my IKEA order

I have received the very exciting news that my shipment from IKEA will be arriving tomorrow (Friday) rather than next week sometime as previously estimated. This is fantastic, as it'll give me a bit of time to assemble it all and set the place up over the weekend. Then I'll have a better idea of what I still need, though I know that it definitely includes some bookshelves, a dining room table and chairs, kitchen shelves, dressers, a TV (only for learning German of course), and a coffee table (which in German is a couch table - ein Couchtisch). But I'm holding off on buying any more new things now that I've discovered the magic of Sperrmüll - but more about that in another posting.

And though I'm sure that this will be unspeakable boring to most of you, my mom has asked that I post what I've bought at IKEA. This doesn't include the dishes, glasses, and cutlery that I brought back when I was there with Valentina a couple of weeks ago, rather just the things that'll be delivered tomorrow. I'm apologizing in advance for the ridiculous difference in scales in these pictures I nabbed from the IKEA website. On the site they're not to scale, but they're at least consistent in filling the frame with the item. I was not so consistent in always saving from the same size jpeg. Such is life. So here we go:

Firstly, a couch. A lovely dark red corduroy couch in fact. I don't love the little flaps at the bottom, but I'm going to see what I can do about those. And for you IKEA junkies, I'll include the product names in brackets. (Ektorp 3-er)
And like a couch but different, the futon-like couch for the spare room, in orange. This is what happens when I'm allowed to choose the colour of furniture on my own. (Beddinge Murbo)
Since this futon doesn't have arms, I'm imagining it pushed against a wall on one side with lots of pillows so that it'll be more comfortable for sitting on when it's not a bed. And so I bought four of these big pillows, which are 80x8o cm. This is actually what they use here as pillows in regular beds too, which I haven't warmed up to. I'm glad we shipped a couple Canadian-sized pillows with us, but these giant ones will have to do for guests. Consider it a cultural experience. (Gosa Sött) (There is another bedding-related cultural experience I will not force upon guests - having two separate smaller-than-twin-size duvets for two people in a double bed. I guess the idea is that if one person is warmer or cooler they can cover and uncover themselves as desired without disturbing the other person, but it doesn't seem to encourage actual physical contact.)
And then our bed of course. I bought the cheapest frame I could find, but at least it's real wood. I'm not placing bets on it's long-term survival though. (Dalselv)
And the bed doesn't actually come with the mattress as is shown in the picture, so I bought one of those too. (Sultan Fängebo)
And it doesn't even come with anything for the bed to sit on, so I got a couple of these (rather flimsy-looking) wooden things. Again, all bets are off on the lifetime of this. At least it was inexpensive. (Sultan Lien)

Since there aren't any closets in the apartment, a wardrobe was needed for our room. Again, I took the cheapest one in wood, so I'm not expecting much. (Kirkenes)

We also need some more kitchen space and storage, so I bought the identical trolly to the one we had in Victoria, the one my mom and dad bought us when they were visiting the first time, and which Jeremi has since sold to Mike and Megan as part of The Great Unloading. (Förhöja)
And that leaves us with the lights. I splurged a bit on some (not all) of these, but I'm pretty tired of the current situation, which has a bare dangling bulb in the hall and the living room, and only wires in all of the other rooms. I have two little table lamps that I bought with Valentina that I move with me from the kitchen to wherever I'm sleeping. I don't have any light in the bathroom, and last night when I had guests over I realized that just leaving the door to the lit-up hall open isn't really a permanent solution. Anyhow, here are the lamps. (In order shown: Lock, Knappa, Hörby, Leding.)