It’s not everyday that the man calls while traveling for work and says “My hotel is near IKEA. Email me your wish list.”

That proximity, it never happens. The Land of Neverdom. Bordering the town of Pigsflyhere. And let me stress this: He sacrificed the first half of a Monday Night Football game after 9 hours in the car to go to IKEA.

Godly. And send Pete a list, that I did. Not that I needed much, and not that I wanted to keep him from a man-night of beer and football, but I’ll never pass up the opportunity to acquire a few new RIBBA frames (same as the ones that are hanging above the mantle in the living room and, in brown, flanking the bed). Also a few small $2.99-er models for good measure.

I had him snag a few more GOSA ASTER pillows too, because at 26″x26″ and $6.99 each, they’re nice to have around; the last one that I bought has been serving as the seat cushion on this chair that I’ve been meaning to refinish for two years. What can I say, time’s gotten away from me, but the pillow makes working in the sunroom on that laid-back chair muy buen.

Best of all, having to make my IKEA wish-list in 45 minutes forced me to narrow down on some items that I might otherwise have dilly-dallied-the-decision-making-on.

You know what I’m sayin’. More time to think usually = more time to talk myself out of buying something.

So I bit the bullet and asked him to bring me a simple paper shades and a light kit to use in the sunroom.

The inexpensive VATE (with umlaut) paper lantern shade ($9!) and electical kit ($3!) were just the ticket for lighting up the sunroom. The ceiling was recently painted blue, which really warmed up the space and has encouraged me to work out there more often, but now that the sun is setting before 8PM (say what!) I’ve been wishing for a little sunroom lighting more and more.

Notice two things about that shot:

1) I hung the shade upside down. It was going to be positioned closer to the ceiling in the sunroom, and I wanted to appreciate that little pop in the paper. Cute complement to the swooping shape of the shade, which has a more flattened surface on the top (of my picture) or bottom (of the website picture):

2) There’s an enormous hole in the ceiling. OK, not enormous, but as I’ve pointed out before, it’s something that I’ve been meaning to cover up. At one time or another, my guess is that there was a fan or light installed, but it’s not there now, so I patched it quickly with a piece of thin plywood cut to size and painted it light blue to blend in as best as it could. Voila.

There’s a single outlet in the sunroom, but no light switch, which makes it an ideal space for one of these non-hardwired IKEA lights. I purchased 1/4″ coaxial cable staples to secure the exposed cord to the ceiling and wall, a small $2 investment on my part (and true story, I’ve still got 19/26 left for future cord wranglin’).

I lucked out in a big way too; the cord from the middle of the room, along the ceiling, and down the right side of the door frame left me with just enough length to plug the thing into the wall.

 

The fixture, which stands 10″ in height (and 22″ in diameter, wowza) was allowed to hang an extra 8″, giving me enough room to walk beneath it easily, but not make it appear to be a more close-to-ceiling light model.

At night, it’s a nice sight. Maybe even too bright. Crazy CFL bulbs.

Did you hear in your travels that there’s an iPhone app of the latest 376-page IKEA catalogue? Be forewarned, it’s 82MB of data over 3G, but totally worth it (if you’re crazed like me).