“Mine your own material”  Day 16 in our writing 101 course:

I did a post on IKEA recently and I was asked to show my readers what effect that has on my home. Thank you for the idea Janelle!

Many people love to hate IKEA. I don’t because I have good memories about getting something nice that I could afford. I was a young nursing student in the seventies and money was very limited. In the late 1980s I was a single mom having to start again to put a home together.

My first purchase when IKEA was new was a bunch of glass beads in glass container to put in the windowsill.

Glass beads from IKEA 1969

I took them with me from my old room in my mother’s house when she died 7 years ago. The next was a basket chair that managed to move with me to Sweden, but not back.

My children and a friend are playing in the basket chair in Sweden

Then shelves and a sofa chairs and table were bought in 1988 when I had to leave my first husband and continue a life with my four children (two and eight years). The cushions are now used to protect the knees in garden work. I am sure the sofa was meant for a summer-house, but I and my children liked it and used it for many years.

My first “sofa” and a coffee table

Before I left Sweden in 1995 I bought a kitchen bench which is a typical Swedish piece of kitchen furniture. It was not sold in Denmark because we don’t share the same traditions in style of furniture. So IKEA has different things to offer matching each country. I sit on that in the evenings reading books. It’s filled with Christmas decoration collected through my whole adult life.

The kitchen bench and table and Ingolf chairs from IKEA

The white “Ingolf” chair is for my grandchildren.

Ten years ago I got the “Liatorp” shelves and cupboards together with the white “Ektorp” sofa and easy chair and a coffee table. The blue glass globes are from IKEA.

I like toys from the 1900s so they are all over the house and the television has been put aside to give place for an iron cast doll bed.