The day we met Kevin McCloud*

Here we go.  Rob, me, the ExCeL centre, the Grand Designs theme tune on repeat, and Kevin McCloud*.  Deep breath everyone, this blog features chairs again.


This thing is big.  Really, really, big.  And full of people ramming pushchairs into the back of your legs.  And, it turns out, contrary to what you might imagine, about 80% full of examples of really, really bad taste interior design.  Who'd have thought?!


Much like last week in the Scandinavian rabbit warren, we started with enthusiasm in the kitchen section.  Important news - I've made a decision!  Yes, an actual decision!  I want one of these:

Not the induction hob on the right, but the stove-top grill plate on the left.  Stylish, yes?


Now, that's not a huge decision, I'll grant you.  But it's something.  Although we probably can't afford it, or at least not this one.  And it was being peddled by an extremely busty, highly made up, TOWIE-tanned sixteen year old girl.  This turned out to be a theme of the day.


Anyway, the other pretty brilliant thing about this kitchen, which Rob actually commented on rather than me (honestly!) was this:

Yes please.  Who doesn't need a champagne fridge?!  


And along with your champagne fridge, you clearly need a tap-in-the-shape-of-a-swan's-neck:

But back to reality.


I've fallen in love.


Actual, total, head-over-heels real love.

Ooops, not that.  But I do love that too.  


This:

Isn't it beautiful?!  It's a Smeg double oven, and I love it.  And it was being sold by a man called Joe Cook.  Which only made me love it more.


So for the next few hours Rob and I discussed how it would be perfectly rational to buy an oven that costs more than the entire kitchen, because we'd have it forever, it's the main focus of the kitchen, it looks lovely, you use it all the time, it gives the kitchen a focus (and a starting point for kitchen design, which heaven knows we need right now), it looks lovely, and I love it.  And it looks lovely.  Right?


Also in the Smeg range was this:

Who doesn't want a denim fridge?


And also in the fridge department was this:

Which I think is what Captain Kirk would probably have had on the Starship Enterprise.  It's so shiny I'm a bit scared of breathing near it.  Oh, and it cost about the same amount we paid for the entire slum.


So on now to interiors.  We wonder whether we could fit this in the slum - we'd probably have to have it suspended down the entire length of the three stories:

It even comes complete with people looking on in wonderment.


And isn't this nice:

And of course, if you have a nice table you need some nice chairs...

Or how about these:

Or these:

Or these:

(just joking)


Or these:

CHAIRS CHAIRS CHAIRS CHAIRS CHAIRS CHAIRS CHAIRS CHAIRS aaaaaaaaaaah


I was in charge today so it's not tea-time, it's clearly champagne-o'clock.

Phew.


Now having softened me up with a glass of Moet, Rob suggested that rather than having a spare room for all you people to stay, he might install a games room instead.

And he has also decided that he wants a billiards table.  He doesn't know how to play billiards. But despite this, spent the next five minutes arguing that the billiards tables being sold by Sir William Bentley Billiards Tables Ltd. weren't billiards tables.  I suggested that Sir William Bentley might know better than he did, which didn't go down well.

Don't bother telling me if these aren't in fact billiards tables after all.  I don't want to encourage him.


The games rooms area seemed to start a slew of furniture aimed at the pouting girls who were selling the kitchens.  Here's a good example:

And here's another.  This time aimed at the aging hippy demographic, who hopefully have oodles of cash tucked away in their patchwork trousers in order to spend it on sofas like this:

Now at this point, I realised I'd lost Rob.  I found him again, about to get his credit card out to buy this:

Yes people, that is a two foot, porcelain, dancing dinosaur.  And Rob loves it.  It is white, I'll give him that.  But it's also £172.  He got to the stage of negotiating with the lady selling it about changing the granite base from black to plain white.  No. Joke.  


Clearly delirium had set in again, so before he gave away more than my email address (she's already emailed me with photos and delivery arrangements) I dragged him away to look at bathrooms.


Continuing the Captain Kirk theme, check out this shower.  Actually, I don't even think I can call it a shower, it's a washing-steaming-cleansing-rinsing-showering station.  

