Get Comfortable

One of the great things about moving, from the perspective of someone who loves to shop (that would be me), is that you have a built-in excuse for buying new stuff. In our case that meant primarily items related to more effficient use of the storage space available to us. But eventually we arrived at the point where we had to consider some new furniture items.

Now, people who know me know that I frickin' LOVE furniture shopping. I'm not entirely sure why that is, but I definitely like being comfortable and being surrounded by nice things. I like going to the stores and seeing all the different styles available. I like sitting in sofas and chairs and imagining how things would look in my home. I like the idea that the pieces I choose are on display in my home, and that my choices communicate my style to my guests.

Beyond all the aesthetic reasons, furniture is so expensive relative to most things we buy that it triggers the need to feel like you're getting a good deal while still buying something of quality that is going to last and serve you well, which ties in very nicely with the bargain-hunting impulse that I've cultivated for more than two decades.

But you don't want to take that too far, or you can end up furnishing your entire home (if you happen to live in the northeastern part of the country) with cheap, scary stuff from the Christmas Tree Shops. Don't get me wrong, "The Tree" is useful for mundane household things (just ask my mother), but their furniture selection is limited and of questionable quality and taste. Besides, do you really want to have to assemble every single piece of furniture you own? I actually love putting stuff together, but It's nice to feel that you've reached a point in your life where you can buy something that's fully assembled, and will be delivered for you, instead of having to recruit (and bribe) your buddies to help you fetch it.

This is the frame of mind we were in when we set out in search of a new TV stand and coffee table. (The table got back-burnered in favor of a new and larger dresser for my wife, but we'll get back to it eventually.) The item I was looking to replace was a piece of wood-grained, particle-board crap that my roommate Sandra and I had bought for about $30 some time around '89 or '90 at the now-defunct discount store Bradlees. (What's really frightening is that, even though Bradlees went bankrupt and closed all its stores years ago, the company that made the TV stand still sells basically the exact same style of stand with a slightly different finish. Yikes.)

Why it was still holding up my television nearly two decades later is a question I can't give a satisfactory answer to, but I decided that after we had moved I was going to replace it. The Mrs. wanted to shop at Jordan's Furniture if possible, because they do a lot of great work in support of local adoption and foster-parent programs, so off we went to the insanely large indoor amusement park that is the newest Jordan's store, in Reading, MA, a few miles north of where we live. We had no trouble finding several styles we liked, but nothing really wowed either of us, so we agreed to keep looking.

Around the time we started shopping, we hit 20,000 points in our American Express rewards program, and I wanted to see if we could cash in those points toward the imminent purchase. I found we could indeed get a $100 AmEx gift card for the 20K points, but if we chose a gift card for a particular store, the same number of points would get us $200. Unfortunately AmEx offers only national retailers' gift cards, so we would have to look elsewhere. I happened across Crate & Barrel's Cadence plasma stand and was immediately attracted to its clean lines and warm finish. It was made in the US of real wood, was on sale, and we could get a $200 Crate & Barrel gift card from American Express to put toward the purchase. Beyond all that, I'm gearing up to get a new TV, and it's wide enough to hold up to a 50" plasma or projection set. Sold!