Huzzah! A New Dresser!

¡Por fin! The dresser issues of early 2010 are over!

As you may recall, I have been agitating for a new dresser for some time now. Snowpocalyse 2010 and a minor snowstorm the weekend before kept IP and me indoors during our planned dresser shopping trips, so we put the shopping off until I returned from a visit to Michigan. Then we purchased our honeymoon trip and didn’t feel like dropping more money at that moment. Then one of IP’s drawers became stuck and its contents can only be accessed if you take out the drawer above it. Then the drawer that you have to take out fell on my foot.

Oh, no. As they say, it was on.

We finally buckled down and planned to do it this past weekend. I chose a few stores to visit and we consulted on the style, size, and color of our dresser-to-be. The stores we hit were Room Store, Marlo Furniture, Little Homestead Furniture, and Havertys. Originally, Havertys wasn’t on our list, but we noticed it as we drove by and decided to stop by juuuuuust in case (and keep in mind that this just-in-case was IP-directed; whereas I tend to settle on something quickly, he likes to take one last look around).

First it was Room Store. I had purchased sofas and my dining room set from them when I first arrived in D.C. Not top of the line, of course, but at this point IP and I aren’t looking for permanent pieces—just something sturdier than Target and that’ll last at least until we move out West. I had picked out this piece when doing my dresser blogging, but didn’t recognize it at the time:

So when IP and I saw it again, it was a contender: right size, right style, right color. The addition of a mirror would be a bonus—on the spot, I realized that it wouldn’t be half bad to have another mirror to have in addition to the small, decorative one already in the bedroom. The price wasn’t bad, but I had a few qualms about the drawers’ durability. IP was a bit alarmed to open up one of the drawers to see building instructions included; let’s just say he didn’t want to have to build the thing after paying so much for it.

But we marked it as the top contender from Room Store, asked for the salesman’s business card, and zoomed off to Marlo.

Which was a bust. I saw nothing even remotely appealing.

We then decided to go to Little Homestead Furniture. I cautioned IP that I had seen that prices were expensive, but they were beyond what I was expecting. Ouch! If we were settling into a home in Colorado, I might go for these pieces (which were lovely and came in a variety of options). We weren’t angling to spend that much money, nor did we have a forever quality piece in mind. We had gone to this store when I was furniture shopping back in 1996, but I bet we left pretty quickly, just like we did this time.

So, because I like to get things done painlessly, I was set to go with the Room Store one. IP asked if there were any other stores within our shopping range, and I remembered seeing Havertys (which I remembered by another name, so I couldn’t find it when I searched on Google). But drive over there we did since a) we needed to turn around and pass it on the way to the Room Store, anyway, and 2) IP wanted to make sure we’d exhausted our options.

So, stepping into Havertys, we headed to the second floor to scout out the dressers. A few struck our fancy, but they were the wrong colors. Walking about, we finally stumbled onto this dresser/mirror set and were immediately impressed:

It seemed sturdier than the Room Store one, and it was basically the same price. It was also prettier—I wasn’t totally in love with the Room Store set, but figured that it would do while we were here. But the Havertys set was a style that I really did like (as I pointed out in my dressers post of January, where I liked a Pottery Barn dresser that was basically the same style but only came in white.  See?), in the color we preferred, and was the size we wanted. I also was thrilled there were drawer handles instead of drawer knobs—IP complained that knobs tend to come loose, and I was of the same mind.

All in all, I was very happy that IP wanted to check one last place.

We placed the order and scheduled a delivery date. I have been counting down the minutes until the skin of my right hand’s middle finger no longer gets scraped off in an agonizing, cruel fashion.

The dresser and mirror are being delivered today, and I get to work from home. Does that not cap off how great this adventure has been?