beauty meets budget: All work and no play...

...makes Emily a dull blogger. All work and no play makes Emily a dull blogger. All work and...

Oh, hello! You've just caught me having a Jack Nicholson moment. I am finally starting to see the light at the end of a reeeeeeaaaaalllly long tunnel of freelance design frenzy, but the process has taken its toll on my well-being as well as my blogging efforts. On the plus side at least I'm gettin' paid for it, which brings me to my retail-related topic for today: IKEA.

Say what you will about their thrifty ubiquitous assemble-it-yourself merchandise. For me, IKEA is like a reassuring Swedish friend who makes me feel like anything's possible when I hang out with her — I guess I envision IKEA more as a gal pal. She encourages me to finish decorating my living room now rather than waiting for those spendy West Elm shelves go on sale or the day I can finally afford that elusive Saarinen table, and I am grateful for it.

So I was pretty darn excited when the 2010 (Sidebar: Is it just me or does next year's date still look really, really weird?) catalog came last Friday, although at present the aforementioned freelance work has prevented me from enjoying it to the fullest, i.e. curled up on the couch with a cup of tea in hand.

I'm planning a post of my top new product picks, but until then I'd like to call attention to the fact that IKEA has actually lowered last year's prices on a number of items. Pretty great of them in these uncertain economic times, don't ya think? For your consideration:

RIBBA frame – $9.99 (was $12.99)

This is my much-lauded cheap frame from previous posts — and that was before the price cut!

Left to right:
KASSETT cd box with lid – $3.99/2-pack (was $6.99)
KASSETT magazine file – $2.99/2-pack (was $5.99)
KASSETT magazine box with lid – $11.99/2-pack (was $14.99)
KASSETT media box with lid – $5.99 (was $9.99)

I've got some of the magazine files in white in my office, but I'm definitely going to go grab some more!

KARLSTAD sofa with long cover – $399 (was $499, according to the printed catalog)

Sofa gender roles be damned, I think KARLSTAD looks great in a skirt! And BTW, that's big savings folks.

And last but not least:

MALM 6-drawer chest – $129 for black-brown veneer finish (was $149)

I'm a fan of MALM's clean styling but if it's boring to you as-is, consider the nearly endless possibilities of pattern by adding wallpaper to the drawer fronts. Dig if you will:

How about using the warm floral above in an office setting along with the orange Kassett boxes!

A chair-rail height wall mural might be interesting too. The dimensions were just right on this one.

Or perhaps Malm black-brown's white counterpart, which is $10 cheaper. I thought a couple of the options below would be really cute in a little girl's room.