What's wrong with IKEA?

I love a good antique or a fabulous vintage find from a tag sale or Craigslist just as much as the next guy. But sometimes you can find a great inexpensive piece at the most unlikliest of places: IKEA.
Some may turn up their noses but I love the mix of high and low in a home. I like the casual un-snobby juxtoposition of an eclectic combination of tasteful things. It's like when Sharon Stone wore a GAP white shirt paired with a Vera Wang skirt to the Academy Awards. Smart design can be very democratic.
I've found some great pieces at this Swedish furniture store and I love them all:

I needed a good sized nightstand beside my bed, something big enough to hold some books, a lamp, a  clock, maybe my laptop, a water decanter, etc. And it had to be as high as my bed. I found this black one at IKEA for next to nothing. I thought "I'll get it now to hold me over and as soon as I find something better I'll swap it out"...cut to seven years later and it still looks great.

I also wanted an interesting rug in the bedroom that would coordinate with all the black and white I have going on in there. This cowhide rug did the trick. I never noticed until I took this pic today that there's that face pattern there to the right. It looks like an alien face...Spooky!

The alien face: EEK!!

I loved this metal cabinet that I initially bought for the city apartment. It looked great in my kitchen holding pots, pans, and extra dishes. When I moved last year there was no room in my new smaller apartment for it so I brought it to the house where I now use it in the bedroom to hold t-shirts and pajamas. The dark gray metal coating color works with the black and white.

I love, love, LOVE my big trestle desk that's in the craft room/home office. Sturdy and tough, this thing takes anything I can throw at it. And it looks smart and modern to boot. In this picture you can see my latest paper maché project in medias res, more on that in a future post.

Lastly, I recently put up these shelves in the master bathroom. They were the perfect size to fit in the alcove over the toilet and they went with the clean white lines of the room. I really needed a place to hold extra towels as the linen closet is outside the bedroom in the hallway, too far to grab a towel when you're soaking wet after a shower! Funny story: it took me THREE tries to get these things up. The first drywall screws the guy at the hardware store sold me were totally wrong. For the second batch I didn't have the right drill bit size to work with the sinkers, AARGH. Back to the hardware store AGAIN...the third time was the charm (and there were only FOUR holes in the wall in the wrong places!) I can laugh at it now but believe me, there was a LOT of cussin' going on during the process.