The home improvements continue…well, not apace, but at least they continue.
Part of the grand plan is to get more storage inside our wardrobes, and thankfully, the powers that be at IKEA foresaw that people would want to shift things around at different times, and created lots of nice holes to move new shelves into.
I wouldn’t put us as IKEA frequent flyers – it’s more like a once a year military operation, once we have secured someone’s car to make it worth our while. But I do love a good kit to put together. I do obviously let Dan have a go too, but I will even volunteer to put other people’s IKEA units together.
Why the appeal? Kits are good news for those of us who aren’t so hot on drawing, or cutting things terribly accurately, but still want to make things. It’s also quite fun to see things assemble gradually, particularly if they are a) big and b) handy for moving stuff off the floor/bottom of other wardrobes etc.
I tend to think that liking kits is also part of learned behaviour. Dad was very into model making when I was little, and I graduated to this myself in various forms: plaster of Paris moulds for various things you could then paint, peg dolls, soft toys.
Best of all was a model theatre – first you made the theatre from card, then you had a full opera and ballet with backdrops, bits to move on from the sides, fiddly characters to cut round, the works. I even learned the story of ‘La Boheme’ from the synopsis they included with the kit, which comes in handy for watching ‘Moonstruck’ in later life.
Recently, makers of kits have been staging a comeback. Makers of Airfix kits – model aeroplanes and so on – decided to run an ‘experiment’ where one group of kids got to make a model, and the others got to play on their Playstations, or something similar. At the end of the time, those making models were asked if they would do it again, and if they liked it more than their usual computer game type hobbies.
I’m never too sure with tests like this how representative the findings are, but evidently a good number of the kids said yes, they’d give it another go. Besides, there are still kit cars you can make (and get a Q at the start of your number plate – a definite incentive), and even kit houses for those who want to build their own but fancy a bit of help. Onwards and upwards, see.