Ikea

 I haven't been to Ikea in forever and a day.  We don't buy a lot there, but I do love looking around the place.  I mentioned back in January here, that I wanted to re-jig our closet.  After looking on the internet for suitable storage solutions, I found something I liked and that would work in Ikea.

So on Sunday morning we made the 40 minute drive to Ikea.  We arrived just after opening and it was nice and quiet as everyone was having the $1 breakfast.........or is it still $1?  I have no idea.  Regardless the restaurant area was super busy.

Ikea always has the quirkiest things don't they?  I took some random photos.

Didn't know Ikea sold hats made of plastic with their name on it?

It's the same material as the bags.  I guess they'll be waterproof if nothing else?

This display caught my eye.  Love the green and lemon colourway.

In the "Gamer's" section, yes they have a section dedicated to people who spend their lives gaming.  There was this neat head light that changes colour.  I caught it during it's "blue phase!"  A teen would love this,

These hands also caught my eye, especially as a way to hold your headphones.  It too was in the "Gamer's" section.

Now I did buy a couple of things.  These cookie scoops make sure each of your cookies are the same size.  I have always wanted some and at $7.99 they weren't too bad of a price.

I needed new plastic chopping boards and a two pack was around $3.

Hubby also found this cool bag, that will keep my frozen stuff cool when I am grocery shopping, again less than $3.  Also it's the same material as that hat!!

I picked up a couple of units for the closet and will show you them when we have finished the closet.  It's a long weekend this coming weekend as it's Family Day here in Ontario on Monday, so it will give hubby an extra day to get stuff done.  It's an easy job this closet, so should only take us a few hours to do.

Cleaning out the closet will be the longest job!!!  I need to be firm with my decluttering!!

No before's, but plenty of after's!

We finally got the front hall closet finished.  It's all freshly painted and we redid the interior as the existing closet shelves, did not make the most of the space.

First we purchased a ClosetMaid 7-ft to 10-ft White Adjustable Mount Wire Shelving Kit from Lowes.  They are available in other places and you can find other brands that are similar.  We priced out what we would need and this kit worked out much cheaper than individual pieces.  With taxes this worked out to be $247.47.  We bought an additional $113.11 in individual pieces, so in total this whole project cost $360.58.  

We normally buy our closet organizer's from the Solutions store, but they have closed a number of stores down, I am assuming due to the pandemic and our closest store is a good 90 minutes away.  Plus it would have cost twice as much as this one from Lowes and we would have had to order it.

So now for the photos.

This first photo, show's the front hall closet.  There are 9 foot ceilings here and full mirrored doors that are both are curse and a blessing.  They are great that they reflect so much light into the main floor rooms.  They are a curse when small children put their sticky fingers and faces all over them!  However we are winning the battle with small children and only have one more to go who will do that!

This side of the closet is a little over 36 inches wide.  The kit came with 12 inch deep shelves.  We ended up purchasing a 16 inch deep shelf for the lower of the two shelves to make it work better for us.  This part is the same as the old configuration.

Now on this side is where the biggest change has been.  These shelves are only 17 inches wide.  Originally there was only the top shelf with some hooks underneath and the two shoe shelves at the bottom.

With adding all those extra shelves it has made a world of difference.

All our winter hats, scarves and gloves are in individual plastic shoe boxes I have used these for a while and they are a perfect way of storing these items.  I have ran out of labels, but I need to add more labels to make it easier to see whose items are in which box.  I bought mine at Walmart, but I couldn't find them online, but here are some.  Not sure if the dollar stores sell them, which would be cheaper.

I am missing a couple of things for the closet.  I have put up a couple of Command Hooks for a couple of dh's baseball caps, but need to find a Baseball Cap Holder like this one.  I also need to find another boot tray for under the shorter shelves to put there for winter.

Overall very happy with the results of this project and it's something that will last for years.

Some photos and other things....

I mentioned a while ago how when we built the new closet in our bedroom, there was a small closet to move.  This is it below.  It had the one shelf in it and some hooks.  Basically useless, but very decorative.

So I got dh to make some shelves, which I covered in plastic paper.  I made a curtain for the mesh window.

And voila this is what it looks like now.

Now I took these photos on Wednesday afternoon, and there is still another coat of paint to go on the walls, and actually at that time I still had to do the final coat on the ceiling.  I ended up choosing a lighter colour than the closet, as the imperfections on the walls was crazy and it's drywall/plasterboard walls.  Who ever did it, couldn't drywall.  So I knew the darker the colour on the walls the more the imperfections show up.  Also with having so much dark wood in the place the lighter the walls the better.

So I went with a colour called "Light Sugar."  It's darker than a Magnolia colour, more like a cream colour and it looks good!!  I have discovered however I dislike painting ceilings.  Dh normally does it, but with him working so many hours, and me being at home, I had a go.  I generally love painting, but painting ceilings are a whole new kettle of fish...LOL

I bbq-ed cremated again on Wednesday night.  I even followed your tips, and made sure the rest of supper was ready (potato salad, coleslaw, and mixed bean salad), so I could concentrate on cooking the burgers.  However I still managed to slighty burn the burgers.  To be fair they weren't as burnt as they normally are.  So there is hope for me yet!!

Today is the start of a new month for the Daily Savings Club.  Did you remember to put your money in your daily savings pot today?

Today's Money Saving Tip:

Right after you open a can of paint,  take a nail and hammer a hole in the dip of the rim, this way after you pour your paint, the paint won't pool up in the dip, it will drip back into the can. This way you won't have a mess when you go to put the lid back on and it will be easier to reopen.

