for not trying to load up our car with the boxes. How in the world she thought we could carry those behemoth boxes into her apartment, I have no idea. Once the boxes were delivered on Thursday, much to my shock, Ben and Elisabeth quickly put together the sofa and chaise, chair, and ottoman. Elves found on Craig’s List came on Friday to put together the table, chairs, chest and armoire. On Wednesday, Ben, James and I did the Home Depot run and on Thursday night Ben and Elisabeth did the Target run. Can I say exhausted?
Everything is slowly coming together. All the slipcovers we ordered came in so wrinkled, but thanks to the advice of Julia from Hooked on Houses, we bought wrinkle remover at Target and boy, that stuff really works. Her apartment doesn’t have a pantry or utility closet and the clothes closet is miniscule, hence the IKEA armoire. She may even need to buy another armoire if one isn’t enough. And she plans to buy a buffet to store her dishes in. I totally misordered the dishes from Cost Plus. She is now the proud owner of a service of 48 plates, 48 bowls and 48 salad plates. Oops!!!! But I must say, Delray Beach, which is where her apartment is, is the most charming little beach town. What a huge surprise. Her street is lined with cafes, coffee shops and bars – all with open, outdoor seating. It’s like a bit of Paris – except with surfers instead of fashionistas. She’s about 1/2 mile from the gorgeous beach and she’s right next to a Starbucks. How she is ever going to make it to school and study, I have no idea. Personally, I want to move here myself – I might send her home and trade places with her. Here’s a few pictures of her apartment:
The living room with all the Ikea furniture.
Can you see Lucy sleeping on the dhurri rug? It’s like she’s camouflaged there. She’s sooo tired from all the action! The linen pillows are from Restoration Hardware – word of warning, they shed more than the puppy.
This is the coffee table that hasn’t arrived yet. It’s from Zentique. Once it comes the ottoman will be put across from the sofa.
The side tables and mirror are from Wisteria and the lamps are from Ballard Designs.
The dining room area – it all came from IKEA. The stain is a gray color – IKEA goes Belgian. The table actually gets bigger when you pull the top out. The clock is from Restoration Hardware.
Elisabeth resting! Ben’s in the kitchen doing something, not sure what. Probably adding up all the bills, getting ready to shoot Elisabeth and me.
She’ll probably buy this from Ikea to put in her dining room to use as a pantry.
And she had to buy this armoire from IKEA – the Hemmes line which is a great gray color – because the closet is teeny-tiny. This piece actually looks cute in her bedroom. Unfortunately, I can’t show you pictures of her bedroom because the bed wasn’t made (putting it nicely) and there were suitcases with clothes thrown everywhere. Maybe next time!
After finishing up with Elisabeth, I went to meet up with two fellow bloggers Renee Finberg and Claudia Strasser. Renee lives in Boca Raton and is getting ready to open up a showroom that is located very close to our hotel. I set off to find it and almost stopped off here – the shop right next door - for a quick little botox treatment. hehe.
Actually, here is the showroom – The Trade – located in the Mizner area where there are the cutest shops and boutiques all around.
Renee, on the left, recently teamed up with Claudia who lives in Miami. They’re now partners in The Trade which is set to open up October 1.
Renee Finberg writes the blog Tells All HERE which is about fine design. She’s a great interior designer, so opening this shop will be a wonderful asset for all the people who live in the area.
Claudia writes the blog, The Paris Apartment HERE. She’s a published author, designer, and travel guide – she takes groups of shoppers to Paris and is getting ready to leave on a trip next week! Some of her guests stay at Paris Perfect apartments – the same ones that I featured a few weeks ago. I wish I could go on a trip with Claudia, but I just hate flying over a large body of water like the Atlantic. Plus, such a long flight, I think I would get claustrophobia.
Inside The Trade, the furniture is trickling in. Look how cute those curtains are! Renee designed them. The chandelier is beautiful.
These gorgeous antique French bergeres were found by Claudia in Paris – she told me they are in the movie “Midnight in Paris!!!” I’m going to watch it tonight in the hotel, so I’ll keep an eye out for the chairs. They are in a scene that takes place at a market. God, these chairs are so beautiful, I was drooling the entire time I was there, just wanting them sooo badly! Their lines are so feminine, so curvy, so French!
