I don’t know when Ikea started selling cabinets, but I’ve been hearing a lot about them lately. Sure they sell very cheap melamine cabinets, but they also sell cabinets that look very high-end. We have a homeowners mailing list at work which is usually full of high end remodels, but even people there have been buying the cabinets and having their contractors assemble and install them.
I recently purchased seven cabinets for the project in the man cave and it’s worth sharing a few tips I picked up for getting the cabinets from Ikea. Like all the furniture in that store, it comes unassembled in a about 4-6 boxes per cabinet. You can pay $40 to have an employee pick all the pieces for you off the shelves, but it’s not too hard to do it yourself if you have the right preparation.
Let’s say you want to buy Akurum wall cabinets. First, go to the website and choose the exact size and color options that you want. That will give you a specific “Article Number” located under the price. Write that down. Near the bottom of the page, there’s a section that says it comes in 4 packages and has a link to view the sizes of each package. In the popup window, each package is listed twice (once in imperial and once in metric.) Write down the article numbers here and note how many of each one you need. The text of the website will also suggest if you should get other things with the cabinets like legs for the base cabinets and suspension rails for the wall cabinets. Finally, create extra blank columns for aisle and bin numbers. Now you have a table that looks like this:
Print this off and take it with you to Ikea. Take a look at the map when you walk in and skip straight to the warehouse. Head for a computer and type in the main article #. That will pop up a screen showing each of those pieces that you listed and the aisle and bin where you can find them. Fill those numbers in on your sheet.
From here on out, it’s just manual labor. Visit each of the aisle/bin locations and grab as many of the items as you need. At the end, add up how many pieces you expect to have and then count the items in your cart. Keep this sheet around because when you’re back home, it will help you remember which boxes go with which cabinet style.
The $40 service from Ikea is expected to take 30-40 minutes. I did this in just under and hour, and that includes wasting about 15 minutes miscounting the items in my carts and trying to figure out why it wasn’t what I expected.
My father-in-law kindly loaned me his truck for this, but it turns out I could have fit everything in the Escape. But given how far Ikea is from us, I didn’t want to drive all the way down there and then not be able to get it home.
How easy are they to install? That will have to wait for another blog post. I’m still figuring that out.
Did you know that Facebook might be using your name ads to your friends? If you say you like a company, your friends might end up with an ad that implies that you’re endorsing the company. Fair enough I guess since you are, sort of, endorsing the company by liking them. And remember, you’re not paying for Facebook so they’re going to make money off you somehow. That being said, you can disable this along with possible future expansions of the ad feature.
I wrote about having a chunk of skin removed back in 
In Windows Phone 7.5, there was an option to receive group text messages and see all the other recipients. In Windows Phone 8, that was removed and it was incredibly confusing to receive a group text message. After getting the [collapse]original message you start receiving replies from people you’ve maybe never even talked to before.
I’ve hesitated to write this post because I know it will change, but for the past ~2 weeks, Elijah has been going to sleep amazingly easy. Or maybe we’re just getting better at learning his queues. When 7 or 7:30 rolls around, we go through a ~20 minute routine and the last step is actually putting him to bed. Lately that has only taken 2-3 minutes. We can lay him down even if he’s awake and just walk away. He falls asleep on his own!
My employer has good benefits for women taking maternity leave which isn’t too surprising, but they also have benefits for guys. New dad’s can take up to 12 weeks off within the first 12 months from the birth or adoption! The first four weeks are paid and the rest of the weeks would be unpaid. I’m taking the four weeks off and today is my last day of work. I won’t have to go into work for the entire month of September! It’s a huge blessing and we’re looking forward to taking advantage of it. There are no major plans but we’ll be catching up on projects around the house, having a visit from my parents, and enjoying some small day trips. I’m sure that October 1 will come all too quickly.
On my latest drive through Stevens Pass, I saw a few signs for savetheriver.org. After checking it out, I learned that the Snohomish Public Utility District is attempting to put a dam in the Skykomish River. The dam will supply 30 megawatts (power for roughly 10,000 homes.) The dam itself seems like a neat idea. it can be inflated and deflated as desired to let debris, salmon and water flow past the dam. The dam would only be inflated in the winter when the flow is the highest.
We live just off the intersection of 405 and 160th St. Recently, a bunch of flowers appeared on the bridge. I finally searched for what it was about and thought it was this story about a
Paternity Leave – Week 1
My first week of paternity leave was put to good use. Tyla got a bunch of her task list crossed off and I got a good start on the cabinet project in the man cave.
The best part of the week was being able to take a nap with Elijah every day. It’s really neat seeing him throughout an entire day. When I’m working I get a little time with him in the morning and then an hour of cranky time before bed. Now I see him in a lot more of his happier/calm moods and I feel like I actually get to know my own son a little better.