Monday, April 11, 2011

Oh, o.co, you slay me

I've never bought anything from Overstock.com (or o.co as their new commercials tout), but of course I have been doing some browser-window shopping lately.


Among the items on my list, some sort of red chaise lounge/sofa bed to go in our office/den/guestroom combo.


I am a huge fan of the Lubi Daybed from CB2, but it's a bit more than I wanted to spend and it only comes in gray and green.

I just love that it functions as an extra bed too! And it doesn't look too much like your typical futon. 

Anyway, I came across this item on Overstock instead, called the Anise Red Convertible Chair / Bed. Still as functional, in the right color, and cheaper. What's not to love?


Well, if nothing else, this review absolutely sold me on it. I must have read it and re-read it at least 5x.

Unfortunately I am guilty of working in the online advertising business so I guess I'm partially to blame for this poor guy's lament. I honestly can't tell if he's joking or not. But if people like me didn't work in the industry we work in, then people like him wouldn't have to sleep in their offices and buy furniture and write amazing reviews about them. So brazeltov, I am sorry for stealing your clients but I am very thankful for your candid review, and I'm sure Overstock is too.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

on the hunt for a wall unit

the first major piece of furniture we set out to buy was an entertainment center. there are simple TV stands, media stands with shelves & drawers, and then there are wall units. because of the configuration of the room, we knew we needed to get a large unit to span the whole wall and provide lots of storage.




ew! but first, for fun-- pic of our old TV stand from target, which i sold on craigslist to a 70 year old woman, who later emailed me and said it wasn't real wood and she was going to try to sell it on ebay for a penny.


so anyway, off we went to macy's furniture store on a former co-worker's recommendation, who had found the perfect accent chair accidentally marked $200 when it was supposed to be $2,000. L-O-L! i was hoping for that same kind of luck. 





love at first sight. a wood unit with white lacquer finish called "the galaxy." the sales guy said the manufacturer only makes custom pieces, except the ones displayed at macy's, so basically i could either get an awesome customized wall unit or the floor model at an awesome price. #winning!!!

with the delivery date set, i assigned my husband mike the painting duties. gray accent walls are so hot right now. 

my parents happened to tag along with us at home depot. i think they were shocked how quickly i wanted to move things along, considering my zero experience in home projects. we had the paint color mixed and bought the frog tape plus the rest of the supplies.


i did the taping at least! check out that awesome job around the outlets.


gray wall dunzo. props to my dad's leveler circa 1978 for creating that really straight line.

so the unit had to be disassembled in the store, then delivered to me and reassembled by a couple of nice folks. macy's had to hire the men from the manufacturer directly because their regular delivery guys weren't authorized to set up the custom pieces. who knew? no idea how we'll ever move this thing out but i'll worry about that later. 


it didn't come with a wall mount unfortunately. mike was shocked that the rotating ones at best buy were anywhere from $200 - $300. but amazon came through with this "articulating" tv wall mount for $60. (since when does "articulating" mean "rotating"?) took us well over an hour to install it.

well worth it though!


the finished product! with some storm troopers on the tube to boot!


gratuitous shot of darth vader-- err, i meant in this photo we can see the TV has been rotated to the right.



so at this moment obi wan just said, "may the force be with you." it reassured me that the force was strong on this project. i will stop with the star wars references after this one.



open up one of the side doors and you've got storage for days! i hated having random things exposed, including dvd's. i guess you could say i'm anti-shelves.




final shot of all my stuffed animals living harmoniously in the upper right cubbie. don't they look happy to have finally found a home together? and i'm so happy that they don't make my living room look like my 7th grade bedroom anymore!


Thursday, April 7, 2011

losing our property virginity

Those of you who watch HGTV know that “Property Virgins” is a show about people buying their very first place. 
Because I’ve been house hunting since March 2009, YES, 2 YEARS AGO, you cannot imagine how many episodes of Property Virgins/House Hunters/My First Place/anything on HGTV I must have watched during that time. (Well on average, maybe 2 or 3 episodes a day = a LOT). Watching happy peoplemostly couplesget handed the keys to their first place never got old.
You also can’t imagine my elation when it was finally my turn to close! I had rented 3 places during that time span. I must have looked at over 50+ places. I had actually even been under contract for 3 different properties; running jokes galore with my lawyer indeed. I even got married somewhere in between (4 months ago to be exact). Yes that thwarted house hunting plans momentarily but shortly after, my husband and I were back full-throttle, devoting our weekends to open houses, realtor meetings, and endless online browsing. Only one place gave us the "ZOMG this place is awesome!!!" feeling. In true hustle bustle fashion, the day we closed on it was the same exact day we returned from our honeymoon.
But here I am now. Some girls dream about their wedding day, I always dreamed of stainless steel and lacquer finishes.
OK maybe not quite. But I'm a restless person and when it comes to decorating, I guess you could say I have lofty aspirations.