Fret not, if the price tag on that lamp makes you fear that you better not read any further: this week's list adds an ingenious way to fund the entire lot, without having to resort to either grand larceny or a career in finance.
Forget the necessities. Ignore the so-called ‘must-haves’. We’re here to celebrate the things in life which have no possible logical justification, yet which will make your life just that little bit sweeter.
A bedside lamp to make your room lighter. And also your wallet.
See this lamp? It’s very pretty. Beautiful even. Interior designer Vanessa Macdonald picked it out in this week’s Country Life as the sort of thing to pick out to turn your bedroom into a real sanctuary. But before you get overly excited. we’re just going to issue a slight caveat: the lamp is £1,900. And that doesn’t include the shade, which is another £804. You have been warned.
Don’t just lounge around the house. Lounge around the house in style
‘What’s this?’ we hear you cry. ‘£170 for a smartly-tailored jacket? That hardly seems exorbitant or inessential.’ That may well be your first reaction, dear reader, but look closer – for this is no jacket, but instead a cardigan. And £170 for a good old-fashioned cardie seems, well, somewhat over the top for a garment mostly used for sitting on the sofa and perhaps the odd spot of gardening. That said, it’s 100% merino wool, and thus is very soft, very warm and ought to keep that nicely-tailored shape for a good long time.
‘Jack’ cardigan – £170 from bluemint.com
Knife to see you, to see you, knife
We’ve all been there. You’re gazing around your beautiful kitchen, admiring all the shiny surfaces, gleaming objects and perfect décor, when your knife block comes in to view. Sure, a bamboo block is nice; but surely far nicer to see the finely crafted blades themselves? And then you simply can’t rest easy until you’ve found a way to make the most of your Japanese stainless steel cookware. For weeks on end you toss and turn at night, dreaming deliriously of a solution. Surely somebody, somewhere has thought of one?
Calm yourself, for the answer is here: a Furi knife block which keeps those beautifully-made blades on display while also stopping you from slicing your fingers open while fishing them out of a drawer. You can gaze around your kitchen in safety, and sleep like a baby at night.
N.B. If your kitchen is piled high with unopened junk mail, empty wine bottles and plastered with encrusted baked beans, it might not have quite the same effect.
Furi Pro six-piece knife block set – £139.50 from hartsofstur.com
Be the toast of the kitchen table
Unless you have an Aga – in which case your toasting needs are taken care of for life – you’ll be needing a toaster. And while you don’t ‘need’ one modelled on a VW Campervan, it’s just so, so much more fun than the usual models you’ll find in Robert Dyas. And not actually that much pricier either.
VW Campervan toaster – £49.99 from thefowndry.com
Rid yourself of all sorts of inessentials (to fund the collection of more)
For fans of the inessential, this is a bit of a godsend – particularly if your house has been declared ‘full’ by a grumpy spouse. Cudoni specialise in selling the finer things online, and will give you up to 70% of the net sale price – not bad considering that they’ll collect for free, sort out all the costs and do the fiddly bits like posting things and dealing with buyers. The only proviso? They won’t take any old bric a brac: there’s a slightly terrifying list of high-end brands on the website which, they assure users, is ‘not exhaustive’.
If you bought everything on the list today, you’d have spent absolutely nothing – and may even have made a profit – depending how much you’d managed to sell via the last of our suggestions. No need to thanks us…
The absolutely inessential, utterly indulgent and entirely marvellous weekend shopping list
Check in weekly to see the latest additions to our list – to look at, laugh at and to (occasionally) treat
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