The quest for a dresser

We are making great strides in moving in. We have a books on our shelves, hooks for our keys, and cookies in the cookie jar.

But one of the things that was surprisingly difficult for us was finding a dresser. Most of our furniture came from IKEA, and we were able to check out the various options in the IKEA in Haarlem before we left the Netherlands. That way, we were able to get our new apartment pretty much mapped out before we came.

But while there's much more closet space here than in our place in Leiden, the rooms are more square, so wall space, not floor space, is at a premium. That means using taller, narrower storage whenever possible, so we wanted one of these dressers from IKEA:

But when we looked to see what was available in the states, what we found was more like this:

Where are all the tall, narrow dressers? IKEA isn't offering them anymore in the U.S., the country where they have been sued for the wrongful deaths of several small children who have been crushed in the last few years by chests of drawers tipping over. When we went on our big trip to IKEA last week, signs exhorting customers to affix their furniture to the wall were everywhere.

My knee-jerk reactions:

• "I don't have children! Why shouldn't I be allowed to buy furniture for myself, just because someone else might do so irresponsibly?!"
• "The furniture already comes with brackets to mount it to the wall, and the instructions include that step!" (Sure I've ignored that step in the past—living in a cinderblock dorm room does tend to prevent one from making any kind of hole in the wall—but the consequences of that neglect are my responsibility!)
• "If IKEA really were contrite about these deaths, they'd pull the furniture line everywhere, not just in the one country where they got in trouble!" (It's as if, when they rolled out the slimmer and eco-friendlier KALLAX replacement for their iconic EXPEDIT series, they had only done so in countries that are particularly uppity about environmentalism.)
• "It's not even that big a problem!" I mean, yes, it is an enormous problem if it's your child, and apparently a child in the U.S. is killed once every two weeks by furniture tip-over, which is awful. But given that there are over 21 million children under the age of 5 in the U.S., this works out to a probability of about 99.99938% that your newborn will survive your furniture.  If we were looking at, say, the Netherlands instead of the U.S., at this rate there would be a high probability of no child ever being killed by an IKEA dresser.

But on reflection, maybe discounting the size of the U.S. isn't such a good idea. Maybe a big country, where precedents are set for many at once and where legislative decisions have an exceptionally wide scope, has an extra responsibility to err on the side of safety. Maybe that's why small countries should belong to supranational organizations that impose annoying regulations.

But what does all this mean for us? It means we got our dresser at a thrift store.

The unexpected things you need when you move in

This is the week we finally made the move to Minnesota, and so far it's gone wonderfully. We completed the two-day drive without incident, we've assembled six carts' worth of Ikea furniture (just the desk is left!)—we've even gone to the state fair:

That's right: all-you-can-drink milk for just $2.

There have been a few things that have been difficult for us, though. With all the packing, re-packing, purging, and shipping, we are frequently unsure where we put the [fill in the blank] or whether we kept it at all. So for future reference, we've been making a list of the items we don't usually travel with that would have been really helpful to have easily accessible when we arrived.

• Scissors

We knew we would want to measure our apartment as soon as we got here, so we stopped by Target to get a tape measure right before we left Virginia. The only tape measure they had was the same price as a tool kit that also contained a tape measure, so it was a clear choice to get the set. But far more useful than the tape measure have been the scissors—we have had so many boxes to open and packaging to cut through that it would have been a nightmare without them. The other tools have been useful too, what with all the furniture we've been assembling, but the scissors take the cake.

• Water

We don't know yet how clean the tap water here is, so we've been really grateful for a 24-pack of water bottles my parents gave us right as we were heading out. Now we have a filter, so we have ready access to water we feel good about drinking, but in those first few days it was really helpful not to have to worry about how we would stay hydrated.

• Plates/bowls/utensils

Seeing as we didn't want to eat out every meal, we were very glad that our plates and bowls were in some of the first few boxes we unpacked. All our silverware is in the shipment coming from the Netherlands, though, so we had to buy some inexpensive utensils to use in the interim. 

• Can opener/knives/pot and pan/spatula

Again, we knew wanted to do some cooking, but didn't think about how we'd need tools to do it. It was a sad moment when we realized we'd bought canned beans to use for dinner and had no way to get at them. Fortunately one of our neighbors just moved in as well, and he had a spare one left by his previous tenant. Whew!

• Soap

All kinds: dish soap, hand soap, bath soap, laundry detergent. It was embarrassingly long before we got all of those.

• Paper towels and toilet paper—thanks for the tip, Keslei!

Clara and I each bought some of these paper products right away when we arrived, so it wasn't a crisis for us, but they were definitely handy and not something we usually travel with!

• Quarters

While going through my old belongings at my parents' house, we found a film canister of quarters that I used to use for laundry. Turns out our laundry room here needs quarters too, as does the bus fare ($1.75 off-peak).

• A place for dirty clothes

When we did finally do our laundry, we were pulling out dirty clothes we'd tucked away in all our bags and suitcases. No wonder we felt like we had no clean clothes! Don't be us. Keep the dirties in one place so you can wash 'em when you need to.

• Shower curtain, liner, and rings

We have a shower curtain somewhere, but purchasing the other two (and more necessary) ingredients was another of those embarassingly belated tasks.

• Lamps and light bulbs

Our living room doesn't have any built-in light fixtures, so for a while we just had to stop working there when it got dark. As of today, we have brought that room into the age of the electric light!

• Checkbook

This really stands for all forms of payment—you never know when you might need cash or credit in an emergency—but the one we have been least likely to carry with us is our checkbook. These days we almost never use checks, but our landlord wanted a check for our first month's rent in exchange for the keys to our apartment. We ended up having to stop at a bank two states away and get a single page of three checks so that we'd have some when we arrived.

Thanks for reading! Anything I'm (still) forgetting? Any tips for the next stage of moving in, where the space is livable enough to get by but there's still a lot left to do? I'd love to know!