Blocket and shopping

I am a fan!

Of course, I was/am a big fan of Craigslist, and Blocket is essentially the Swedish equivalent (without the scuzzy personal ads and job listings.) Despite that it is notoriously flakey, I have bought a ton of furniture and odds 'n ends through Craigslist in DC, collected random crap for our wedding, found my apartment, listed the condo for sale. When moving to Sweden, we sold a third of our furniture and posted an announcement for a yard sale through CL. Soooooo glad Sweden has something similar!

We made our first purchase through Blocket yesterday. We bought a microwave (Swedish word of the day: microvågsugn.)
It was super easy, and from a nice Swedish dad-type in our neighborhood, who coincidentally, and oddly, has two daughters going to college in the US on golf scholarships (in Oklahoma & Louisiana, even more odd.)

When I mentioned it was on our list of things-to-buy to some of the int'l kids in Stu's program, we got pegged as typical Americans, unable to live without our beloved microwave. Why give us a hard time for something that makes our lives easier? First use: I melted butter in it yesterday for the pancakes we ate for dinner. Call me nuts, but I'm just excited for microwave popcorn, the ability to heat up leftovers, and to make a cup of tea without having to futz with the gas stove.

(FYI, we have a gas stove/oven. I have never, ever had a gas stove, always electric, so it may be basic for some, but learning to turn on the burners has been a small challenge for me.)

And it was cheap! Nearly brand new and quite nice, for 350:-. That's less than 50 bucks. It fits really nicely in our kitchen:



So shopping. I am embarrassed to admit this, but Stu & I spent 6.5 hours in Ikea this week (SIX and a HALF!) working on outfitting our new place a little better. A large chunk of that was custom-designing a set of PAX armoirs for me, with the color, size, drawers, rods and shoe racks I want/need.
And we picked a couch! Not one that I loved, but one that was 1) a decent price, and on sale! 2) long enough for us both to cuddle up to some TV on and 3) a bäddsoffa, so we could have guests. The only reason they didn't come home with us Friday was because Ikea closes at 8pm (!) in Sweden, and we didn't have enough time to check out and arrange for delivery. Because, like I said, we spent almost 7 hours there (with fika and dinner thrown in.) So I hopped online to order the same items for delivery. But they were more expensive. I guess the sale price was in-store only. Then I did the mental exchange rate math, and got freaked out by the prices. Its cheap, but I want it cheaper. Hence Blocket.

So next on the Blocket purchase list: a couch (pull-out for all you people who SAY you are going to visit us) and some armoir-type thing. Because the reason I spent so much time custom designing the wardrobes is because we have a coat closet & a linen closet, and that is it (Stu's mom warned us, having lived in Germany, we'd be lucky to have a closet at all!) My clothes are crumpled in bags on the floor of our bedroom.
We are going to see 2 couches and a set of wardrobes today, in fact, in an hour. I'll post our thoughts later. But E should appreciate that one couch is red. Stu is very excited.