The showroom’s floor is painted in bold black and white stripes with café colored walls – such a great combination. All the chairs were upholstered in white with black accents so that they really popped in the space. The three of us sat around this “skirted roundtable” and had a laugh. Then we went shopping in the area. Costly idea. Renee described for me all the custom furniture she has designed for the shop and it alll sounds fabulous. I going to come back and see it the next time I come to visit Elisabeth. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the best thing about blogging is the friends you meet, online and in real life! Renee and Claudia and I have all been blogging for about the same amount of time and it felt like I was meeting old friends.
You can buy Claudia’s famous book on Amazon HERE.
Thanks girls for meeting me today! Can’t wait to see you next time I’m in town.
If you are visiting the Miami, Boca Raton, Palm Beach area, be sure to stop by The Trade and say hello to Renee and Claudia!!! For directions, contact Renee on her blog HERE or at 561-613-6800.
IKEA TALES–PART TWO!
Ikea Tales
Well, it’s that time again – school’s back in session. Last year, I showed pictures of my daughter Elisabeth’s dorm room (above) that we fixed up with help mostly from Pine Cone Hill and Target. My daughter is really the one who furnished it – she picked out the brown futon and hot pink chairs and ottoman from Target – and the brown and white bedding from Pine Cone Hill. She also picked out the white flokati rug. I think I only picked out the lamps with the brown shades from Target and the white desk chair from PB Teens. While pictures of her dorm room made the school magazine, she didn’t make it the whole school year with her roommate. School schedules and boyfriends got in the way and in the spring she moved into a single room which I wouldn’t even dare show here - what a mishmash all this cute brown and white and pink furniture ended up looking like! So, now she’s starting her second year in a new apartment, unfurnished. She’s spent the summer on Pinterest, planning out everything. The car left today, packed with lots of things “borrowed” from my house, such as a blue and white garden seat and white vases. I haven’t had much say in her apartment’s decor, again, but I have tried to steer her in one direction or the other.
Lucy Webb, the new puppy
We’re off now to Florida to help her settle into her new apartment. We have five days to pull everything together. It’s been like planning an army maneuver, preordering things online and talking with delivery men and installers. To make everything even more complicated, she is taking a new puppy with her, Lucy. I gave up my annual trip to the beach in order to housetrain Lucy for the apartment. It was my goal to have her completely broken in by September, but you know – that’s Elisabeth’s problem now. Ben and I think we stand about a 50% chance of having to go back and bring Lucy home permanently with us, but we’ll see.
Hooked on Houses new sunroom Ikea chaise with Dash and Albert Rug and Pillows by So Sarah Sews To read the story, go HERE.
Our first stop will be IKEA, of course. I only wish we could have ordered online from Ikea and had it all delivered and waiting for us – but Elisabeth swore to me that they didn’t sell online and I didn’t find out that they actually do until it was too late. So, we are going to fight the crowds and hope everything she wants is in stock. Her major purchase will be one of their famous slipped covered sofas in white (see above.) The big discussion is whether she will get the sofa and chaise or just a sofa. I want her to just get the sofa because the living area is small, but she wants the sofa with chaise. Not sure who will win this battle. We’ll be getting the matching side chairs and ottoman – either one or two depending on the sofa we get. I was so excited when Julia from Hooked on Houses posted pictures of her new sunroom with the Ikea sofa in it. Did you see it? Her sunroom really turned out so cute! I was surprised by how full and cushy the cushions looked and emailed Julia to see if she had added any filling to them. Nope, the cushions are original to the sofa. Also, Julia gave a tutorial on her blog on how to best iron the slipcovers which come extremely wrinkled in the box. Now they tell me! Add an iron and ironing board to the growing list of things to buy.
This month’s cover of Country Living really got me excited! The sofa is the Ikea slipped one – with the Bemz lilac slipcover. I originally wrote about these linen slipcovers that you can buy to fit the Ikea sofa’s here. While somewhat pricy, one day, Lizzy can always update her sofa with a cover like this. Sooo cute! Since I originally wrote that article, Bemz now offers slipcovers in some contemporary Designers Guild and Marimekko fabrics.
