I went to Ikea this weekend. Last resort.

I spent much of Saturday at Ikea, measuring pieces and working out which parts to get to make an entertainment center that could neatly stow my stuff with sufficient hidden storage to hide the stuff that ain't so neat.

This was a last-resort. I've been to a whole lot of furniture and department stores in the last couple of weeks, looking for a decent unit to replace what I had. No luck. And what little came even close to what I wanted would cost thousands of dollars.

So, I went to Ikea. Did I mention that it was a last resort?

I hit the place around 11am. I was pleasantly surprised to find that they had some reasonably high quality stuff there. Still particle-board, but some of it was like an inch thick. Even the backs some of the units were thick particle-board where I expected cardboard or an ultra-cheap laminate.

Still, it was not an overall pleasant experience. The pieces weren't located in the bins where they were supposed to be, they were out of some parts so I had to make substitutions, they only had one of a particular item that I wanted two of, the place was crowded and hot, the lines were long and both the not-a-salesperson and the checkout clerk made silly mistakes that brought whole sections of the store to a halt and pissed off every customer behind me.

Then, I worked until 1am assembling the unit (I stopped using the drill before 11pm out of courtesy to my neighbors) and assembled/wired all of the electronics until 5am.

This is the result.

Not too shabby.

I slept well on Sunday.

BTW: That's my Washburn acoustic set up next to it. A real nice guitar.