Furniture shopping

Today we went shopping for furniture. We didn't bring our old furniture with us because it would have been too expensive to transport over here and it wasn't that nice in the first place : It was old, second hand stuff that we still had from our student times, or gotten for free from parents and neighbors. In short, we were ready for some new furniture and would have bought new stuff anyway if we stayed longer in The Netherlands. We made a list of things that we would need the most and would only shop for those ( ye right... ) :
- Fridge and freezer, one of those big 2-door american ones
- Bed and bedding + some sidetables etc
- BBQ for cooking our meals on

That was the plan. Now if anyone comes to Brisbane / Sunshine Coast area there is only 1 place that you have to go to : Morayfield Road in Morayfield. The sheer amount of furniture shops is dazzling : They have all the different furniture shops there, all packed nicely together on 1 big industrial road called Morayfield Road. We left the Bed&Breakfast around 11:00 and it was about 20-25 minutes drive to the shopping area. There were a LOT of furniture shops and we're rather picky so we had to go into each of them just to make sure we made the right decision; we never even got to look at BBQ's or Fridges. We went in to look for beds, but then we also decided to take a look at desks which we'd need for our job ( we both work in IT ) and we also hopped by the dining space and the outdoor furniture. Eventually we just decided to refocus :

- Beds with matching sidetables and "tallboy"
- Dining table with comfy couch and tv table ( matching )
- Desk

We realized that it was possible to get all of this in the same style but we'd always dislike 1 piece and love the others, or the other way around, so eventually we decided that we'd not place the bed in the dining room anyway so that could be a different style. The desk however could possibly be put in the living room / dining room area, so we're still not sure about that.

After about 3 hours and 5 furniture shops we came to our first conclusion :
Fantastic Furniture and Aussie Life are not our cup of tea : We didn't like the presentation of the materials ( which really says a lot about the shop and the way they think about their own products ) and the prices were horrendous. Most of the designs were boring. Both Kim and me have very similar taste : We like refined materials but not too kitsch, we like rustic style but it shouldn't come with tree bark still on it if you know what I mean. And yes : We're quite picky, we take hours to decide on a pair of shoes, just imagine us buying a car or buying furniture which should last us for decades.

We decided that the two shops that we liked most were Super A-mart for a mix of good looking and reasonably priced furniture and Sleep City for well priced but decent quality beds. We must have seen at least 200 different bedroom suites : We tested the quality of the drawers first, if they didn't have rails we'd write them off right away, then , the quality of the rails was important too, some were really flimsy, some of the drawers didn't open correctly , some didn't open at all and some opened and fell out. About 90% of the bed suites can be filtered out just by testing the drawers. I'm one of those people who gets irritated by drawers that don't work correctly, so for me this was an absolute must. Then we'd look at the quality and strength of the bed ( we both hate creaking beds ), the wood quality ( hardwood / epoxy etc, and eventually the finish. By then we'd have only a few beds left and we chose the ones we liked best. We ended up with the final three. I think it was about 15:00 when we decided on which beds were in the final top three :

Sleep City : Fjord Queen Bed
Super A-Mart : Serengeti Queen Bed
Super A-Mart : Byron Style Queen Bed which I can't find on the web anywhere but which was very nice quality and looked great too

The Serengeti bed has a real "indonesian" feel to it, which we both liked. However the drawers wouldn't correctly open when trying to open standing at an angle ( usually you will open them at an angle, but these drawers will only open when you stand in front of them and pull them straight out ). So it did have the looks and feel, but not the quality we wanted. The Byron style definately had the quality, and most definately the best drawers of the whole 200 suites we saw, but the bed was not as well-built as the Fjord. The Fjord is the one that we currently deem the winner but we'll sleep on it tonight and tomorrow we'll decide.

Now , while we were looking for beds we also had a good look at all the different couches and chairs. Again, we're very picky on these. Kim's short and slender, I am taller and weigh a bit more, so finding the right couch wasn't going to be easy. We both do agree though, the absolute most comfortable chair we have ever sat in is the Super A-mart : Celebration Recliner. She's not the prettiest of chairs. In fact, even on display she looks like she's an old rug, a second hand student couch, a leftover from your grandpa's basement. But ooooh man does she sit comfortably ! You'll start yawning just looking at it after you tried it. The chair is so comfy that I think they made it this ugly on purpose, as a warning sign for any tired and unsuspecting hard worker who would never be able to get out of it again once he settles in it. It's the only chair that seconds as a one-armed bandit, the long stick on the side is meant to make getting out of it easier and yes it does help but no you don't want to get out of it. It's not the kind of chair that has the flair, the elegance, the picture-perfect looks. It's made to be comfy, at all costs. The color is terrible too : Chocolate. It just doesn't match with anything else you can get. But boy, does it sit comfortable. The couch too sits like a glove.

I'd never forgive myself to buy such uglyness though, I mean, if they made it creamy color, or "latte" as they call it now... Ah who knows, perhaps I'll just buy one anyway and hide it in the garage when visitors come around.

So , no Celebration then, but we saw a few very nice different diners. What amazes me is that Australian stuff isn't actually bad quality. We thought that most of the stuff would be held together by pieces of string and sticky tape but most of this stuff is imported stuff, it's actually a lot better quality than Ikea stuff which most Europeans buy nowadays. We decided not to go and have a look at Ikea because we already know what Ikea makes : Cheap stuff that lasts 2 years. We wanted something that would last us a little longer, and also wanted something decent quality. We figured that spending a little more would pay off in the long run, and we'd also support the local economy a little bit. We're not quite sure if we want a light diner yet, or a darker one. The light ( silverpine ) is very nice, but requires light chairs also. Silverpine doesn't match chocolate colors ( see where I'm going ? ).

We didn't bother looking at the fridge yet since we want to have a second look at the kitchen in the rental before we do. Our next big challenge will be to find a BBQ. We found a nice shop in Maroochydore that specializes in BBQ's, so I'm sure we'll find what we want over there.