I have been Formsprung - question 1

Q1. Are the kitchens from Ikea any good?

I have mixed feelings about kitchens - familiarity breeds contempt and all that - but I do have to say that I like Ikea kitchens. I lived and breathed the things for eight months there, advising people on features that they would be stuck with for 10, 15 years. That's a great responsibility to bear when the clueless are relying on your expertise and support.

Designing kitchens and coming up with ideas and solutions for the ridiculous nooks and awkward measurements that people would come in with on the backs of napkins was probably the most fun part of the job. I liked those vacuous, shallow relationships - I can sustain interest in people for the half hour, 45 minutes it takes to knock something out. Most people can manage to remain interesting for that long, I find.

Are the kitchens any good? The kitchens are great - solid, resistant to wear and tear, stylish. But they are limited by the imagination of the people who own them. It was frustrating to see where you could come up with something quite creative but there was no desire there, only a lack of taste. The glossy red and white kitchens are usually heinous, and I'm not a fan of the fussy wood finishes either.

There's tremendous flexibility, though, and the kitchens are so much cheaper than the competition but people just don't realise. I had people come in with quotes for a £14,000 kitchen from somewhere else that we could do for £4,000 - that's a holiday and a couple of decent cars...

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