I was excited to pack, because that meant that we were getting closer to this becoming real. I packed and packed, listening to podcasts and books on Audible, and that spare bedroom started getting really full with boxes. Jeff spent one entire weekend packing up his office and closet, and the spare bedroom's closet, and still, we had stuff left to pack...and that spare bedroom was really full. While I had most of the kitchen packed, I'd left out a few Fiestaware plates and bowls to use while we were waiting for the reno to begin, plus the pots and pans, mixer, pantry food...no big deal. My plan was to put the remainder of the kitchen stuff in our oversized bathtub - after all, we don't use it, so why not stack everything in there? Seemed like a good idea to me.
Well, our start date for the renovation got moved up by a week, which I was happy about - but that meant we had to kick it into high gear to get everything packed, as well as buy the items the work crew would need for installation. Because of Jeff's work schedule, we had one day - last Monday - where he was available to go to Houston, which is at minimum a 90 minute drive away, if there's no traffic (haha, famous last words: Houston and no traffic).
This was the day after we'd run the Texas 10 Series race. That afternoon, we packed like madmen, then woke up early on Monday morning, picked up a rental van, drove to Houston, got to Ikea and went to town getting everything we needed - top priority were the bathroom vanities and sinks, with the oversized items that we can't fit into our own vehicles next. I was so organized and had a detailed list...which I ended up leaving on the kitchen counter, ack. The list was also online thanks to Ikea's shopping list app, but their website was really slow so we weren't as fast as we could have been with the printed out list. Still, we only had to figure out some extra details on Jeff's desk, and we made good time, or so I thought. We arrived at 10:30, and hit the self-service area at 12:30 - and suddenly it was 2:00 when we were standing in the checkout line. I think Ikea is a lot like a casino in Las Vegas - you lose all concept of time there.
For a Monday, the checkout lines were long. We made friends with the couple behind us, mostly because I overheard them wondering how they were supposed to hang up the curtain rod they were buying - I had the same curtain rod in my basket, but I also had the support brackets that you needed to hang it, so I showed them what they missed and the husband ran off to get the brackets. He had time to go back upstairs, which is no small feat at Ikea, and get back and we were still in line:
The shopping basket AND the cart all belonged to us. Oh and we had to go pick up the vanities and sink tops from a different area. Our new friends are behind Jeff. I had to laugh at the expression on both of the men's faces...hey, Ikea will do that to you.
Jeff used his Tetris skills to get everything into the minivan:
There was still room left - we could have bought more! Actually, we did - knowing we had the van, we stopped at Lowe's when we got back into town and picked up a small storage shed that Jeff wanted. And a light fixture, just for good measure.
After we finished at Ikea, we were famished, so we went to Red Robin, which was conveniently just down the road. We split a burger, but the fries are bottomless, so we had plenty:
I love their red relish on the burger, YUM.
And we also got milkshakes, which kind of put the hurt on us, but we soldiered through and finished them, LOL.
Once we finally got home, we had to unload the van and get it back to the car rental place - and then I still had the last bit of the kitchen to move to the bathroom. Easy, right? I swear, everything kept multiplying - the more stuff I took out, the more stuff seemed to appear. And this was after I'd packed so much already! I finally finished at 11:00 that night; although I'd worn my Hokas to Ikea, my feet and legs were killing me and it took several days after that to recover. It was a crazy day and I'm glad we got through it, just in time for demo to start the next morning!
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