I got this rocking chair and table at ikea. The plan was to get an armchair for the bedroom, but I got sidetracked in the garden furniture section. There’s actually a full-sized lounge chair I want, but it’s way too big for my car. I like this rocking chair, it’s comfortable and pretty.

I ordered this last week, and scheduled to take today off so it can get delivered. Plus it’s nice to have a Friday off. Officially it’s called the bongo gunmetal high dining table, in reality it’s more a bar table. Came in 5 huge boxes full of thick cardboard. Took me almost 1.5hrs to put together. Not complicated, just fiddly with lots of allen keying. Larger than I thought, may be the kitchen is smaller than I thought? So now I can’t run all the way from the study to the living room, have to make a detour.

It was a glorious day when I woke up, so I went running by the lake. All the way up to where the bike trail ends, then back down along the lakefront all the way to Montrose Beach.

After showering drove to Ikea. The route on google maps is bogus, there’s been roadworks at the Lawrence junction to the Kennedy for ages, so I just took Foster.

I was really hungry by the time I got to Ikea, so I headed to the restaurant immediately and had a large meatball, lingonberries and mashed potato lunch. The aim was to look at kitchen tables, to make sure that I wasn’t missing out on anything. There was one, table and 4 chairs for $129, good price but not what I was looking for. I ended up buying a bedside table to use in the living room by the fireplace, 4 glass bowls at 99c each and a bottle of chopping block oil. I never thought of oiling my chopping blocks, let’s see if it works.

The main shopping was done at home. I finally ordered the bar table and stools I saw at cb2. Delivery on Friday.

Also bought 6 ebooks, catching up on recent releases. And 6 mp3 cds:

• oracular spectacular — mgmt
• breakthrough — colbie caillat
• rattlin’ bones —kasey chambers & shane nicholson
• b.r.m.c. — black rebel motorcycle club
• baby 81 — black rebel motorcycle club
• the e.n.d. — black eyed peas

Oh yes, my musical taste doesn’t make sense, here’s acid, pop, country, alt rock and hip hop.

I’m very comforted to find that the Ikea shopping experience is similar anywhere in the world. The difference is mainly to do with size of the store, which affects the inventory available. The one here at Schaumberg is the largest I’ve visited, it being the US after all.

I got there early. First stop was the restaurant for meatballs — it’s been a while and I was totally happy to find out that it’s on special for just $1.

On my shopping list were: sofa bed, small table, rug, kitchen table & chairs, floor cushion, dessert bowls. Obviously can’t buy all of them, but I wanted to see what’s available this season.

In the end, I did buy the sofa bed, the Beddinge system to be exact. Imagine when I took the stuff to my car to find…the box was too long, even with the back seats down. Yikes!!! So I drove home very slowly and carefully with the boot door open and held down by a piece of rope. It wasn’t too bad. My downstairs neighbour helped me take it upstairs, thanks Dave.

Assembly was a doddle. Oh, I also got a couple of square cushions to go with it. And a 3-cushion system for the floor in the bay window. I saw the kitchen bar table I liked, that will have to be another trip.

Since Mum is here with me, I have a twin hotel room. I haven’t been sleeping very well because I’m not used to sharing my sleeping quarters with anyone, so I hear her whenever she moves around.

Plus, it’s been a long time since I slept in a single bed. There’s not enough room! [/whine] Another reason I’m looking forward to going home, I need my nice queen bed to roll around in. Sometimes I sleep horizontally, sometimes diagonally and there were periods when I slept with my head at the foot of the bed.

Talking about bed sizes, I’ve always been confused about the difference between UK and US bed sizes. I never got what “full size” meant. It’s most relevant when I’m buying bedsheets and similar. So, I looked it up.

• smallest 3’ wide — US tends to call these twins and are 38” wide; UK calls them singles and are 36” wide
• middle 4’6”-ish wide — this is what Americans call full and British / Europeans / Australians (ie the rest of the world) call doubles
• the big 5’ wide one — this is the queen size, and what I have. Sometimes in the UK it’s called a king
• the super large 6’ wide one — this is the luxurious king (sometimes super king in the UK) that are found in hotels

I don’t want to get into California Kings, Olympic Queens, Small Singles, Long Kings and all the variations.

