Product Reviews: Ikea mattress and kitchen cart

On Sunday, my husband and I picked up the Bygel kitchen cart by Ikea, found here, as well as a new mattress... more on that part later.  The kitchen cart was sort of an impulse buy, though we have needed something like that for a long time.  We chose the Bygel because it's the cheapest model, and it looked sturdy enough to last a year or so, possibly more.

The long and short of it is that despite what a pain it is to assemble, it's a good little cart that'll hold a decent amount of stuff for its size.  I think if you're willing to economize on a kitchen cart, this one is definitely worth the thirty-dollar price tag.  For us, it has allowed us to free up our one kitchen drawer, turning it from a catch-all to a place where we can keep our nice new flatware.


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The mattress we picked out is the Sultan Hanestad, found here.  We previously had a lower-end Ikea mattress than this one, and it had been with me for six years, two of which were comfortable.  We had been sleeping miserably on the old, worn, bent-out-of-shape mattress.  When one of us moved, the other was awakened.  I'm pretty sure that on this new mattress, I could jump up and down without disturbing my slumbering husband.

This mattress is seriously fantastic for those who enjoy a firm mattress.  Now, I haven't gotten a full night's sleep on it yet as it's only just arrived, but the darned thing is just so comfortable!  No sagging, no big holes to roll into, just wonderful support!  I will report back in the morning and again in a couple of weeks regarding the quality of my sleep and how my back feels about it, but in the meantime, I'll leave you with a couple of images of our overly-Ikea-clad space (yes, that's an Ikea mattress, bed frame and dresser in one frame.  Missing in this photo are the coordinating 2nd dresser and night stand in other parts of the room - you might say I like Ikea):

How cute is the little "Sultan" tag??




As a quick sidebar, the Ikea in the South Hills of Pittsburgh is alright, though I prefer the College Park, Maryland Ikea, which is larger and seems to have twice as many employees as the Pittsburgh location.  That was one thing we ran into in the Pittsburgh location that irked me - while the sales staff in the bed and mattress department was awesome, helpful and proactive, a few staff members in other departments did not seem to take an interest in customer service or, in some cases, were the only employee working on a two-man job.  I know Ikea has to keep costs down, but the Pittsburgh store could use a few more good people.  Nothing to dampen my love of Ikea, my happy place, from whence half our furniture originates (the other half is random antiques picked up when possible via Craig's List).

This is my first product review, so I hope it's been helpful but really don't know - please leave feedback to help me improve?  Pretty please?  I might even throw in a semi-burned peanut butter cookie - and after all, who DOESN'T want one of those??