13 June 2014

A NEW BEGINNING



So we are moved in!
To say we are settled in would be stretching it too far. Having thinned out our belongings enormously before we moved, and thinking we had done a good job, when the removal men carried box after box into our new house and the space for walking between them got smaller and smaller, I seriously began to wonder if we had done the right thing. The house is lovely but it's SO small!

Speaking of Lulu, she has coped incredibly well with the upheaval. She spent three nights at her grandad's but we spent lots of time each day with her and we brought her to her new home as soon as the removal van had gone. She had a good sniff round, inspected the premises and then gave us a look which obviously meant "are you completely mad?"
Dogs can be very perceptive and cruelly blunt at times.

One of the challenges is that we haven't got any furniture. All our existing furniture has gone into store for future use in France. So with great enthusiasm we went shopping for furniture on Wednesday morning. The enthusiasm didn't last and we ended up in ...... guess where, Ikea. For less than two grand we got four double wardrobes with internal shelves and baskets, three chests of drawers, a two seater sofa, two small armchairs, a glass fronted dresser, a bookcase and a bagful of the irresistible bits and bobs Ikea do so well. None of it is high quality heirloom stuff but it will suit our purpose perfectly well and at this stage in our lives we would rather invest in enjoying ourselves than in furniture!

So while Nick grapples with a mountain of flatpack furniture I am luxuriating in the fact that BT have provided us with telephone and internet according to plan and wondering which box contains our corkscrew!
Thank goodness for screw top wine bottles (and Vouvray, of course)!

Have a great weekend!

18 comments:

  1. Ikea is great, personally I had not bought much from them UNTIL I met Elizabeth... We bought the two sofas we have here from them and I must say they are preforming great, if a sofa can perform!!

    Don't think of the limited space you have there WAIT until you get the BIG place over here... It will more then make up for it... I know what it is like, I sold my bungalow to follow my dream, I have absolutely no regrets...

    Part one completed.. The best part yet to come... If you need anything... Let us know... Col

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  2. Glad to know you're finally ensconced, even if the furniture still has to be assembled. Ikea was a great choice as they are used to designing for small modern homes and know not to waste space on unnecessary curlicues. Once you've got the boxes unpacked you'll be raring to get on with your French house search. :-)

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  3. Well said, Colin.

    You've done the right thing and it looks like you are beginning to settle. Give it some time and then start again! Bon courage...

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  4. Thank goodness you avoided Dreadful Flippin' Sofas. IKEA is great for furnishing on a bufget, especially for stuff to stuff with stuff. Believe me, you're better being able to start small and think big than to take a load of things you'te umming and aahing about. The deed is done - no turning back!

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    1. Pauline, I don't think we could have afforded/justified the cost of a DFS sofa to use for six months of the year, maybe less.
      They con people into buying them by pretending they are half price and offering "interest free" credit and other silly deals. Our upbringings make us instinctively suspicious of these kind of "deals".

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  5. Congratulations! Make sure Nick does one flat pack at a time. Don't want to be mixing up the parts, right? :)

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    1. Walt, there's so little space that opening more than one box at a time would be impossible!

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  6. Great to hear the 1st move has gone well. I like Ikea. My parents 'discovered' them when we were living in Copenhagen in the mid '70s and the bookshelves they bought then lasted nearly 40 years.
    Good luck with all the unpacking. It always looks worse at the start when you can't move for boxes. It will get better...

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    1. Antoinette and Niall, thanks for the words of encouragement!
      I know you're right - I just needed to be reminded!
      We have brought with us two "Billy" bookcases that I bought in 1992, which makes them twenty years old, and apart from a bit of fading of their colour, they're as good as new.

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    2. Twenty two years old.........!

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    3. Ah, "Billy" bookcases. Distinctly I remember.

      Glad things have gone well thus far.

      Blessings and Bear hugs!

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  7. I think IKEA is great. Nearly all their designs are simple and well thought out, and it's affordable. I need to go there soon.

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    1. Carolyn, I just hope the drawers are strong enough to hold all our stuff.
      They are very minimalistically filled in the showroom but we don't do minimal!

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  8. We made that same, gasp, IKEA decision when we arrived in Spain. So many other better things to spend our money on. As we get more and more settled, we replace something here and there to get rid of the items that aren't holding up well or don't suit us. Next to go is the coffee table. But definitely worth the cost for the 3 years we've gotten out of it.

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  9. I would visit Ikea here, but it is a distance away, plus the furniture would not suit the look of our house, but its the bits and bobs which are worth going for! Hope you settle in soon.

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    1. Vera, they should have a warning sign in the entrance to all Ikeas:
      "Beware all who enter here; in spite of all good intentions you will not resist our bits and bobs"!

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  10. IKEA?
    Oh, all those Js and Ks !

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  11. Well, I may be working my way backwards but I will start with the latest and work through them all in reverse! Glad your move went well. Enjoy your new home!

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