Standards, people. Standards.

Our office upgraded to aeron chairs over 2 years ago. Very expensive and kinda pretentious, but I’m so used to sitting in one for long hours, it’s so comfortable and has the “others pale in comparison” effect. I spend so much time at my desk nowadays, even more than my sofa, or any other piece of furniture except the bed. I’ve been sitting on the very stiff dining chairs for a few weeks and it’s not a long term solution. So I ordered one, and it arrived today. Recline, tilt, slide, roll … woot!

I keep feeling “trapped” today. From the moment I got on the bus this morning, to even now, as I’m writing this. I don’t know what by — location, job, home, boredom — it’s more of a general feeling that I need to get out of …. somewhere and something. It’s probaby temporary, although it may be the manifestation of accumulated resentment. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll be feeling “floaty”, how do I know.

So today’s post is quite fitting. From designboom via boingboing.

This is an entry into a teenage furniture competition, called MyRoom, which its Belgian designer says “integrates an inflatable lightweight nylon-fabric room, a PE air mattress and a polyester storage bag into a mobile privacy cocoon.” The combination weighs only 2.6kg and inflates from bag to full size in 3 minutes. There is room for small personal, but indespensable, items like iPod, flash drive and, um, toys-that-need-to-be-hidden-away — these just stay inside the package when deflated. Perfect for sleepovers and to create a private space anywhere you want. It’s like camping in luxury, indoors. I think adults can benefit from it too, I’d love to escape into it and not get bothered by the outside world.

From boing boing, originally from marieke gast, a Berlin-based designer.

Last week it was ultra modern shelves with pull out chair and table. This week I came across some shelves that give haphazard new meaning. The piece is called Broken Shelf and it’s even weirder than the other ones. According to the designer it’s “a more natural way of shelving books.”

The broken shelves actually provide support for taller books and nothing falls out. There’s even space to put a human inside. What is it with providing seating with shelves nowadays? Must admit, will filled with books, doesn’t look so odd, though I think a more traditional shelf can hold more.

Another one via boing boing, this one originally from mocoloco.

Modern design shelfing unit / room divider. The shelves themselves are not your traditional boring grid, they’re a slanted, but books can still be kept there. There is a pull out chair and table for easy access. Even though they look nice and expensive even, I can’t imagine having these shelves at home, too … overdesigned? Show-offy? Cold? I like the slanted shelves but I’m iffy on the chair and table. Oh, the lamp is called Titanic lamp. I wonder why, may be cos it’s half submerged?

For 27 years the Concorde whisked passengers “faster than the sun” across the Atlantic, bringing them to New York even before their departure time from London.

After the last commercial flight on 24 October 2003, the fleet retired to various museums, mainly in the UK. But 500 seats have been removed and are now being restored and offered for sale as executive seating. Each will be supplied with a certificate of authenticity plus a discrete engraved plaque on the seat itself to signify its exclusivity.

Price for this piece of aviation memorabilia? USD10,000 (plus tax), GBP5,000(plus vat) or EUR7,500. On a first come first served basis at concordeseats.com.

There were 100 seats on board each Concorde, and the most sought after was seat 1A, which served all types of celebrity and royalty. Only 5 1A seats are being offered, at double the price.

Check out the website, there's a neat little flash animation that rotates the chair.

All this for a chair. And here I am, trying to decide whether to splash out $600 on a Herman Miller. Hmmm.

We're getting new chairs for the office. It's a big thing. Okayyy.

We have to make sure our personal belongings and confidential files are all locked away. We even got instructions on how to use these chairs properly - how to adjust the height, tilt, lumbar depth and all. It's all very technical. Just in case pictures aren't enough, we can download quicktime videos to learn about the various ergonomic adjustment options available. Or what about articles, research summaries, case studies and awards, these are all available on the webpage.

I mean, it's nice and all but it's only a chair, people. No need to go all TMI. Sheesh.