Our excursion south...

Yesterday DH and I went to IKEA. First, we went to my brother's work, so we could swap our car for his van...then we headed south on the freeway...

In the next photo you may be able to catch a glimpse of the yellow and blue IKEA store sign, just beyond the guardrail.

 To get to the store, drivers have to exit from the freeway and go by a quite convoluted way, under the freeway and then swing round towards the store...

Almost there now...

In the carpark, DH measures the back of the van once again...he knows the dimensions of the shelf unit we are planning to buy...

We've come up the escalator here and are now in the store...

 There is a huge restaurant at the IKEA store which is always busy no matter what time of the day. The food is relatively cheap and I suspect that many people come here to eat rather than to buy furniture! lol (There's also a big playroom area which is supervised,  for children)

Looking towards the large restaurant area...when DH mentioned to his golfing friends that we were going to IKEA they asked him if we were going to have the big breakfast that is served there...but we had breakfast at home!

 I rather liked a cabinet and sewing table display (below) that we walked past...I guess it would be good to be able to see what's in your stash with these glass fronted doors on the cupboard...

We dutifully followed the arrows on the floor until we got to the section for living room storage. We found the unit that we were going to buy...and DH wrote down the code...

We had to find where the storage cubes were that fitted in the shelves...after more following the arrows on the floor we finally found them...only bright green or hot pink...hmmm  I know it's only the spare bedroom...DH enquired when the other colours might be in store. Next week? We decided to get the green ones and save another trek trip. So we bundled 16 of them into our trolley and then headed to the part of the store where you pick up the flat packs of furniture.

Luckily for us, we found our shelving unit in the first row!

 After DH manhandled the 2 boxes on to a trolley, we headed to the checkout where there was a bit of a wait...so maybe some of those people in the cafe were there to buy furniture after all! lol Then we headed to the lift down to the part of the carpark where you can load your items. I waited with the trolleys while DH got the van.

A little bit of a garden in the car park...

Here's DH loading the items into the van...

 I can't show you the shelves assembled yet but hopefully soon we'll get them put together and make the spare room/office look a lot neater :-)

 Apparently there is going to be a new IKEA store opening at North Lakes which is a lot closer to our place. I heard that it was supposed to open this year but friends who live near there say the building isn't started yet...so who knows??