desperation

This one time, I went to Ikea. I took this picture:

It was a wonderful, wonderful place. A place where you can get things like this:

and this:

I was in Detroit.  One of my fave blogs, door sixteen, recently posted the awesome collection of Ikea products she is using to remodel her kitchen quickly and on the cheap.  Then she wondered aloud what people who live in places without an IKEA do when they have such dilemmas.  Sigh.  We have kitchen counter tops that look like this:

And very little hope. 

We are DYING for an Ikea in Denver.  I knew this on an unconscious level, but I am even more clear about the problem after stumbling upon coloradoikeafans.   It is seriously a website dedicated to obsessing over when we will get an IKEA in Colorado.   It has been visited 3279 times in the past thirty days.  This is a pandemic, people. 

So please, if you live near an Ikea, go there. Buy something beautiful and inexpensive.  Savor the experience.  Send me pictures or something.  Because there are people in Colorado with no Swedish meatballs, affordable orange sofas or free-standing kitchens.  And we're apparently going to have to wait for years (yes years!) for any relief.