I have not bought much furniture for my apartment yet. I am still recovering from the trauma of searching Dublin furniture shops for the bare essentials! However, I have got my priorities right. While I don’t have a dining table, I have sorted out a home for our computer book collection. I parted with about half of my collection, much of which was obsolete, when I moved out. I thought I had kicked the habit, but in recent months I’ve been buying the odd computer book again. As a freelancer, I have to keep up on industry trends after all, right?

Finding somewhere to store our library was not as easy as I thought. I turned the larger bedroom into a home office, but the proper office desks occupy a fair bit of space. If I put tall bookcases along the opposite wall, it would take away the feeling of space in the room. So, I looked for low level storage, but apart from a contender in habitat, drew a blank.

Then I came across shopdekko.com, a furniture store in Northern Ireland that delivers small orders over £20 free of charge to Ireland and the UK. They stock a range of children’s furniture called circus that includes individual colourful cubes useful for storing all sorts of things, including computer books. I was a bit wary at first. While I have embraced online shopping, I had never bought furniture online. There was not a proper picture of the cubes on the Dekko site either, more of an artist’s impression, so it was hard to judge colours. The fact that the cubes were self-assembly put me off further, as we can’t do DIY! But at €44 a go, it was worth a shot.

Then I noticed that the cubes were not included in the free delivery offer. Delivery was working out at €60, more than the cost of a cube. I e-mailed Dekko to check the cost, and to see what quantity I would need to order to make the delivery more reasonable. I was pleasantly surprised when they wrote back and said that the cubes were small enough to be included in the free delivery offer and they would update their site – impressive! So, I ordered a pink cube, and we (well, mainly Alan!) put it together easily enough. It looked fab, so when other colours were back in stock, I ordered some more. I now have 4 altogether, which is just enough storage space for our current computer book collection.

Unfortunately, the last cube I ordered had minor flaws. Nothing too major, but the imperfections would take away from the overall look. I contacted Dekko to find out if it would be possible to get a replacement one instead, and they asked for photos showing the problems. They sent a new perfect cube out the following week. It seems I can hang on to the flawed cube too, which I certainly did not expect. I’m not sure why that happened in my case, but I think the relatively low cost of the item and my distance from the store were factors. It is refreshing to find a furniture company offering such good customer service. Many shops are fine to deal with until there is a fault with something, and then a long, complicated process ensues.

I would never buy a major furniture item online without seeing it in a shop first, but I’m very glad I took a chance on this. I’m thrilled with my funky, colourful cubes. At this rate, I may end up with a whole wall full of them!