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The media-room project so far – the dark wood “rack” with the lamp on it is an old Teak stereo rack unit from Scan that will go away – visualize the room with the CD shelf flanked by a pair of narrow shelf units.

Its been a while since I posted an update to the Media Room Redecorating we began around Thanksgiving. I painted the room last fall, after I built a “light box” just below the ceiling on 3 walls and put the “light rope” into it. That gives the room a very nice glow from above (I’m a big fan of indirect lighting) and is especially nice in a room like this which is designed for watching TV and listening to music. Part of the plan was to get rid of the old Sauder shelves that held videotapes and cds and replace them with a more Danish/Scandinavian style display system. We looked around and decided that we really like the Bonde shelf system from Ikea – but only in the Beech finish. Its available in Birch, but that was a very pale wood, and the white finish was too artificial for us.

We are fortunate to have 2 IKEA stores in the area, one is a bit south of DC in Woodbridge VA, one is just north of DC in College Park. There is even another north of Baltimore in White Marsh, MD, but thats further than I want to go!

Some of the shelving was in stock in early December, so we bought what we could at Woodbridge, made a weekend trip to College Park to get a bit more, and figured we get the rest soon as IKEA restocked it.

But to my annoyance, time has passed and … nada.. Although they are very polite, as I kept calling them and and going by the local IKEA stores, the extra parts I was waiting for never restocked. No one could give me an expected delivery date – it was very curious – and frustrating. And the room remains unfinished.

For instance, I need extra shelves for the wideshelf unit that I am putting my CDs on – and althought they are pretty cheap, they aren’t in stock.
The same shelves fit the TV shelf so I can put my stereo gear in that cabinet,
and get it out of the old Teak rack I got years ago from Scan. Once the Teak rack is gone, I can put two of the narrow shelf units on either side of the CD shelves and finish the wall. But I need 4 extra shelves to go in the narrow shelves so I can put DVDs and videotapes on them. Again … nada … 4 months.

2 weeks ago I went by the Virginia to get the cabinet that has a TV sitting on it in the picture below – and I was completely surprised to find one of the long-missing wide shelf units in stock – I promptly bought both pieces.
A week later I went by the College Park store, hoping that just maybe I’d luck out and find another missing piece unexpectedly in stock. but no such luck. But I ran into an old friend from church working there – he made some calls and did some lookups for the part numbers I needed, and I saw a page come up with “Discontinued” in all the columns. Not good news ….

I bought all this stuff in good faith – but if these extra pieces won’t get restocked, I may as well break down the whole system and take all the parts back for a full refund, and try to get something comparable elsewhere. But now I’m running up on a different problem. IKEA offers refunds on items returned “with original packing within 45 days of purchase”. Its past 90 days on some of this stuff – and although I can be persuasive, I’d really rather finish the project than start all over again. And the narrow shelves were assembled in early December – those boxes are long gone …

So, I turned all the receipts and phone numbers over to Emma – and she started making calls. She’s gotten assurances that the needed parts were located within the US and will be shipped to the Virginia store, and that we’ll be called when they arrive.

I’m cynical – I’ll reserve further comment until I have the parts …