Oh, and keep an eye on my weather icon, as we are having some gorgeous weather at the moment and it's just glorious..........almost summer like.

Closet photos.....finally and the nerve of some people...

Back in January I suggested to dh why not build a closet in our bedroom.  That shouldn't take him that long to do.  Two months later we are finally getting close to finishing it.  So I thought I would show you some photos.

A good friend of mine lent us three of these temporary closets to use until we got some closets built.  Thank you Paula.

We built the closet at one end of our bedroom, so it is around 10 feet wide and about 2 feet deep.

This is what the closet organizer looks like. It was bought from Solutions and is custom made for our closet. It took dh and I about an hour to install it. We have used this type of system before and it's really good quality and well worth every penny. We also paid a little more to have a bronze finish rather than a white finish.  They generally have closet sale in January/February.  Dh has still to change the sockets in the closet.

It didn't take me long to fill it!!

These are the doors; the one on the right is what they looked like before I started to stain them.

This is what the doors look like hung on the closet. They had one coat of stain on them, Minwax English Chestnut, and then three coats of Minwax clear varnish semi gloss and then one cost of Minwax clear varnish gloss finish. The two at either end slide behind the two in the middle.

We still have the handles to put on the doors.  The ones that came with the roller/hanging kit, are a bright brass colour and look cheap and tacky, so I need to find some, just haven't got around to it.  We still have to get the ceiling fixed in the room, still waiting on a quote for that.  I have the cornice molding to sort out, wood filler and stain on that.  Also there is some shelves to put in a small "closet" that we moved from one end of the room to the other.  I'll take a photo of that when it's done.  I also have to make a lace curtain for that as well; it will all make sense when I have taken the photos.

Now for the nerve of some people story.  So I was talking to "R" who is our next door neighbour from our old house, and it turns out the people who bought our house last year have put it up for sale.  Now being the nosy person that I am, I wanted to know how much it was up for and see if there were any photos of it, to see what they had done with it.

I email Sue our real estate agent to get me the info, and she emails me the info back.  I look at the main photo and think something is odd, so I then look at the next photo and think, that hall table just looks like ours.  I then look at the next photo which was the dining room, and yep that is our furniture.  They were using our photos????

So I email Sue and tell her what's what.  She emails me back to say she has put in a formal complaint to the Toronto Real Estate Board and they have 24 hours to remove all those photos, or else be disciplined by the board.  Can you believe that?

I have got more sewing done, but will post photos of it all on Friday, as I have rambled on enough for one day!!

Did you remember to put your money in your Daily Savings Pot today?

Today's Money Saving Tip:

It cost us $525 for the closet organizer and an hour of our time to hang it up.  For a closet company to come in and do the same we would be paying at least $1,000 to $2,000.  We still got the custom closet feel for half the price and it is a super simple thing to do that will add value to the house.

Total cost for our closet, probably around the $1,200 mark, as we had to buy more expensive trim to match the rest of the trim.  We bought solid pine doors, at a cost of around $325, then the organizer was $525.  However it has added value to our house and looks as though it has been there since the house was built.

And what do you have drying on your clothes horse/dryer?

Well newly stained baseboard/skirting board, don't you???

When we stripped out the attic last summer we saved any woodwork that may be of use in the rest of the house.  There was a lot of baseboard in the attic, but not all the way around the attic, so we knew we couldn't use the original baseboard up there are again.  Meanwhile we needed some more baseboard for the closet we are building and so we pulled some from our stockpile.  A lot of the baseboard was damaged, so we can only use bits of it.  As you can see on the bottom of the photo, that piece has quite a bit of damage on it, so I only stripped what we can use.  You can see some of the original stain/varnish on the right hand side.  I have stained it English Chestnut to match the rest of the wood.

It is too cold in the new basement for it to dry in a few hours, so I popped it on my clothes horse, close-ish to the fire where I knew it would dry a bit faster.  I am going to pick up the door trim this week from this store  This is the only place I have been able to find trim to sort of match our house.

It's family day here in Ontario.  Bit of a strange holiday if you ask me, because half the people don't get the day off.  Dh is working, as the factory where he is contracted out too don't get it as they already get "X" amount of paid days off that's allowed???  Future son-in-law works for the Federal Government and as this is a Provincial Government holiday they don't get it.  Ds, he's working, no idea why as he's a chartered accountant for a private firm.  I'm guessing that they're super busy and that's why.  I actually know they're super busy, but don't know the reason for them not getting the day off.  Dd is off and is going shopping.....she is her mother's daughter.  And me........well as one day seems to be like another I guess I won't be celebrating family day either.  Although dd did ask me to go shopping with her, but as I have no money I hate going shopping when I have no money, plus I have a lot to do this week!!

My contribution for Valentine's Day.....I made a sherry trifle and put heart shaped sprinkles on the top of it!

It was my classic sherry trifle recipe.  Cake, broken up in the bottom of the dish.  Drizzle sherry over the cake and let it soak in.  Make a jello/jelly and pour over the top of the cake.  Make a custard, let it cool and put that on top of the jello layer when it has set.  Whip up some cream and put that on top of the custard, put sprinkles on the top, and then dig in!!!!!

Did you remember to put your money in your daily savings pot today?

Today's Money Saving Tip:

One of the easiest ways to save for a particular goal is to include visual reminders of that goal around your house.

Want to retire to a remote island at the age of 55? Place some pictures of exotic beaches on your refrigerator or bathroom mirror. The picture will stick out like a sore thumb and constantly remind you of what you are saving for. This tactic can work for almost any of your financial goals including cars, homes, college education, bags full of cash, etc.