Virginia Wolfe Was Right

Most days I'm perfectly happy with my little desk in the kitchen corner. But sometimes it feels cramped. The laptop occupies most of the desk top so if I ever fancy taking out a notebook and sitting in my window with a fountain pen doing the long-hand-Jane-Austen thing, I can't.

So today I took some of my tax money down to Ikea, looking to get a small computer table or something that, with a little rearrangement of my corner, would give me that extra bit of space.

Ikea is a shopping minefield. I've never gotten out of there for less than $100. There's an ice pop mold here, a bag of 412 votive tea lights there, each little bit only a couple of dollars; such a deal! But today I was on a mission. Aside from marveling at the room displays that pack virtually all the functions of a home into a 700sf space, I wended my way through the labyrinth of Swedish design until I got to the office area. (Ok, I did grab an ice pop mold because it really was only a couple of dollars). I looked at a computer table. I looked at table tops. I talked to a very nice guy named Dean who patiently listened to my design issues and then, brilliantly, suggested a wee dining room table with a drop leaf. You can leave it down or slide it up into place to seat 2. It was the right measurements and the right price so I got the "cash & carry" slip and thanked Dean for his help. I had a wee niggly bit of buyer's remorse but ignored it because I'd been thinking about this for quite a while. It was a plan, not impulse.

Mission accomplished I moved, with purpose and discipline, through Kitchenwares (very tempting) and besides the $12 French press pot, put nothing in my cart. (Come on. $12 for a French press? And we had agreed that we needed one during the great Coffee Maker Crisis of '06). But I got through "Home Organization" (ooh, shiny boxes), the bedding section AND the Marketplace which is full of gizmos and hoohas priced for pennies. I did not browse, peruse or otherwise dally in any way that would lead to impulse purchases. I even got to the register without picking up boxes of ginger cookies or tubs of Swedish fish.

And, ha! The total was less than $100. I felt very smug. And I came home and managed, with next to no trouble at all, to assemble the table. Very cute little table. Very servicable. Except that there wasn't a single configuration that looked or felt right. After much moving about and dealing with large bits of dusty fluff from behind the desk that is never moved I realized that it was never going to work.

So I disassembled the table and stuck it all back in the box and it is in the trunk of my car waiting to go back on Monday (because no one in their right mind goes to Ikea on the weekend).

Here's the thing: while messing around with all of this I realized that I don't want a bigger work area. What I want, at least on some days, is a room of my own. A small studio space that is open by invitation only. And since I'm not going to have that unless we build an addition or The Child leaves home, I am going to use my imagination and be happy with my little corner. Plus, this now means that I actually got out of Ikea for under $20 and that's hot.