We had a particular space to fill next to the sofa in our new house, and wanted a low sideboard to house our extensive and exotic booze collection, which up until now has been gathering dust on the floor in a corner. However the space is only 82cm wide and most pieces of suitable furniture we’ve seen are at least a metre wide, and often too tall compared to the 69cm high sofa.

We set off on Saturday with a medium length list of places to try in our grim search for just the right solution, but we struck lucky at our first stop: Emmaus in St Albans. This place is basically a second hand furniture shop with fairly rapid turnover, but it’s more than just that, being run as a community to get homeless people back on their feet. We’ve been a couple of times before and not found anything for us, but this time round for just £10 we came away with an 84 cm wide cupboard that sits just perfectly in our previously empty space.

Isn’t that 2cm too wide you may ask? Yes, so I had to remove the beading at the edge of the laminate floor to make enough room for a very snug fit.

Our collection of exotic and nauseous booze will now reside within, perhaps lying undisturbed for decades until young teenagers nick it late at night. And so the cycle repeats.