Over Columbus Day Weekend, J and I took an impromptu road trip to Minneapolis to check out furniture options for our new house. The plan was to go to West Elm, Crate&Barrel, Room&Board, Restoration Hardware, Pottery Barn and IKEA (of those six stores, we only have Pottery Barn in Omaha). Of course, a trip to the Twin Cities wouldn’t be complete without a stop at the Mall of America, to which neither of us had ever been.
The nearly 6 hour drive was mostly uneventful until we reached Minnesota. Suddenly there was vibrant orange and red foliage that I tried to capture as we sped along toward our destination.
We arrived late Saturday afternoon and only had time to go to a couple of stores. At Restoration Hardware, we bough a pair of lamp bases on sale and lampshades for them at Pottery Barn that were like $9.99 each.
Sunday was spent entirely at IKEA. Our hotel was literally across the street from the big blue box, and we arrived just before the store opened. For some reason they were offering free breakfast–eggs, bacon and coffee–and later in the day we also ate lunch there. J was very excited to try the Swedish meatballs.
Seven hours later our Pathfinder was filled to the brim with furniture and a delivery was scheduled for everything that we couldn’t fit–Billy bookcases, Malm dressers and a loveseat.
Sunday evening we went to see Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist at the movie theater in the Mall of America. Because it was the theater’s grand re-opening, popcorn was free! Walking back to our car through the mall after the movie, it was kind of creepy to see the indoor amusement park dark.
We returned to the Mall of America Monday morning and did major damage at Nordstrom Rack. In the food court, we had a great view of Nickelodeon Universe while we ate Panda Express for lunch.
All in all it was successful weekend, but now I’m kind of dreading having to assemble all of the IKEA furniture we purchased…
