LONG Day

We are still settling in and unpacking and trying to find a place for everything and trying to get rid of the old and bring in some new. Today we got up, got the girls ready for school, dropped them off. We had to take in our car which was in very bad shape- shaking terribly in idle and smelling of smoky oil. We dropped off the car at the mechanic, dropped off a bag of stuff at the Salvation Army and then went shopping for a mattress.

We decided to get a king sized bed for our bedroom and give our old bed to the guest room. We have been sleeping on a futon mattress on the floor of our room for a week now. So we went to the mattress store and found a mattress and some pillows that we liked. We decided not to order them right then because we wanted to make sure a king sized bed would actually fit in our room with the closet armoire and nightstands we were going to buy for our room. So we came back home and cleared all the stuff out of our master bedroom and layed out some paper cutouts I had measured and cut to be the same size of the furniture we were planning to buy. We played with the layout and found a way it could fit. Only one of us can have a nightstand, but my husband is willing to make that sacrifice since he is getting a behemoth closet to hold all his clothes.

So because it fit we decided to make our fourth trip to IKEA this month to buy the bed and closet. Because I have had some BAD experiences with IKEA- remind me to tell you that story sometime- I decided to go online and make sure what we wanted was in fact in stock before we made the trek across the Bay Bridge in vain. So David went to pick up the girls from school and I got on the internet. Everything we wanted was in stock and there was a Home Depot nearby where we could pick up a few things we needed and maybe get some cabinet catalogs to plan the remaining cabinets in our kitchen. I wrote down all the measurements of everything we needed. I had addresses and directions to Home Depot, I was prepared.

Then the girls were hungry for lunch so we decided to grab some pizza at our neighborhood spot. Since our new house is close now and parking is tough around the restaurant, we decided to walk the four blocks. We had a nice walk, and nice lunch and a nice walk back where we got straight in the car to run our errands. We had the girls' blankets and stuffed animals so they could nap in the car if they wanted. We got to IKEA at about 1:45, went straight to the place we needed, had help finding exactly what we wanted, went straight to the warehouse area to pick up the boxes and after some rearranging and fetching of multiple carts, we miraculously got all we could from the self service area. David took the girls to get ice cream at the snack bar just past the checkout while I paid for our items. Then I went to the furniture pick up area and got the rest of the boxes that were not housed in the self service area. I waited 10 minutes and they were there. David got the car and brought it to the front. We loaded the car with as much as we could fit and then we had to take the rest in to arrange for delivery to our house. We decided to take all the bed pieces and the small closet pieces and leave the fragile mirrored closet doors and the huge heavy closet boxes to be delivered. We left IKEA at 4:10pm.

David actually said, "It's just after four- should we just scrap Home Depot and beat the traffic on the bridge?" I could have said yes. I should have said yes. I didn't. There are 3 Home Depots surrounding San Francisco. Each is a minimum of 35 minutes from our place. We have gone once before to try to pick out cabinets while the girls were in school and by the time we got there and got someone to help us we had to turn around and come back to pick up the girls. It is such a pain to get there and such a pain to get any help once there that I just thought- like stripping a band aid off hairy skin- let's just get it all over with!

So Home Depot was about 3 miles away from IKEA. We found it without too much trouble. The girls were watching a quick DVD which was not over by the time we parked so I sent David in to start working on our list and we planned to meet in the cabinet section. The DVD quickly ended and I got the girls in a cart and we went in. As I walked in the door, a very helpful worker asked if we needed anything. I told him we needed to look at cabinets. He brought me back there and we saw David trying to find a water filter for our refrigerator. He led us to more options and they didn't have what we were looking for. Then we told him we needed cabinet catalogs. He told us that there were cabinet reps there in the store that day willing to coordinate a free in-home consultation and custom order so he radioed those people and told them to come to us. When they didn't come, he led us to the front of the store where they usually were.

While walking I had the BRILLIANT idea that we should get the sheet of plywood the mattress saleswoman said we would need to support our king sized mattress instead of the slats provided by IKEA. We had our van- had our bed, needed the plywood and we were at Home Depot with a very nice worker who was escorting us around the store helping us with our every need. I mentioned this to the worker and he took us to the plywood section and told us the type he recommended and told us they could cut it to size for us and help us tie it to the top of our van. Beautiful. Items were crossing themselves off my list! This never happens.

Here is where it all started to fall apart. The cabinet reps were not coming to us to coordinate our in-home consultation. We didn't have the actual measurements for the plywood- we just had the wooden slats we had purchased at IKEA. So David had to go to the parking lot and measure the slats with measuring tape. While I waited for him I decided to go back to the cabinet area and talk to someone there. A very nice man talked to the girls while a very nice woman gave me two cabinet catalogs and showed me how to find what I was looking for on the internet. She also showed me how to purchase and cut some shelving to turn the broom closet we have now into a pantry. So we got that wood, David had the measurements for the bed plywood and all we needed to do was get the wood cut. I took the girls back to the car while David got the cuts.

45 minutes later he came out with the shelves cut and two HUGE pieces of plywood and a long narrow piece. Two of the three fit in the back of the van and one would have to be tied to the roof. There was much cursing and we had to bring the van to the front of the store to use the twine they had on hand. The worker had said they would help us tie it to our car. When David asked for that help, he was told that it is store policy not to help with that so that they are not responsible when it flies off your car into oncoming traffic. David heaved the board onto the roof and tried for 20 minutes to tie the pitiful twine tight enough to secure the over-sized board to our car. It was not working. After all his efforts the board still moved about a foot in every direction. Surely we would kill somebody on our drive home. We both had splinters and I just asked him if he would rather go in and get the board cut in half so it would fit in the back. He said yes.

So I stayed parked in the front of the store with the motor on thinking it would take 5 minutes at most. The girls were watching a DVD and if you turn off the motor, the DVD restarts when you turn it back on- causing all manner of protests and tantrums from the girls. We were late into a no-nap day and they had behaved beautifully so far so we just kept them happy with the DVD. 20 minutes later David called me to tell me he was still waiting to be helped. He had called them, someone had radioed for a worker to go to him and no one was coming. We had already paid for the plywood and had most of it in our car already. We had already tried tying it to the roof. All we could do was wait. 20 more minutes passed. Still no help. I have been sitting in the front of the store loading zone with the car running for 40 minutes.

David texted to tell me the manager himself was supposedly on his way to help him but was not there yet. I thought we would be there all night. Finally he came out and loaded the wood in the back. No words were spoken. I just drove home. We got home to our house at 7:40pm after leaving for lunch at 12:00noon. The poor dog flew out the door and peed for 5 minutes.

I made dinner as fast as I could, bathed the girls, dressed them, brushed teeth and read stories. Then I folded 3 baskets of laundry and cleaned up while David unloaded the van and reassembled our bedroom. He took 10 loads of stuff to our attic. Now we are delirious and need to go to bed (10:15pm). What a day.

I am pretty sure after I order these cabinets from Home Depot which need to match the current cabinets ordered from Home Depot I will never be going back there again. The good service we got misled us into buying wood since we thought we would have help tying to our car. The bad service we got cost us an hour and a half of waiting at the end of a busy long day. UGGGGHHHH!! Thank God the girls were so good through it all. We would not have made it otherwise.

The worst part- there are many more days like this ahead before the long list of things we have to do is even close to being done.