While staring at this picture, I realized that I actually have this same exact coffee table in my garage – I had bought it for a job but it didn’t work out. It’s perfect for Elisabeth though – it’s free, minus the shipping (which costs more than the wholesale table cost, typical.) With the Ikea sofa, chairs and this bleached coffee table, it’s a good basic start. I doubt everything we ordered online will be in while I’m still in Florida, so I’m not sure I’ll have pictures to show, but here’s what else she has chosen for her apartment:
She got two chocolate colored linen pillows from Restoration Hardware in the big size for the sofa and two in the lumbar size for the chairs. Funny, she didn’t want any printed pillows. Hmmm, wonder where she got that from?
And this throw in the brown stripe – to keep the sofa clean from the puppy. Also, I have a striped brown and beige small dhurri rug that I gave her for the sofa – the more it’s covered up, the less she has to wash the slipcovers.
From Wisteria, this skirted table will hold her TV. We thought it was cuter than a typical TV stand.
She got this mirror from Wisteria for either behind her sofa or bed, not sure which yet.
These stools from Wisteria are for her island bar.
I want her to get either this table from Ikea or…
Maybe this one from Cost Plus World Market. The table would double as a desk for all her homework. Cough.
The lamps are from Ballard Designs.
For her bedroom, we went with the standard Pottery Barn arched, white slipcovered headboard with white and linen colored bedding along with lilac linen accent pillows. The dresser is in bleached wood and comes from Ikea. The tables and lamps all come from catalogues like Wisteria or Ballard Designs. And late one night, I preordered all the dishes and glasses and cutlery from World Market (so cheap). Furnishing an apartment could be really expensive, but by buying a sofa for $400 and chairs for $200 – we are really keeping costs way down. Also, a lot of the items are on sale now, which helped even more.
The end tables for the living area came from Wisteria.
While shopping online, Elisabeth kept a number in her head – anything over $500 was “way too expensive” I would hear her murmur. The linen and white and brown theme started when she picked out the skirted table from Wisteria. I had thought she would go for more bright colors, but she wants it all to be more monochrome and muted. If she ever changes her mind, she could always add a few printed pillows which will change the entire look. Who knows? Maybe next year, she’ll get that lilac linen Bemz slipcover and really change the decor.
We picked out the Belgian linen duvet and shams and dust ruffle from Restoration Hardware. A few days later we were informed the dust ruffle is back ordered – now what?
In the end, it’s just a college apartment, her first one, and hopefully she’ll live here for the next three years and use most of this for her first after-college apartment too. It’s hard to sit back and not order everything from my wholesale sources, but Ikea, Wisteria and Ballard Designs are much better suited for a college student. So, now it’s on to Ikea. Wish me luck. If you are in the Boca Raton area Ikea and you see a fat, middle aged lady in all white linen – on the floor passed out – that will be me. Ben will be at the hotel, watching the puppy. Tough duty. At least he won’t be on the beach. As luck would have it, there’s a hurricane heading straight for Florida this week! I’m hoping it’s not an omen.
And, finally, on The Skirted Roundtable this week, Linda and I welcomed Artie Vanderpool from Color Outside the Lines to discuss the end of the Million Dollar Decorators season one. Megan was out of town, so Artie graciously agreed to join us. He wrote a weekly recap of the series on his blog and was quite knowledgeable about a lot of what was happening behind the scenes.
The five designers from the Million Dollar Decorators
Here are some of my favorite scenes from the series:
Kathryn Ireland’s fights with the uber bitch, socialite Shannon Factor. I’m dying to know what Shannon thought when she saw how Bravo portrayed her.
Martyn Lawrence Bullard (Delicious) and Kathryn Ireland (Darling) the night that Kathryn passed out drunk in Palm Springs.
Nathan Turner and Mary McDonald slumming it at market! These two are the funniest together and made me wish I was besties with them!
Ross-Pretty Boy- and “Jam” take a bath together and everyone goes crazy, especially moi. These two have to be the most gorgeous couple after Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie OR Rob Pattinson and Kristen Stewart (haha.)
Anytime the wine drinking housekeeper Jacqueline showed up, it was hysterical. The breakout star of the series.
OMG!!!!! Jacqueline The Second! One day I had my wet hair in a scarf and my glasses on and I looked in the mirror and screamed It’s Jacqueline!!!!! Blackmail material. Scary.
Be sure to listen to this week’s Skirted Roundtable!!! It’s a good one. HERE.