okay, it’s official. i’m not allowed to go to ikea any more this year. geezus, that place is like crack to a whore, and that whore is definitely me.
while sitting around the apartment last night waiting for it to cool off a little before i tackled sanding the rest of the shelves, i had a bathroom epiphany. glass shelves! i could put up glass shelves to keep my cute bottles of bath and body works lotions on! that would keep crap off the vanity (i have a thing about clutter on flat surfaces) yet still keep them within arm’s reach. pure brilliance!
up came www.ikea.ca in my browser while i shopped for bathroom shelves. in i went with the measuring tape. everything was coming together nicely. i had planned on doing my coquitlam running around on saturday (i had to exchange one of the tank tops i’d bought at the bathing suit store because i’d mistakenly gotten the polyester version instead of the cotton. goodness knows i don’t need any more help sweating as it is, so it had to go back), but since i’d just phoned my dad and asked him if saturday morning was a good time to come over and help me hang things i’m too short and lacking in tools to hang, there went that plan. well, no time like the present, especially if i wanted him to mount any new shelves while he was here!
while at the crack store (formerly known as ikea), i picked up another pair of bathroom slippers (more on the need for slippers at a later date), another 99-cent cobolt blue plant pot (this one’s for candy) and, the piece de resistance, a very lovely runner for my hallway! i’ve admired this particular rug every time i’ve visted the crack store this summer, but i never noticed they had hallway-sized versions. i was beside myself and i absolutely HAD to have it. now i do and i love it very much. i’m so pleased. oh, and i also got two glass shelves for the bathroom, which was why i went in the first place. i’m just so very good.
then, just to make my night even better, i figured out the Mystery of the Persnickity Potty.
you see, ever since i moved in, i’ve been having issues with my pretty pink toilet. it never seemed to flush all the way on the first try. it would go through the motions, but it wouldn’t quite muster the gusto to get everything down the drain on one go. this disturbed me greatly. my handy dad took a look and declared that it wasn’t getting enough vortex and i should tell my super. my mom said to pour extra water in the bowl before i flushed to give it a little more “oomph”.
while in the bathroom doing my shelf measuring, the toilet started making a running noise (this is normal, it does it on a semi-regular basis. i hardly even notice it anymore), but this time there were bubbles coming up from the bottom of the bowl. i’d never seen that before, so i jiggled the handle and all was quiet again.
fast forward to bedtime.
as i lay in bed (looking out the window to see what the people in the building next door were doing, i’ll admit), the running noise started again. this time, it didn’t sound “normal” and it persisted for quite a while. eventually, it started to piss me off so i got up to investigate. i was about to jiggle the handle again when i thought i should peek further. off came the tank top (more on my toilet tank fear later) and i found the source of the problem.
the little flappy thing (yes, i’m being very technical) at the bottom of the tank hadn’t re-seated properly after the last use, causing water to continuously run into the bowl, causing the noise. i don’t know why, but after i jiggled it back into place and the top was still off, i flushed it again. ah-ha! the flappy thing was closing before all the water in the tank had gone into the bowl! that was why there wasn’t enough vortex!
of course, i don’t know how to actually fix it other than to hold the handle down for a twelve-count (the time it takes for all the water in the tank to drain) when i flush, but it’s a total toilet victory and i’m really quite pleased with myself. a dysfunctional dumper is really quite dreadful, you know.
Never underestimate the importance of the flappy thing.
W/r/t glass shelves in bathrooms… I find them difficult to keep cleen. My bathrooms always accumulate linty condensation on everything horozontal, so maintenance of visual displays becomes a pain in the tookus. Then again, none of my bathrooms have had proper ventilation, so maybe that’s the problem.
Ikea IS like crack. So is Crate & Barrel and Pottery Barn and Restoration Hardware. Except right now all I can do is go to these places and drool at the crack. Does that still make me a whore? Yeah, probably…
i had a glass shelf in my previous bathroom and, while it did get kind of icky from time to time, that was mostly due to my neglect and leaking things rather than bathroom humidity.
i went to my first pottery barn while in minnesota and i can’t tell you how glad i am that we don’t have any here. also, i’m really amazed i’ve been able to stay away from the pier 1s which have been opening up here lately. of course, now that i’ve mentioned it i guess i’ll have to go and see what they have for me.
Oooh I have potty problems too. My “flappy thing” (I don’t know what it’s called either) doesn’t reseat properly. There’s no problem with flushing, but it leaks a little bit, which causes the toilet to run and refill the tank every now and then. Sometimes it gets really bad. My landlord replaced it, but that didn’t fix it. I think the hole that the flappy thing sits on has started disintegrating and that’s why it won’t get the right suction.
I think there’s a pottery barn here on Granville near Broadway. Whoops…did I say that? hehe.
just more proof you’re evil!
You think you’re the Ikea whore? Honey…you need to see my apartment.
Oh…and which rug did you get?!
the ristoft jute rug with the chocolate brown border (it’s not on the website, dammit). i love it so much. i was actually looking at the bigger one for the living room when i discovered the hallway size and had to have it.