kitchens

it’s friday, early evening. i am sitting at the table with two laptops open in front of me, ikea catalogues spread everywhere and a large glass of wine. i am supposed to be working on the ikea kitchen planner (a soul destroying concept if ever there was one). to be honest, i would rather scrub out the toilet with a toothbrush than spend another minute with that bloody kitchen planner. but our landlady (may she blessed with health and happiness now and forever more because she is amazing, sweet as anything, takes wonderful care of us and hasn't raised the rent) has decided that the kitchen needs replacing, and has given us free reign to design it and have our friend t do the work. n is stupidly excited by this. i have resisted from the beginning because i know how awful kitchen renovations are. and in this house! ai yi yi. may god have mercy on our souls (can you tell i’ve been listening to trashy novels set in the era of victorian england? i’m sorry - i can’t resist. at the moment it’s james clavell’s taipei. it is a deliciously trashy adventure story about the founding of hong kong. they are always saying things like “damn your eyes” and such and it’s difficult to shake off. work seems a little benign after an hour of pirates and opium smuggling.)

anyways i digress. having a new kitchen will be wonderful - the old one is awful - there is no doubt about that. i do not believe it was designed with anything other than a rudimentary knowledge of what happens in kitchens and as such it is a really frustrating place to cook. we have the chance to improve it but with great power comes great responsibility. last week we had to advance directly into the jaws of hell ikea itself. on a sunday. those are hours of your life you are never getting back. interestingly, i have never seen so many pregnant women in one place in my life. ikea is obviously where the modern british women nests. i, however, clearly have no nesting inclination whatsoever and hated the entire experience. how many choice of cupboard doors do you need anyways????? who cares if your counters are white or grey? how can a tile be "trendy"???? i am not cut out for this.

our builder comes back on the 18th and we need to have decided what we want by then, which means planning it out on the ikea kitchen planner software. which sounds easy, even fun. i can assure you it is neither. i can only assume the purpose is to soften you up so by the time you are sitting on your living room floor in tears, surrounded by 200 small boxes of flatpacked cabinets, trying to find the right set of screws for the pttttttbh cabinet or whatever the hell it's called, and failing even at that - you will be too demoralised to go back to them and say this is utter and complete nonsense - stop trying to open up these portals into hell and sell furniture like normal companies.

yep. i'm looking forward to this. oh yeah.