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All the dressers in Switzerland

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The market interest in Switzerland is low for dressers, so most stores here do not provide many options to choose from. Without a closet, most people have to buy wardrobes anyway and they often have everything you need – drawers, shelves, clothes rails – built in. With all that variety in one spot, most people find an additional dresser redundant.

With our drawer-filled wardrobes looking too expensive to order, we are on the market for some affordable dressers to go with Option 1 wardrobe.

Sadly, the biggest variety can be found at IKEA because they are international and already making dressers for other markets so it doesn’t take much effort to offer them in Switzerland. I didn’t necessarily want to go the IKEA route (yet), so we made trips to Pfister, Möbel Pfister, Micasa, and Interio to see what else was out there.

Not only was Pfister out of our price range (2-3k for a designer dresser? No way.) but we didn’t love anything there. Micasa was a boon, we didn’t even bother visiting Fly again because their quality is terrible, so this left me with Interio, which is a slightly nicer, more expensive version of IKEA.

Here are a the few options I found.

1. SCHRÄG Kommode from Interio for 699CHF ($762)

2. SCHRÄG Kommode from Interio for 799CHF ($871)

I thought these ones were slightly interesting but a little expensive for how short or narrow they are. The lower drawers in the taller one are quite slim and would only work well for things like undies and socks. I think on their own, each dresser is not enough and I wish the shorter one was at least wider or something for more storage.

3. HIGHLIGHT Kommode from Interio for 899CHF ($980)I really liked the Highlight series at Interio, but Kay and I both agreed that while this dresser is nice, the drawers are slightly too thin.

The wardrobe guys in Dogern warned us not to get too thin drawers or you are limited how much you can put in them. A few on top would be nice for under garments, but we need some big drawers for sweaters and pants. The drawers have a nice soft close though!

4.  Interio Kommode (discontinued)

These ones below were also at the store just a couple weeks ago, but are not available online at the moment, so I’m not sure on the price or if they are still available for purchase. They would also be around 900-1000 a piece.

I didn’t pay too much attention to the price because while the drawers are nice and deep, they have a closing mechanism that makes them slam shut with a loud snap. I definitely don’t want noisy dressers in the room if someone is trying to quietly pick out clothes while the other is sleeping!

5. HIGHLIGHT Kommode (discontinued) from Interio for 999CHF ($1089)

We just saw this dresser a week or two ago. I knew it was being discontinued, but as I write this, it looks like it’s already offline. I thought it was an interesting concept with a dresser and built-in cupboard. It is meant for use in living rooms as well, but I thought one could use the shelves for sheets and pants and things and the drawers for undergarments.

When it was closed, the shape was really cool. It looked a bit like a stacked dresser and the height was really nice for the cabinet part. There was also one more thinner dresser in this series (only in the very lower right of this photo) but it is also discontinued now I believe.

That was about it from Interio. They had a few other offers, but nothing else really fit our style or needs. I wasn’t totally in love with any of the dressers above either and couldn’t justify the price for what you get. The whole point of skipping the expensive drawers in the wardrobe is mainly to save money… so we have to save on what we spend on dressers as well!

After exhausting all our other options, we turned to IKEA, which has many dressers and price points. Without glossy white options for most dressers, we are leaning heavily towards the black brown colors because we already have several pieces of furniture from IKEA with this color and it matches our bathroom cabinets perfectly, which are visible from the bedroom.

1. Malm Six-drawer dresser from IKEA for 199CHF ($216)

It seems like every time a dresser is wide enough for the space in our bedroom, the designers cut it down in height a bit. This one might be OK, but I don’t like when dressers or sideboards are lower than my hips. It just makes them a bit awkward and it makes me feel like a giant.

2. Malm Six-drawer dresser from IKEA for 199CHF ($216)

This one is a nice height, but all of the Malm furniture is pretty darn basic. It’s just so simple. I like that there are two drawers at the top to divide for undergarments, but it’s not the most exciting design.

