I 💙 Ikea! 7 Of My Favourite Products & How We've Used them In Our Home...

Disclaimer: I haven't been paid to promote any products, I just needed cheering up and thought I'd share some homemaking smiles 😊

Hi Honeys
Back again 😄  Today, in an effort to cheer myself up from the never-seemingly-wants-to-go-away cough I thought I'd chat about some of my favourite things from one of my favourite places..... Ikea and how we've used them to create some kind of order in our home.

I decided to limit myself to just a handful of my favourite products (not easy!) so here are seven of my Ikea favourites and how we've put them to wonderful use....

1. Ideal Candle dish as beautiful bathroom storage:

There are so many ways to use this gorgeous ceramic candle dish with teeny tiny feet to keep it steady but I choose to use it to coral pretty, and useful things, such as hand soap and day & night creams on our bathroom window ledge.

It might be just as useful in the kitchen where it could be used to set up a coffee or tea point using pretty containers such as the FÖRVAR jar with lid as a home for coffee pods and tea bags.

Alternatively it could make a classy addition to a hallway table to sit mail or keys on, or would sit beautifully on a dressing table to display perfumes or favourite pieces of sparkly costume jewellery ready to wear but too pretty to hide from view 😊  You can find the Ideal candle dish here.

2. Trones Shoe Storage/Storage Units

These ridiculously useful units made a very welcome addition to our recent entryway/mudroom makeover.  The Trones units are very slim and yet surprisingly hold far more than you'd think!

They're supplied in sets of three units and as you can see we have one sitting beneath a mirror just inside the entryway between the front door and the glass door into the main hallway. This unit is home to umbrellas and other useful items which might be needed as we dash out the door...

The other two units of the set sit on the wall behind the front door alongside a small ottoman to allow us to sit while putting on or removing shoes.  This small ottoman is also home to our re-useable shopping bags, ready to grab as we go shopping to help us avoid using plastic carrier bags.

These two Trones units, Hubby & I have one each, contain our most worn shoes of the time, such as work shoes and during winter our warm winter boots....

You can find the Trones units here 

3. STÖDJA Cutlery Tray  

Image and product details can be found here 

So many uses for these cutlery trays honeys, they could even be (very carefully) trimmed into separate organizers to fit into drawers in order to coral and sort smaller items, keeping your drawers organized and tidy.  

In our case though I choose to use this neat and high sided tray to make use of the now redundant pull out keyboard shelf on my desk by turning it into a stationery centre where pens, staplers and everything else I might need are organized beautifully. 

The compartments of the Stodja tray lend themselves perfectly to organizing stationery items as you can see....

These trays could just as easily be popped into drawers in the bedroom dresser though and used to organise socks or ties. They could be popped into dressing table drawers to neatly organise make up such as eye palettes too.     

4. Algot Wall Uprights And Baskets

We first bought a rail and two of these useful baskets in order to store our kitchen linens such as tea towels and microfibre dusters ready to grab as needed and indeed this system is still working very well, although we've since added a third basket to the top of this rail which we use to store packets of  anti bacterial "wet wipes."

I have this same system upstairs in our guest room, sitting alongside a small dresser where there is a mirror, which holds my hair dryer, straighteners, rollers and other beauty wot nots.  It keeps them all to hand while keeping the room tidy and uncluttered.

The latest installation of the Algot rail and baskets is used on a daily basis and I really don't know what I'd do without them!  You might remember honeys that last summer we cleared out a large cupboard which faces our back door.

The inner door of this cupboard originally had a pocket storage system hanging on it but we wanted more storage and so Hubby painted the door and added the Algot rail and three baskets, as well as a handy Algot hook to hold a small table top sized ironing board  and now it looks like this...

 You can find the upright rail we used here (although different sizes are available, we used the 84cm rail) and the baskets (and brackets) here.

5. Ikeas Various Picture Rails 

Where do I start with these fabulous picture ledges!  When we bought our first ledge, to be used as part of a book nook in our guest bedroom I'm fairly sure there was only one model called a RIBBA (since discontinued) but there are now several variations to choose from.

Our book nook above the bed in the guest room

We loved the Ribba picture ledge so much we bought another one on our next trip to Ikea.  This one was placed above the bed in our master bedroom and is still used as a very convenient home for our books, tablets and nowadays of course a mini Marvel Loki lives there too 😄

If you have a teeny tiny bathroom as we do then picture ledges can be used to add additional much needed storage for toiletries too.

6. BÄSTIS Hooks 

The minute I spotted these adorable little hooks I knew we had to have a few for our furbaby Jade's jackets and that's exactly what we did with them during our recent entryway/mudroom makeover...

Our little entryway/mudroom makes me smile as soon as I open the door honeys 😊 If you'd like to see a mini tour, you'll find it here.  It isn't just full of little things that make me smile though it's also very functional too and as adorable as these little hooks are, we now have a designated space to hang Jade's coats for her walkies with her Dad 😊

Last, but definitely not least then in my mini list of favourite Ikea products....

7. Bygel Becomes Sunnersta...

Ah Bygel rails, as well as their ever so useful accessories, such as the "S" hooks, baskets and invaluable little clip on tubs, how I adored you!

I actually felt a little pain in my heart when I discovered Ikea had decided to discontinue the range, I really did! Even a brief look around our home and you'll find so many of those wonderful Bygel rails. Such as adding extra storage on our kitchen walls (one of the bygel baskets is home to our spices & herb jars) and in my much loved little closet upstairs a bygel rail is home to my scarves.

Much as I miss the Bygel range though I'm finding its replacement range the Sunnersta range just as useful.  You might have noticed the little white tubs sitting on a rail directly under the door to our electrics/fusebox in our entryway....

  

These tubs are a great spot for things we might need on the way out the door such as paper tissues, small bottles of anti bacterial hand gel (I use it at work a lot) and Jade's bags for her walkies.

Indeed we also recently replaced one of the Bygel rails, and its tubs, with sunnersta replacments in our bathroom.  We did this simply because the sunnersta rails and containers are white and they matched our bathroom a little more than the more metallic colour of the Bygel rail.

Before with Bygel rail and containers....

and how it looks now with the new sunnersta rail and containers...

As you can see honeys, the new sunnersta rail, being white, blends into the tiles behind it and almost disappears.  It's a small change but I do like how it looks.  The sunnersta containers are more square in shape compared to the rounder Bygel containers too.

So, there we have it honeys.  Seven of my favourite Ikea products and a tiny peep at some of the ways we've used them in our home.  Have you used any of these products?  Do we share any favourites?  How have you used your faveourite products in your home?  Do share in the comments section.

Thank you for keeping me company dear ones, till next time, stay safe and warm in the bitter cold outside, add extra layers, smile lots and hug even more, huggles always xx