Raven1025's Profile

We had all of ours in our coffee table (a family heirloom, with a shelf). Well, almost all. My husband collects Monopoly games, and some of those were stacked separately, as was our copy of Starcraft (that box is HUGE) until recently.
Prior, we had them in a Billy bookcase, without doors. They fit fairly well, but it didn't look as tidy as I would have liked, as so many of the boxes were all different sizes.
Currently, we have them on a shelf in an Ikea Pax unit. Most of the boxes can sit on the shelf with the short end out, giving us three neat stacks. Our edition of Starcraft is sitting on top, because the box has nearly the same footprint as the Pax. If I wanted them to be more visible, I would probably get an Ikea kitchen base cabinet (same depth as the Pax) with glass doors.

Love the bedroom! I am on the lookout for antlers to hang my jewelry on, and that rug is rad!

Yonella-We do the former, as well! Especially since the backsplash piece of the countertop keeps the microwave from going snugly against the wall. The cutting board fits perfectly on top, filling in the gap!

I am fond of taxidermy, so I would have been thrilled to have that Kudu! I keep trying to talk my husband into letting me get a piece that could be mounted on either side of a wall, one going in, one coming out.

The other kind of trophy is harder for me. I have a boatload of baton twirling trophies from when I was younger. I plan to sort them at the 'rents, and only keep a couple of really special ones, but I am not sure what to do with them.

I've had my over-the-door shoe organizer (like the one shown) and I love it. I haven't had a problem with the door or anything. In our previous place, I had a wall of Ikea Pax units with their clear front shoeboxes. It was gorgeous and fancy. However we downsized and I couldn't justify giving that much space to my shoe collection. It's not as glamourous, but it keeps my shoes in order, and is super handy.

I lucked out in our apartment. It's a renovation of a historic building, and they wanted it to be fairly true to the era, but with a modern twist. Wood blinds, maple cabinets, granite countertops and tile in the bath and kitchen. The only area they seemed to skimp was the closet systems. The one in our bedroom was not up to our clothing and as I hung the last of our clothes in it, the whole thing came crashing down. We put the pieces in storage and got our own closet system (BRODER from IKEA--super heavy duty!). I didn't mind, since everything else was top notch.
The only drawback with it being a brand new space is that they want to keep everything pristine. So, I will either hide all my screwholes or pay substantially when we move. I figure it's worth it either way, so we can fully use the space while we're here.
We also put our own showerhead on to have a wand, which is such an easy-peasy change. I am trying to figure out what we can do with organizers in our cabinets that will give us maximum use and minimum fees.

Richmonder-It's called Fintorp. It's a series of kitchen rails available in the kitchen department.

Also, in Europe, IKEA makes integrated refrigerators that are counter height. I would imagine that is what is in the kitchen in the video.

As for the use of space in the US, we love our sprawl! In Europe, cities are confined and the space is used in creative ways to get the most out of it without spreading out. When you leave a city in Europe, you are immediately in countryside. Even the outlying cities in the country don't sprawl, they are nicely contained. Buildings are reused, thus it is common to stay or live in a building that is hundreds of years old. Here, we abandon the old and build new and spread and spread. We keep using up the farmland and soil once used for crops to build subdivisions and strip malls. Just because we can, doesn't mean we should. Europe has places to purchase fresh food everywhere. It is nigh on impossible to commute without passing a place to pick up food, rather than the way we push our grocers into strip malls and make them beasts that require time to navigate the massive space. Further, Europeans create far less waste. They buy fresh food daily, thus avoiding spoiled food. Their waste (which is less to begin with) gets recycled or composted, eliminating need for huge trash cans.

I think we have a lot to learn from the Europeans in terms of re-using and reducing our footprint. These videos show that you don't have to have square footage to live well.

I feel like the article is a bit disingenuous. The "new" Billy is one bookcase that is to complement the standard Billy. It's also replacing the old Bergsbo cabinet that was sold as a complement to Billy, but in fewer colors.

I've found our regular Billys to handle all of our books. In fact, it winds up being too deep for many of them, and the cats like to push those on the bottom shelf back. I do think that the deeper size works well as a display cabinet, though.

Huh. My first mattress when I moved out of my parents' home was a freebie that someone was getting rid of. I can assure you I am not "dumb." We have become so wasteful as a society. Yes, bedbugs exist. You can check for them, and are far more likely to pick them up at a hotel than you are from a mattress. Hell, you can pick them up from anything used. I find it interesting so many people will buy anything else used except a mattress. I can guarantee you that sofa or chair or rug you can buy on Craigslist is just as likely to have blood, semen, urine, or bedbugs. You should always carefully check your potential purchase, no matter what it is. I imagine that if this article substituted the word "sofa," "chair," or "rug" for "mattress" there wouldn't be such an uproar.
If you wouldn't do it, fine. We are all aware that there are plenty of people too good to purchase something used. For everyone else, who wants better quality but is on a budget, used is the way to go. It is certainly better than sending something that has plenty of life left in it to a landfill.

Here's a question: I am interested in a rug I saw earlier in the week on CL. I was debating it when I noticed today it was reposted with a reduced price. The thing is I can't tell if it is exactly what I want from the photograph. I've never gotten something from CL that I wasn't already 100% sure about, so I'm wondering if I don't love it in person is it bad form to not take it after seeing it? I neither want to be stuck with something I don't love nor do I want to be a jerk.