Finally, after nearly four years of lounge-located lap-based tray-mounted food consumption (sitting in the lounge eating food off a tray) I’ve decided to get a kitchen table:

Nice isn’t it? I admit the place mats are a bit rubbish but they are from ASDA (a store not known for it’s contemporary style) and they are cheap (£2.99 for the set). The fruit bowl is from my parents and it always contains a combination of apples and/or bananas.

But why has it taken me nearly four years to get a kitchen table? There are two reasons:

First, I had no room for a table as I used to keep my computer desk in the corner of the kitchen. I didn’t do this by choice, it was the only location in the house that had a spare phone point suitable for a DSL modem.

Second, I was a tad embarrassed that whenever I had guests staying round they were forced to eat breakfast from either a cramped coffee table or the afore-mentioned lounge-trays.

Something had to be done. I decided to get a kitchen table and move the computer to the spare room.

The spare room – a perfect example of modern aesthetics and ergonomics! Although it displays all the symbols of bachelorism and geekism, it wasn’t the most welcoming of spaces. And should the room be required to house staying guests again it would be difficult to position an inflatable double-bed twixt the various wires and disc-drives on the floor.

Again, something had to be done. I leafed through the pages of the Ikea catalogue.

Scouring the Ikea catalogue is always a joy for me. Not only can I get inspiration for new furniture or decorating styles, I get to snigger at all the seemingly  rude names of all the products (such as Fhart, Felj and the excellently-named range of clothes hangers called Bumerang).  Flicking through the work spaces section of the catalogue I came across the rather attractive Vika range of worktop/trestle combinations. Rather than buy a dedicated desk, I could mix and match trestles, cupboards, drawer units and worktops to create my very own custom work area.

One trip to Ikea later I was in possession of a worktop and two storage units.

The required tools for any form of DIY are a hammer, battery-powered screwdriver and a cup of tea. As luck would have it, the supplied instructions for the storage units stated that I would need a screwdriver and a hammer (but no cup of tea) to assist with assembly!

Much hammering, screwing and cups of tea later…

The completed office (although strictly speaking it’s a computer room, but as that brings back memories of a school classroom smelling of burnt-out BBC Master computers and failed attempts at learning Boolean logic, it’s an office).

As I ended up having more space available than I had originally planned I was able to set up most of my music equipment in a semi-permanent basis. And any future guests will be pleased to discover that the room has been laid out in such a fashion that it can easily accommodate an inflatable double-bed with minimal disruption (plus they’ll get to eat their breakfasts in a more civilised manner).

The room is not quite finished. I want to add some sort of  mood lighting to the underside of the worktop and the storage units need another shelf added to accomodate all of my collective geek-crap. As it stands, it’s nice to have a space dedicated to performing all of my computery and musical tasks. It’s also nice to have the computer out of the kitchen – it was difficult trying to work without making numerous visits to the fridge.