Meubelwinkel
It’s about time I put another Holland video up, isn’t it? I made myself get out of the apartment and go sit at a coffee place until my battery died so I could work on this one.
Here, we accompany my aunt on a trip to the furniture store. It’s not much of an “adventure” video, just some local flavor.
Here’s a direct link to the video on YouTube.
As far as I can tell, all of Europe is one big IKEA*. Which is to say, if you’d like to travel to Europe but are short on time and/or cash, just drag someone with an accent down to your local IKEA complex on a slow shopping day. Pretty darn close.
But seriously, everyone in Holland seems to have such clean, sleek, design-conscious furnishings. Or at least my family does. Maybe we’re (they’re) exceptionally stylish. Yeah, that’s it. Anyway, Mattress Mac** would be run out of town.
Another thing I’ve noticed is that almost no one has carpet in their homes. Anywhere. There’s especially no plush, squishy carpet. The hard floors do add to the sleekness, but gosh, doesn’t it get cold in winter?
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* Every Chronicle subscriber in the whole dang city got a shiny hundred-page IKEA catalog with their paper last week. Now THAT’S some impressive marketing. Day-um.
I don’t get the paper, but my mom gave me her copy. Mmm, Swedish furnip0rn.
** Wow, I expected Gallery to have at least a decent website. I guess the crowd they cater to and the crowd that believes in computers don’t overlap much, but still. With all that money (non-Houstonians, the man is a gazillionaire) you’d think he could at least hire a web designer.
EDIT: Fixed the Gallery link.
August 16th, 2006 at 9:21 pm
he probably doesnt need a terribly good site.. his tv/radio presence and his local noteriety are enough - i dunno .. perhaps im talking out of my ass.
August 16th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
True, all those TV spots mean his website doesn’t have to be *terribly* good, but it’s APPALLINGLY awful. There’s a baseline level of professionalism I expect from a major retailer’s website, and this jumbled mess misses the mark. I pull up your site, and the first thing that catches my attention is an ungrammatical, sloppily laid-out four-line headline in 36-point, flat, all-caps Times New Roman in blue on beige? Seriously?
August 17th, 2006 at 12:34 am
‘appallingly awful’ = ‘appalling’
Hello, unnecessarily redundant adverbs.
September 2nd, 2006 at 10:49 pm
You’d think it would get cold in winter… but a lot of the higher-end Dutch houses actually have heaters IN THE FLOORS that keep the tile/wood from getting too cold in oft-frequented spots, i.e. in front of the toilet. Not in the crappy little apartments/dorms I lived in, mind you, but I had a friend from university who once invited me home with her to Doetinchem for a long weekend at her parents’ place, which was really nice, and thus occurred my first experience with floor heaters (makes more sense in Dutch… ‘vloerverwarming’… ‘floor heating’ just sounds funny.)
September 3rd, 2006 at 12:29 am
Ooh, that sounds lovely. I only ever visit in the summer, so all I’ve noticed about Dutch climate control is the lack of air conditioning. =P