Ikea visit treasures

A month or two ago, we wandered around our newly remodeled Ikea to see what nifty new things we could find. I thought I'd share with you what came home with us.

The first thing we saw were these cute little Norrora egg bowls in the bathroom section. We still hadn't figured out where to put cotton balls and q-tips in our new bathroom. We had pretty white crates hanging on the wall for shelves and I was afraid that using glass jars open on top would result in something crashing to the floor whenever I tried to take something out. These were the perfect solution.

Don't they look cute - and the soft white ceramic goes great with the rest of the decor.

Second, you may remember this pretty sewing table that I refinished this summer was missing a knob. I knew I wanted something glassy and transparent and preferably blue. Everything I found cost more than $5/knob. At six knobs, that's more than I payed for the table. So imagine my joy when I came across these cheap plastic drawer knobs called Satta.  They are available in a bunch of cute colors, including the perfect teal for me.

Here's the table with the old wood knobs. Nice but boring. Also missing one on the bottom drawer.

Here it is with some punchy blue accents. So much better!

The quality of the knobs are pretty appalling, but this piece won't be getting much wear and tear, so they should hold up just fine. At any rate, since they are just $2 for all six, they'll be fine until I feel like splurging or can find something more durable on sale.

Last but not least, the most expensive, and heaviest, purchase of the day. Here it is - the mystery box.

 It's Norden!

I was so excited about this table! We had gotten rid of the table that had migrated up from the basement, much damaged after this little incident chiseling glass out of a window frame. I don't think I ever took a picture of this room when the table was in it - but trust me when I say it took up way too much room and was ugly and broken. I was so excited when D allowed me to get rid of it - we put it on the curb and someone took it within a half hour.

Norden is the perfect replacement - it doesn't take up much space but expands to fit a lot of people, with two swing-out leaves. It has plenty of storage (3 drawers on each side) and, the icing on the cake, it was a surprisingly fast assembly.

So we didn't get out of Ikea without spending some mulah, but at least we came away with some nifty treasures.