Two weekends ago (this is how behind I am with blogging these days) Joe and I visited Event City at Trafford Park for the Northern Home Show.
I actually only found out about the event a few days before, and after a quick batting of my eyes at Google, I managed to nab us some free tickets. On this very rare Sunday afternoon that we had absolutely nothing on, we went for a wander.
And it was torture. There was so much we wanted!
Being so busy most weekends thanks to a large family, and lots of friends who are growing up (baby showers, weddings, housewarmings and subsequent hangovers taking up most of our weekends these days!) we don’t often get chance to go around the home stores and just look.
I’d like to say buy, but we’ll get to that once all the renovations are done. For now, we look.
And boy did we look.
Thankfully, as it was the Northern Home Show, all the exhibitors were local to us so having them in one space meant we saved ourselves petrol for one – always a bonus – and heard some new names in the world of Interiors who we otherwise would never have known about.
I’ve really grown a love for interior design since buying our house. Unfortunately I can’t say that I’ve implemented a whole lot of it, but there will come a time when I can!
Items we loved at the show in particular included: Fireplaces, Gorilla ornaments (I don’t know why, but they were everywhere and I thought they were totes amaze; translation = super cool), outdoor furniture, clocks (I love clocks so much) and front doors.
Obviously there was plenty that will never be for us, mostly due to budget – I mean, who wouldn’t want a remote control for every electrical appliance in your home so you can turn the lights off downstairs whilst on the loo upstairs? But it was so much fun to look and pretend.
Some of our friends feel bad for us sometimes because of the dust and rubble in our home. But there’s no need. Yeah it sucks temporarily, but it’s just so much fun! We opted in for this, so we might as well make the absolute most of our situation and have a good giggle.
We took some cards, names and addresses so we can revisit the ones we liked at a later date, and I took plenty of pictures (with my iPhone so they’re not the best, sorry!) to save for inspiration and reference at a later date.
I wish we’d heard about the show earlier to be honest as they even had landscape architects and interior designers there for free consultations, which could have given us some great insight into our house plans! But you know what, I’m having too much of a blast working that out for myself right now.
There was a DIY school with plastering lessons, and B&Q even had a session on to teach kids some basic DIY – when we arrived, there was a group of 6 or 7 year olds making bird houses (seriously, how cute?).
If the show is there next year, I’ll definitely be back and hopefully by that stage we’ll have all the building work done and I can buy all the gorilla heads that I want…If they’re still trendy by then. Who knows, giraffe feet might be all the rage next year…
For now I’ll leave you with some pictures (sorry again about the quality – stupid iPhone) of everything that made me smile that day including Joe pretending that a window display was the set of Desperate Housewives before running off to a handmade wooden table display whipping out his tape measure out faster than I could shout “Out of our budget, Dear!”
