Have I told you lately that I heart IKEA?

After a week away, I returned home anxious for the weekend. There were a lot of things I needed to try and get accomplished on the kitchen, but my mom was also in town for the weekend. Turns out I was able to have a great time with mom, and still accomplish a TON of stuff. Also, it was a huge relief to have my mom here, so she could see all that I'd done with my house since the last visit (over a year and a half ago) and so that she could see what I was going to do with the place. Oh, and mostly it was great to have her here to get some good old mom hugs and love.

I have basically made all of the big ticket purchases I need for the kitchen (except for the granite counter and the services I'm waiting on). Saturday I bought my dishwasher, and today I bought the light I've been coveting for months.

But the best, the best thing of all, is that I bought all--well, almost all--of my kitchen cabinets. And they were sales tax free! Every Memorial Day weekend IKEA pays the sales tax on everything you buy, and last summer I made a mental note of that. As I started planning for the kitchen, I thought about holding out that long, but really didn't want to spend my entire summer working on the kitchen. However, when I returned home from a week away, what did I find in my pile o' mail but a flyer from IKEA stating that they would cover the sales tax on any $1600 or more kitchen that was purchased between today and next week.

The possibility to save myself a couple hundred dollars was enough to get me off my duff and down to the mega-store (two times in one weekend, no less). I got the bulk of what I needed--and a little more for less than I had expected to pay. Yippee!

And in case you were wondering, you can almost fit an entire kitchen in one little Jetta. And if your Jetta had a roof rack, you could have tied the really tall pieces onto it and fit it all in there. But instead, you may have to recruit some help. Beer and pizza work as good payment (as if the joy of going to IKEA on a Sunday afternoon isn't payment enough).

Now it's just a matter of piecing the 4 dozen plus boxes of PERFEKT and STAT items I have sitting in my basement together. This oughta be fun...