For the last few years, I’ve really, really, really wanted an IKEA Expedit shelf. Lately, with my attempts at organizing, re-organizing and moving stuff around the house – this has become a need. Okay, do I really need it? Probably not.
I own a few pieces of furniture. After thinking about it, more than I was going to count – ha! Four are capable of storing items… A hand-me-down dresser that was not meant for adult clothes. Which becomes problematic when trying to shove fat lady clothes in it. An IKEA dress rack – which became a necessary extension for my 3ft closet (and overabundance of clothes). And two hand-me-down, glass door cabinets that used to be part of someone’s bar… but have stored my yarn or books over the years.
Despite these, I’ve always felt a lack of places to put the rest of my stuff. Which is possibly an indication that I have too much crap (if we’re being honest). But I already knew that.
Recently, I decided to finally move most of my junk to the larger room in the house. A room that has been (and still is, to an extent) filled with junk for more years than I’ve been on this planet. Given the time of year – finals, my boyfriend coming to visit, the holidays – this was NOT the time to do a major house overhaul, but I did it anyway. Smart, right?
At least in this endeavor I’ve taken tons of stuff to Goodwill and loaded up a small truck for not one but TWO trips to the dump, to rid this house of garbage and unnecessary junk.
Over the last 4-5 months, I’ve somehow come to the conclusion that this amazing shelf will solve all of my organizational and storage problems. And I may or may not have thought that I could corral my miscellaneous belongings to just this shelf, in order to cut down on stuff and clutter.
You can stop laughing.
Writing this, I know I am sound ridiculous. Aside from that, I really needed something to use as a room divider – dual purpose! The problem? It was out of stock in white at every California IKEA store. When I finally got in contact with their phone support (which takes FOREVER) they estimated 6-8 months for them to be back in stock. What?!
So what’s a girl to do? Start looking at Craigslist. To keep this long story from being even longer… I finally got lucky and picked this shelf up over the weekend (which was an experience all on its own, but I’ll spare you).
Dress, cami – Avenue, size 26/28.
Jeggings – Old Navy, size 28.
Cardigan – Old Navy, 3x.
Belt – Torrid
Flats – Clarks “Book Pump” in black, 11M.
Between work shifts on Sunday (I work a split), I drove to San Jose with my brother and borrowed truck to pick up the shelf for $100. With gas and food for my manual labor (brother), I still paid less than retail, amazingly enough. More importantly? I GET IT NOW!
You know how I was thinking it would be the solution to all of my organizational problems? This is what it looked like the first night, after I put a bunch of random crap on it: 
You can laugh this time. Questioning my original theory… but I haven’t given up yet!
This is a kind of, sort of OOTD. Not planned. Shower, work, no makeup, grabbed random clothes plus pants for maximum movement, shelf drama, lunch, loaded shelf, brought shelf home, carried it in the house and went back to work. Oh, forgot the part about having my brother take some silly pictures!
What did you do over the weekend? Or what are your plans for this coming weekend?
