My big fat Hovet mirror

After six months of searching, I now possess an IKEA Hovet mirror. The thing is huge, more than six feet tall. It's like a doorway into another dimension. I don't know how IKEA chooses the names for their products, but I think "hovet" must be Swedish for "dramatically large decorative item that will completely transform your space with its presence." I expect hovet to work its way into the lexicon of English decorator lingo.

"Jarrod, I love your gold-leafed Ming wall divider."

"Thank you. I think it lends real hovetas to my pied-a-terre."


Have you ever done the you know you are cheap when . . . question. You know you are cheap when . . . you won't shop IKEA unless it's half off. The Hovet mirror is only $99 full price, less than a third of the cost of any other huge leaning wall mirror. But I held out for a $50 one on craigslist.org. I even had an RSS feed going for 'Hovet.' Thanks to three local IKEA locations, there's a Hovet for sale every two or three weeks around here, so I could be picky and only bother with one in Brooklyn or Queens.

Here's the romantic back story - while I'm E-mailing someone in Williamsburg about her Hovet, Tom is sneaking out to Sunset Park to pick up a Hovet mirror that he found. He even told the woman not to respond to my query ab0ut the mirror. She was an extremely willing co-conspirator. He dragged it home by himself on a snowy icy night, propped it up in the hallway of our building and pretended to be locked out of the room.

Love my honey. Love my mirror. I think I will go gaze lovingly at both for awhile.