3. Hemnes Eight-drawer dresser from IKEA for 249CHF ($271)

Again, I’m not sure if this one is too short for my taste, but I like how it has more drawers than the taller options and unlike the Malm, the drawers are split on the top level. This would be easy to split between the two of us without making me nervous that I don’t have enough sweater and pant space.4. Hemnes Six-drawer dresser from IKEA for 199CHF ($216)

The other option from Hemnes is the six drawer version. It is pretty tall, which I like. The top drawers are a little thin and it’s maybe a little weird that the second drawer is bigger than all the lower drawers. If I designed it, I would have put the largest drawer on the bottom or made all the lower drawers equal heights.

Kay actually dislikes the knobs on the Hemnes dressers. They are too old-fashioned for him, but if we buy one we could always upgrade the knobs to something more chic like simple brushed metal knobs. Kay is just not a fan of anything not simple and modern! (No beveled molding, not a fan of lots of materials, textures, patterns, etc.)

5. Malm Six-drawer dresser from IKEA for 149CHF ($162)

I admit that ever since one of my first trips to IKEA, I have wanted this dresser because it has a flip up mirror and jewelry box type thing going on. Love the idea of having easier access to my jewelry!

If we buy this, we would put it in the small space between the windows in the bedroom, but I’m concerned that Kay will just pile stuff on top of it since that is his side of the bed. But you cannot pile things on this dresser or the flip top becomes inaccessible!

Well… decisions! To be honest I’m actually worried that if we get a shorter dresser with lots of counter space, Kay will also pile clothes on that. He can be really bad about leaving things out and it drives me nuts.

I don’t want to have IKEA furniture forever, but you really can’t beat their prices here. We don’t have any of the cheaper brands here like Target, Kmart, Walmart (hate Walmart!) or Kohls, so with house things we are usually stuck with IKEA or paying $$$. If we move in another few years outside of Switzerland, I don’t want to invest thousands in furniture that we’d just have to sell, so I think it makes sense to stick with IKEA for now.

We just have to decide between a low and wide dresser with more storage or a more aesthetically pleasing taller dresser with a little less storage. In either case we will probably get the last option as an additional dresser because I really want that mirror option, so maybe another tall dresser would be fine. It would help me avoid the Kay-clothing-piling situation.

Where do you buy your dressers from? Is most of your house also furnished in IKEA and the like or have you been able to splurge for some nicer pieces?

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Organizing the Flat

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Boy does it take awhile to get settled in a new place!

I think it usually helps if you actually own all the furniture you have before you move (we need to buy a lot of storage shelving and wardrobes) and you know, if your bathroom isn’t rendered inhabitable right after you move in. Still, somewhere between holding up all those awnings (God, my arms!!) I managed to start unpacking.

Since we finished moving earlier than planned, we went ahead and bought two super  tall bookshelves to start organizing our office. The rooms are so tall that we can actually fit two additional shelves on top of the highest Billy model, making the bookshelves about 280cm or 9’18” tall.

Thank goodness I still had all my plastic bins from our built-in-bookshelves in Zürich!

We also had that orange sofa bed up there delivered fairly soon after moving in, but the guy was totally weird and gave us a sofa with the wrong feet, so it didn’t sit properly on the ground. And it was pretty gross so I wanted to strip the covers and wash them pronto, but it took a good week before the room was clear enough to take the cover off.

Down in the basement, we had this:

It honestly doesn’t look much better now because we still don’t have shelves down there, but we threw away the broken bed frame and some boxes and Styrofoam, so that helped a little. Kay will get his bike out of there as soon as he finds his bike lock and stores it in the bike room in the garage.

By the entrance to the cellar is our little wash area with a laundry tower on one side and a sink on the other side.

The cellar is a decent enough size, definitely bigger than what we had in Zürich, and since it’s tall we will eventually be able to utilize shelving to clear everything up, but for now it’s a little chaotic.

We also bought that dehumidifier you see because we spotted a little dampness on our back wall during inspection and we don’t want any mold problems. The building is still so new that the concrete walls are quite moist, so we will leave the dehumidifier on for quite awhile. In fact, before we bought the hose for it to drain directly, we had to empty the 20L container every morning and evening. Without it, it’s roughly 70% humidity down there… and with the dehumidifier it’s keeping it around 45%. Maybe that’s keeping it a bit dry for summer months, but since the walls keep oozing out humidity, we just want to soak that up before problems start.

The home inspector also recommended keeping our things away from the walls for quite awhile. (I forget how long of course) so when we get shelves, we’ll probably set them up in the middle of the room to start with.

