Furniture Shopping

I am pooped. I really do not like furniture shopping. With our basement upgrade, the current couch will be going downstairs (and the TV too). Our great room will be bare for a while. DH and I are those furniture shoppers that drive salespeople wild.

We scour the store. Try just about every couch including ones in the clearance center. We don't want pillows that the boys can take off the couch and jump on. DH would prefer that all the cushions clip on. I don't want brown, black or white. He doesn't want green. Classic styling but not over the top. I like to sit on a couch and not in a couch. And a reasonable price.

Monday we were at the furniture store for 3 1/2 hours. The sales person was shadowing us the entire time. Of course we had all 5 children with us. The kid castle would not take the 10 or 9 year old-they are too big. The 2 and 1 year old were too young. That left Mr. Wisdom to be the lone child to go into the kid castle. We didn't let him-he would rub it in everyone else's face that he got to go in and they didn't.

Today, the kidlets were across the street being babysat. I ran to the upscale furniture store. I had no idea how low brow we actually are! Good grief! We have been married 12 years and we still have garage sale furniture. I walked into this store (I should have put on makeup) and the sales person approaches me. I tell her what I am looking for (see list above). She brings me straight to 2 couches that fulfill my requirements. You can get extra firm cushions too. Then she tells me that we have to go pick out the fabric for the couch. You get to pick? You don't just get what they have on the floor? Cool!

The room she brought me to is larger than my bedroom and is wall to wall, floor to ceiling fabric samples. I find one I like. She is a color consultant and finds this one that would be great pillows and that one would be wonderful on a chair. I ask her to price the couch. 3 grand. Yep, three thousand dollars. for one couch.

I gulp and try not to blush. I tell her, well, I will have to work on my husband. I might be able to pull it off. Yeah, right.

Then I mentioned that I needed to pick a color paint. She said, "Oh! I can help you with that!" And flounces her golden curls and walks over to another desk. "Do you like Sherwin Williams?" and she opens a color catalog with every color that Sherwin Williams carries. She found 4 that coordinate beautifully with that $3,000 couch. She writes down the paint names and colors for me. I pocket them and say thank you very much. Go to my car and go to the cheap furniture store.

I walk in, find the brand we like. Discover that it can be special ordered with a fabric of my choice (on their little twirly fabric sample hanger thingy). The expense store did all the work for me. She showed me how to coordinate the fabrics and I got the color paint for the family room.

Decision made. Furniture is ordered. Paint color is chosen. Life can resume.

So, is that cheating? I didn't tell the expensive store salesperson I was buying. I told her I was looking. I didn't expect to get that level of service at all. I just wanted to see if that kind of couch existed. I am counting it as a blessing.