And listen up - showering standing up is, like, soooo 2011:

So there we go.  At least we've found an oven we like.  Which is totally worth every penny  because it's so lovely.  LOVELY.


Oh, and no home improvement exhibition show would be complete without a really random goody bag at the end:

What doesn't say 'I aspire to create the home of my dreams' like toothpaste and granulated sugar?








* We didn't.  This is the closest I got.  *sob*

A Scandinavian Adventure

It was bank holiday weekend.  It was raining.  TFL were playing silly beggars with the train service.  There was only one thing for it.


But it turned out Richard had booked Necker Island for himself that week, so we were stuck with Croydon's favorite Scandinavian mega store instead.  Which is totally almost nearly as awesome.  Nearly.


As much as I joke, I was actually quite excited about this expedition.  Filling a completely empty house with all the things you have fantasised about through back-to-back episodes of Grand Designs has got to be a fun job, right?


Well, it started well.  Almost as soon as we arrived we spotted these:

Yes, that is a white, gloss, handle-less cupboard door.  Buckle in people, because this blog post is mostly full of similarly exciting photos.

That's Rob with the door.  We spend a considerable amount of time inspecting this door.  This is rule number one when visiting Ikea - you are immediately bestowed with the ability to find totally uninteresting details fascinating.  And this new found fascination eats up hours of your time.

And prompts you to take photos of tea towels.  

(I actually liked the idea of having a rail above your kitchen work surface to hang things on.  I'll admit that in the cold light of Nunhead this seems slightly less fascinating.  Ahem.)

But look, this is exciting!  We've found our perfect* sofa!  It's the right shade of grey, it's a corner sofa, it's about half the price of the ones we've previously seen - hurrah!

* It's actually a bit softer than we'd like.  But we are learning to compromise...

To our immense excitement (still immense, we'd only been there for about an hour at this stage), we then saw this: 

This is the sofa bed we had in our previous flat, and we loved it at the time.  It also turns out to come in the same shade of grey as the corner sofa.  Since we want to have as many of you lovely people round to stay as possible, we are planning to have as many sofa beds as possible in the slum.

We might not mount them on the walls though - we don't want that many of you staying round.

Still in the living room section, we then saw this mini-table and blackboard set - Rob loves it:

Oops, sorry, that's not us, this is:

This was the beginning of our first decline into Ikea-induced-delirium, the symptoms of which include chair-blindness - an inability to decide what chairs are lovely, which are horrific - and culminates in the sufferer deciding that they really couldn't care less what chairs you have and perhaps bean bags get a rough rap, and we should all just stand anyway because it's better for your cardiovascular health.  Or something.

Chairs chairs chairs chairs chairs chairs chairs chairs chairs chairs AAAAAAAARGH

TEA BREAK

Phew.

So, onwards to bedrooms.

Rob likes this bed.  I worry about the hospital style table at the end of it.

We also quite like this one, although I suspect we will have to have a white wood frame as our floors will be dark wood.

Obviously it's essential to test these things.

And we both love this hidden headboard storage:

And now to the kitchen.  Billed to me by Rob as the place where I could have whatever I wanted, it turns out he has some pretty strong opinions of his own.  Most of which revolve around white things, maximising the amount of food I can cook for him at any one time, and white things.

We are agreed that we will be going for something like this:

Nice, yes?  Although we aren't sure we have room to have it all on one wall like that.  Who knew kitchen design could be so tricky?!  We have an empty, box shaped room, with one door and one window.  But with two degrees and several post-graduate and professional qualifications between us, could we figure out the Ikea kitchen computer design programme?


No.

TEA BREAK

Now, I quite like these tiles:

But I don't think we can afford them.


I also quite like these random lit up spatula things:

But Rob doesn't.


I'll admit that at this point I started to get a bit distracted with kitchen storage.  Look at this:

And this!

And this!

Rob kept having to drag me back to look at sinks, and extractor fans, and handles, and other sensible things.

So we now have a list of things we like, a list of things we don't like, and a list of things we really don't care much about.


The second rule of Ikea is that you will leave at least four hours later than you intended to.  Probably with a random soft toy in hand.

Oh, and I also bought some meatballs.  Which is, of course, the third rule.