Now, here are those weird stubby legs that came with the sofa bed. They are not from the Karlstad series and when attached to the sofa bed, the sofa just sat on the sofa bed parts and not the legs. It was pretty random. We pulled them off and stuck them on our normal 3 seater Karlstad until we buy metal legs for the living room sofas.

The sofa is also noticeably shorter with these legs, but at least with the old square legs we could set the sofa bed on its feet and start taking the covers off to be washed.

So that’s what’s going on with the house at the moment. Baby steps as we acquire more storage room. Our flat in Zürich sure did have a lot built in with the laundry room and the attic storage!

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A big move for two

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After our handover we had a very Swiss “last meal” of Ghackets mit Hörnli, or noodles and ground beef with applesauce. It was delicious and kept us running for a long time that day.

We picked up a transport van from Mobility instead of a traditional moving truck because it was cheaper and easier to drive and park and then we started moving!

Our old flat was on the 5th floor (Floor 4 in German), had four and a half flights of stairs and no lift. Because Kay and I were moving by ourselves, we had to get a little creative bringing down the boxes.

Kay used his special Mystery Ranch backpack to strap in 1-2 boxes on his back and carried an additional 1-3 boxes down in his arms. With his magical backpack he dealt with all our heavy loads while I put lighter boxes in some giant Ikea bags to carry down with backpacks and bags on my back and boxes in front. Between the two of us, we were both getting around 3-5 boxes down in each load. No fighting and moving in at the new place with a lift was a breeze.

After three loads on the first day we called it a night and then finished the next two loads on Saturday. We still had the transport rental for another few hours so we headed to Ikea for lunch and to buy some Billy bookshelves for our office now that we are in need of new storage space.

We didn’t forget to enjoy a meal of Köttbullar and Daim cake of course!

Allreal was sweet enough to gift us this thoughtful gift basket to welcome us to our new flat as homeowners. It was the nicest thing they have done for us ever.

Inside was also a 5 year “lost-your-keys” subscription tag that lets someone drop your lost keys off in a mailbox to be returned. Kay made me put it on my key ring. Psh. It’s not like I’ve ever lost my house key in Brazil or anything…

The kitchen was completely covered in boxes, but on the Sunday after our Friday/Saturday move I had opened all the boxes and put almost everything away. I found out things like that Kay has a freaking ton of Matte Leão tea from Brazil! All those orange boxes. Sheesh!

21 empty boxes later, the kitchen was finished!

I celebrated on Monday with a beer. Ok, that’s not the real reason why I had beer just then… but I’ll save that for another post.

Coffee machine all set up, thanks to Kay. I’m kind of in love with it. It grinds our beans and gives me frothy cappuccinos. 🙂

One of our first meals on the balcony. We ate outside a lot the first weeks because the weather is great and the inside is a mess.

Enjoying the innenhof.

This is our new view for the next few years. I hope we enjoy it. It sure is not quite the same as what we had in Zürich.

Back inside, the living room is still mostly a mess. I asked forced Kay to help me flip the dining room table right side up so we could fill it up with crap.

But lookie what Kay did while I was busy organizing the kitchen! He installed our hammocks (both!) on the balcony! Hoorah!

We bought a cheap umbrella from Ikea to help combat the sun, but it falls over all the time so we are thinking of returning it. It’s pretty lame and that sun is killer right now.

Here in the bedroom you can see the sale light shades we purchased. Kay haphazardly installed them in the bedroom and office so we have a temporary light solution. Thank God for electrician husbands!

We also have temporary clothing stands and boxes while we figure out our wardrobe situation.

More grilling and relaxing. We worked hard on our Monday and Tuesday off buying things at stores, assembling, unpacking and organizing, so we deserved a little “us” time. With the kitchen in order, we could actually put together things like grilled ratatouille and bouillon marinated steak!

And my last bit of success now was organizing the bathroom, which took a solid 4 hours after a week of living here. Maybe more. I have a ton of makeup…. but look at that giant drawer of organization!

So. That was that. I was tired of moving, sore as hell and my back literally ached for the first week after moving, partially due to our very crappy sleeping-on-the-floor arrangement that we had for so long in Zürich. Poor back!