Country mouse on how to avoid Ikea
Mark is relieved when a visit to an auction house renders a painful visit to Ikea, and subsequent assembling nightmares, unnecessary


To my shame, I'm appalling at DIY and I have the scars to prove it, including a missing tip to one finger. Despite a year's woodwork at school, I'm simply hopeless, a danger to both the house and myself.
These days, I don't really attempt it, but our recent move has brought the dreaded word Ikea back into my life. I know assembling a flat pack is barely DIY, but things have gone wrong in the past. Always.
We needed some wardrobes, bookcases and a desk for the computer. I was beginning to wonder which bit of my body would have to be sacrificed next, when Mrs Hedges suggested that we go and have a look at the Prospect Auction Rooms in Alresford. There, in a freezing warehouse, packed to the rafters with objects of every possible taste, description and quality, we picked out different lots, from Edwardian chests to a mahogany sideboard.
Two hours later, after a few nods of my head, we'd got everything we wanted for less than £200. Back home, my drill and screwdrivers can remain in their cobwebbed shed as there's nothing to do and that, for me, is a very real measure of success.
Sign up for the Country Life Newsletter
Exquisite houses, the beauty of Nature, and how to get the most from your life, straight to your inbox.
Country Life is unlike any other magazine: the only glossy weekly on the newsstand and the only magazine that has been guest-edited by HRH The King not once, but twice. It is a celebration of modern rural life and all its diverse joys and pleasures — that was first published in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee year. Our eclectic mixture of witty and informative content — from the most up-to-date property news and commentary and a coveted glimpse inside some of the UK's best houses and gardens, to gardening, the arts and interior design, written by experts in their field — still cannot be found in print or online, anywhere else.
-
No roads, no cars, no problem: Norman Foster and Porsche collaborate on transportation hub in Venice
There are famously no roads in the Italian city of Venice, but that hasn't stopped Porsche from co-designing a transportation hub in time for the Architecture Biennale.
-
London is a happy city, but not the happiest city, according to new research
It is, however, a very romantic city, according to different research. So that's good.