Roscoe teased me during the long wait for our house purchase to go through as I made detailed decisions on furniture and designed kitchens in Ikea’s Home Planner software. “But I need to know that the layout we want will fit!” I protested.
I love to sketch things out to get my head round them. Choices that seem irrelevant to Roscoe, such as where the sofa goes, are key to me. And they all impact on each other. If, for example, our sofa goes along the back of the lounge, we could put one of the computers in the same room, thus freeing up what could have been my “work corner” in the bedroom. Our diverse approaches lead to friction at times, but we balance each other out. When I get teased too much, I cite Grand Designs – the ones that plan in detail first invariably achieve more!
With all those months of thinking about the kitchen, it ought to have been easy when Concenzo asked us exactly where the kitchen sink outflow needed to be. I realised I had forgotten the most vital part of planning – making decisions.
Cue urgent kitchen showroom visits. Ikea is probably the most affordable option, so we were off to Rome the next day to fight the crowds and to try and reach agreement on kitchen units. Neither was easy.
We want horizontal lines in our kitchen, which are in fashion so should be easy to find. But there are some things that Ikea just doesn’t do. Like horizontal wall cupboards that are the same length as the base cupboards beneath them. The horizontal wall cupboards come in 70cm and 92 cm long, while every other cupboard comes in 60cm and 80cm. Why?
Italy has plenty of alternatives to Ikea kitchens, and while I’m not a snob about Ikea, I do like to buy local. We looked at Scavolini and a number of smaller firms. They were all disappointingly similar: nice, but not perfect. As Roscoe says, I want my cake and to eat it too.
Still undecided.
Our budget for the works so far:
Previous total EUR 2,117
Petrol to Rome Ikea EUR 30
TOTAL EUR 2,147
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