We put some new lights in our house this past couple of weeks in our quest to replace everything gold. A friend of mine just built a new house and his wife got a good deal on some nice new lights that they decided to put in. He gave us a good deal on some of his old lights (which had only been used for a couple weeks). We purchased some closet lights and a couple of dome lights from him. A couple of the closet lights are 2-bulb lights and the others are single bulb. The dome lights are 3-bulb lights. We still have a few more lights to replace, but most of them are done now. We want to put ceiling fans in the bedrooms and want to get a new kitchen light as well.

We also bought a new light at IKEA for our dining room called the KRYSSBO Pendant lamp. It is unique and we really like it. It has 7 halogen bulbs and gives off a good amount of light, but not as much as the old light. It was really easy to install and put together.

The new IKEA store opened in Draper today, it caused quite the commotion as well. There were people waiting in line since Monday to be some of the first people in the store. I don’t know how people can justify spending that much time just to be the first to do or see something like this. We weren’t planning on going today but decided we wanted to check it out before we go to Amsterdam. The place is HUGE! It is really cool how they have it laid out, on the second floor they have kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms and living rooms laid out with their product everywhere. There are price tags on everything but most things on the second floor are for display only, even though they do allow you to sit on and touch things. The first floor is where you actually pick out products and purchase things, it is more of a “normal” store.

We didn’t spend much money at IKEA today, only bought dinner and a desk lamp. We had some of their famous meatballs, french fries, and apple cake. It was all really good and only cost $11. I also bought a new desk lamp for my desk that is brighter than the one I currently have. The one I have now uses LED lights and doesn’t produce very much light and I have been wanting a brighter light. It was super easy to put together and works great. It came in an interesting box too, flat and all straight edges, guess that makes it easier for shipping and storing. We decided this will be our new $100 store and plan to spend lots of time and money there in the future.

Yesterday Erich at work came over and told me and another co-worker about a desk that a company (Orange Soda) across the hall from us was selling. Erich heard about it because he knows a few of the people over at the company from another company that they all use to work at. They recently moved there and had some extra furniture that they were no longer using. The desk that we bought is an IKEA desk that they purchased from IKEA’s website for $135. They sold it to us for $35, a pretty sweet deal! It is our first piece of IKEA furniture, and I’m pretty happy with this one. It is fairly simple and easy to put together, I had to take it most of the way apart to transport it to our house. It is also quite sturdy, especially for the original price. This may not be a desk that we keep forever since it doesn’t really match anything else that we have, but it is better than the plastic table she was using before! Now we just need to get her a new chair, luckily we might have a hook-up on some nice new chairs in the next couple months.