Where Have I Been? Well, Shopping of Course

Okay, this is not your regular shopping for books/clothes/shoes. We are in the midst of building our new house, and so we have been shopping for big-ticket items…like kitchen sets, or floor tiles, or taps, or, light fixtures, or, or…the list seems just endless 🙁

This has been a totally eye-opening experience for me. Earlier, I hardly glanced at advertisements for such house hold design items. Now, we not only scan them thoroughly, we have clipped them out, and created a binder (a sort of hodge-podge collage of all the things we like).

The next step of course has been to actually go to all the shops, and try to match up our ideas with reality. Most of our dreams ended up getting dashed on the twin rocks of availability or pricing. Basically, things turned out to be far more expensive than we anticipated, so we re-planned and re-budgeted time and again. Tedious!

So, of course, when we come across a pleasant surprise now and then, it’s absolutely thrilling. And here, I’ll share one such find.

For long, K and I have debated the need for a modular kitchen. I wanted one, he didn’t (too expensive). And that’s where things stood until we came across a really remarkable thing – steep (and I’m talking almost 60% discounts) on display models in showrooms. Yup, if you are lucky, those fancy showroom models can be bought right off the shelf … provided the cabinets suit your kitchen size and design.

We were super-lucky to land one such deal from House of Johnson. Primarily, they deal with floor tiles, but they also have pretty good kitchens on offer. And when the sales assistant mentioned in passing that the display units could be bought as is…we immediately rushed back with our architectural drawings, and it all matched perfectly!

Now, I am happy and K is happy.

We found out that quite a few showrooms offload their display merchandise in this way. However, it is rarely advertised. It pays to ask, and negotiate, and be patient. We practically parked ourselves in the shop. Hey! It’s a lot of money, and a huge decision to make. Finally, I think to just get rid of us, he threw in a dishwasher into the deal as well.

I couldn’t be more excited about our new kitchen! Here’s a rather blurry photo of the kitchen display, and please ignore my hand popping in the corner 🙂

Btw, there is no loss of quality. It’s so cheap just because it’s already been assembled.