For the DIY-challenged among us, IKEA catalogues are already terrifying enough in their own right. For everybody else, there’s Horrorstör — a traditional haunted house story dressed up in trendy, Scandinavian flat-pack furniture.
The novel, written by Grady Hendrix, includes illustrations in the style of everyone’s favourite meatball/furniture catalogue — and they are just as creepy as they are delightful.
In an interview with Quirk Books, Hendrix explains what inspired his furniture choices for the book:
I’m an Ikea customer as much as the next person. My kitchen is full of Akurum cabinets with Harlig drawer fronts, Applad doors, Capita legs, and Lansa handles. I’ve got a Grundtal towel rail in my bathroom. I remember having zero money and sitting with my wife drooling over the Ikea catalogue, imagining how much nicer we could make our apartment if we had a spare $US300 or — dare we dream — $US500.
So coming up with the furniture in Horrorstör was like eating candy. Some of the pieces were things I want to own, like the Frånjk, which is basically my ideal dining room table. Others, like the Tossur treadmill desk, were things I wanted to make fun of. And all the “augmented” furniture that serves a correctional purpose — the Jodlöpp, the Ingalutt, the Kraanjk — are based on real devices used in 19th-century prisons.
The book itself won’t be available for another few weeks, so to tide yourself over in the meantime, you can check out cover designer Christine Ferrara’s explanation of how she made (and destroyed) a miniaturised IKEA showroom to grace the front and back. You can pre-order the book itself over on Amazon. [Quirk Books via Boing Boing]