Location, Location, Location, and Other Problems
I have a problem. I basically do (or try to do) everything India Knight tells me to do (I’ve long been nursing a major crush on that woman and her life (to illustrate, here’s her house)), and thusly I have built a huge collection of design blogs and retailers for the home, all of whom are in the UK. Some elsewhere in the world, but I mostly disregard them entirely.
Now, all things considered, it isn’t that expensive having things shipped from the UK (this is why I disregard the Antipodean resources). Not if they’re pillows, prints, other littler housewares. Except the £ is high and HM’s taxes are high and yeah, the shipping’s high, so it’s not exactly an ideal long term solution. In search for something rather more local, I turned to Apartment Therapy’s list of best home design blogs for this year. Every one of them is awful, but then the very last one, I think, “Ah! Colour! Actual design! Eclectic mixes of old and new! She’s not just downloading photos from West Elm and Pottery Barn and all the other huge chain stores I can find on my own FFS!” …And it’s in Australia. Yesterday I even went looking on the San Francisco Chronicle’s website. Their website. It is the worst website in the world. It is completely devoid of content, unless that content is a) Ads or b) User generated.
So, does such a thing exist: A Heart Home, but in America? Or maybe I should rephrase that: Does anyone in the US sell the sorts of things I like, or are we stuck with West Elm and Pottery Barn? Is that really all there is?
November 6th, 2011 at 11:55 am
I have enough pain dealing with Home Depot and getting counter-top installed. Why go looking for trouble in other countries?
i. I have no counter top 2, Nor a sink III, Dishwasher. No.
We are eating off paper plates from food cooked in muh new Black & Decker TOASTER OVEN FOR GAWDS SAKE. Do not whine to me about British Taxes.
Ecletic mixes of old and new? Bwaaaaa,,,,, Screw the phony granite and it’s damn cutting problems, get me some damn formica RIGHT NAO!
tl;dr Without a kitchen of any sort for 6 days now. It’s aging me.
November 6th, 2011 at 12:09 pm
I’m not finished.
We have awesome new appliances piling up in the living room. CONVECTION OVEN! MASSIVE MICROWAVE! NEW RANGE! Cabinets have been installed. New breakfast bar is in place. We’re waiting for some damn trailer trash in Panama City to cut some faux-granite counter tops. Then we can get this show on the road. I swear I’m temped to drive over there and offer them some sort of motivation to speed up this process. A new toaster ain’t gonna work. If I know the type I’ll likely have to buy a few quality pellet rifles as a reward. I dunno. I just dunno. Shooneys Gift cards? Lotto Tickets?
November 6th, 2011 at 2:33 pm
Notice the complete absence of iPads in those pictures.
Looks to me like an opportunity for a secondment to Derbyshire.
November 11th, 2011 at 10:20 pm
Do you have an Ikea near you, Half? They do a damn fine wood countertop. I had it in my condo in Seattle (and the house we never actually lived in but DID remodel in Seattle) and you just kinda pull up and load it up and drive away. No waiting necessary!
And for our remodeling the condo, we had the appliances delivered way too early and sitting in their styrofoam in the middle of the living room getting covered in drywall dust for weeks whilst I painted around them. The fridge tho we actually had delivered in a more timely manner. No idea why the others came early. And that was 600 square feet, but at least we weren’t actually living there at the time.
Peter’s old boss had just finished a giant remodel of his nice big fancy Craftsman house and they spent several months in the basement with one of those cheapo countertop microwaves, a little fridge, and, like, a toaster-egg-poacher combination thing. I saw it once. Such a thing exists.