IKEA is Feeding the Future with Feeding America

I’ve been in love with IKEA for a very long time. I’ve brought home catalogs and paged longingly through wishing and hoping that I could one day style a room just like they do. In my head, I’ve become the interior designer with a Swedish inspired name, and I get to work in my white capris and white polo. I’m telling you, it’s serious around these parts. 

Instead, I’m relegate to (and smartly so) a trip every now and again to stock up on things that we need for a room remodel. At the moment, ALL rooms in the Nicholes Manor are being created. I didn’t realize that the hardest rooms to do would be them ALL. 

There are lots of people who I take inspiration from. One of them would be my palette twin Ann Marie from White House Black Shutters. She tends to stay with the neutral on her walls,  and I love that she adds little reflections of her family and herself in her home updates. I’m learning to do that, but realize that I am way more attracted to color on my walls than I anticipated. When Mr. Houseful and I first met, I LOVED brown. Chocolate. Espresso. Burnt Sienna. Any variation of the deep, warm color and I was in heaven. Then I stepped foot in an IKEA when I got my first apartment here in Chicago, and my mind went full Technicolor. 

Anyway, I’m sharing all of that to share that you’ll be seeing a lot more posts about this love affair, and hopefully a lot more room reveals on the blog. It’s hard being a wannabe DIY blogger, and I’m not even trying to go that route on the blog, but I do want to share some of the ideas and things that we’ll be doing and maybe it will be inspiration to someone else who doesn’t have extensive knowledge of saws, and wood measurements. 

Also, I’m partnering with IKEA on a couple of things, and wanted to get that information out to you as well. As you know, earlier on the blog, I shared about Feeding America and some of the partners that they’ve had. Well, fortunately for me and YOU, IKEA has also partnered with them for the month of June, and are donating $1 for every healthy kids meal purchased from their restaurants. The meals that are a part of the Feeding the Future program include 

1. Organic penne pasta with organic marinara sauce
2. Grilled chicken with carrot sticks, strawberries and string cheese
3. Veggie meatballs with vegetables

(All healthy kids’ meals come with lingonberry, elderflower juice drink or a bottle of water.) Don’t mind the plating, we dug in before even thinking about showing you the three types of meatballs that IKEA now offers – their traditional meatballs, chicken meatballs, and the veggie meatballs. 

While we were at IKEA yesterday plotting out the boys room (did I tell you that Sir Twizzler moved in with Nathaniel? That’s a LONG story, and quite a funny one) we got a chance to try out everything but the grilled chicken. The kids KILLED the penne pasta, and enjoyed quite a few meatballs. More than anyone their height probably should have enjoyed, but that they did. 

Our preferred IKEA is Schaumburg (the flagship store in Illinois) and we’ll be visiting probably once a week to get these rooms under construction, and doing our job to help fight hunger. All proceeds up to $50,000 not including donations collected at registers, will go to support the Chicago Food Depository. You have until June 30 of this month to make your donation, AND get you some tasty meatballs (they’ll be there long after June 30th though, so breathe easy.) 

Now, if you don’t mind, I’m making my IKEA wish list online, and planning out how we’re going to make our bedroom fabulous. Stay tuned next month for a great giveaway from IKEA and me! You won’t want to miss it!