My love/hate relationship with Pinterest, Part 3

I hope you enjoyed Pinterest Parts 1 and 2. This is the final installment of the Pinterest series. Don't cry, it isn't like I made Katniss end up with Peeta or anything.

So who am I to complain about complicated Pinterest pins when I haven't tried them? Oh, I have. I have been to the dark side of a pin, and I ain't never going back. Nevah!

We all know the infamous "IKEA bookshelves made into playroom benches" pin, right? Yeah. I am one of the 11 people on earth that pinned it and actually did this one. Crazy, I know. Cutest thing on earth, easy to do and affordable, right? Sort of.

The problem really isn't that the project is super hard. It sucks a bit of ass to do, but it isn't rocket science. The real problem is that it is a time and money suck.


Let me break the price down for you, shall I?

Bookshelves 2 x $60 = $120
Storage Containers 10 x $5 = $50 (and this is the cheapest of the cheap. You can pay $15 per bin, or $150 if you are crazy loaded.)
Fabric for Benches 5 yards x $10 = $50 (again, the cheap option.)
Foam for Benches at least $45
Board for Benches at least $20

Now I clipped all my Hobby Lobby coups, hit Home Depot during sales, scoured the internet for codes for the fabric store and still spent over $300 on this project once tax was included. Um…yeah, I could have bought some kick ass seating at IKEA that didn't have me running all over god's green earth and Home Depot to find 2" foam for $300.

This project kind of nickel, dime and times you to death. I didn't really notice it until I had everything but the foam and each bundle was $35 and I needed two. Yeah, $70 WORTH OF FOAM! I about cried when I realized that the damn foam would cost me almost $50 even with my 40% off coupon. And that was at the THIRD store I had looked for it at! I had come too far to give up, so I had to bend over and buy the crazy expensive foam just to finish the project. Suck!

Now are the benches cute and functional in the long run? Yes. It is a super awesome idea and creates a great seating area and crap coverer. I have yet to actually sit on them in the month they have been complete, but the toy storage is nice and they look good. We ended up keeping our two benches separate because A: the instructions to connect them together were a bit above my pay grade and B: we wanted the flexibility to move them around separately as we go. And, I guess you could just make one bench for the bargain price of $150 if you wanted.

A sneak peek. Full post on the play room to come.

So why did I write this post if I like them in the long run? Because I am a whiner, but moreover, I wanted to warn the 3,697,435 other ladies out there that pinned this post that they are going to be in 300 duckets to polish this bad boy off.

Anyway. You have been warned. Now head to IKEA to buy the damn Expedit shelves regardless of this warning because we all know we mamas have the attention spans of a gnat and as soon as you click out of this window you will have forgotten all about this post. Le sigh.