Another IKEA Addition

Surprise surprise, another IKEA item has entered our house.  Since we have little to no storage space, I've been working on paring down a lot of our clutter, so that we don't have to have an apartment full of storage boxes. 


Sometimes paring down clutter fights viciously against my tendency not to waste anything. Prime example: hair products and lotions. Expensive, but I usually get bored with them after using half the product. I don't want to throw them away though, because I do inevitably go back to using them. Thus...a storage problem is born. (I do want you to know that I'm not obsessive about these though - I do throw away things, especially if they're old. Nobody wants to use crusty lotion.)


Our bathroom is such that it connects to the main area of the apartment, but also to our bedroom via our closet. One side of the closet is clothes, the other side is a small dresser and our hamper. Here's the state of that dresser on any given day, as well as a storage tub of miscellaneous bathroom items that I've just never been able to quite find a place for. (Feel free to gasp. SHE'S MESSY!!!)

While wandering through IKEA, we discovered a bathroom storage shelf that made me suddenly grip Scott's arm with the intensity that let's him know that we're not leaving the store without that particular item.

(You can find the link here.)

It almost reminds me of a little alien with it's little feet. It's a little more generic and utilitarian than I would normally choose, but oh wait - it was only $40. For something with glass shelves. Say WHAT? And is also only 11.5" x 11.5", which means it fits in snugly right next to the dresser in our closet.


I'm proud to say that I assembled this bad boy all by myself, to the detriment of my already aching-wrist, but that's beside the point. We all make mistakes right? I won't lie...this makes me feel particularly macho, since it involved the use of my favorite hammer (yes, I have a favorite) and my drill. I may or may not have blown across the end of the drill like the barrel of a gun in an action movie when I was done.


When a full shelf comes in a box that looks like this, you KNOW there is "some assembly required". 

As you can see, I haven't dealt with the clutter on top of the dresser yet, but once the shelf was loaded up, the dresser looked significantly better. I don't have any after pictures of that...sorry! Also...please excuse the poor lighting. If this was someplace we owned, we would have replaced the lighting in the closet a LONG time ago.  

This is actually mounted to the wall. You can see the gray brackets in the inside top corners. I love this aspect, since I always worry a little bit about tall shelves like this tipping over. And the last place I want to die is the threshold between my bathroom and my closet.

Woohoo storage!! That doesn't involve digging a plastic container out from under two shoe boxes and off a top shelf!

I'm sure that I'll probably re-arrange things a few more times, but in the meantime, I'm more than thrilled to have easy access to bathroom stuff that is usually buried so deep that I dread the moment I have to dig for it.


Our closet and our bedroom is my next major project now that we finally have the living area in a set-up that I adore, so at some point I will be posting more photos of this project, hopefully with better lighting!


I'm off to continue munching on something that is no doubt not very healthy and I will regret later, but football is my excuse.


Happy Superbowl Sunday from the house that bleeds Green & Yellow. Go Packers!