I heart IKEA!

I seriously love IKEA. Great design (most importantly)and great prices! It's been over a year since I've been to an Ikea, so last weekend Dan & I drove south of Boston for a visit! What a treat! We drove the hour and a half to look for some inexpensive chest-of-drawers for our master closet. (Note to self: do not go to Ikea on the week-end....) The plan is to place two chests back to back in the center of the closet and top with the piece of stone in the previous post to tie them together.

While I love all the departments at Ikea, the lighting is my favorite! When I had my antiques business one of our specialties was lamps. Dan made all the lamps. We would take "found objects" like green glazed terra cotta balusters from Singapore, iron fragments, antique glass demi johns, etc. and turn them into lamps. I have a huge obsession with lampshades, so this was a wonderful outlet. I still buy lampshades for lamps I don't have just because I love the shade! The lamps in our house might have hand-made beaded and smocked shades that cost hundreds or shades from Walmart (a great source btw!) that cost $18! It doesn't matter the source as long as it is a good design! So.... because all of our lamps and chandelier were antiques, and we already had a house full I was never able to buy any lights at IKEA- until now!! I'm a happy girl! Here are some of the wonderful hanging lights from their lamp department!

Aren't these fun?! I'm contemplating the largest one for the barn room "outhouse" bathroom. It would be overscale for the room which I think would be fun.

Very cool, and great texture.

These shades are opaque and come with a diffuser in the bottom so you aren't looking at a bare bulb. They have a high gloss sheen and it also comes in black.


Too fun- and check out those prices!



This is the little number we picked for the center of the master closet! Hard to see in the photo, but those are silver bands that wrap the shade horizontally. It hangs from a silvered pole. All that fun for $49.99!!