I’m an HVGT fanatic. That’s HGTV to those of you who aren’t dyslectic, or in my case cross-eyed from spending so much time at the computer lately. Not enough time, apparently, was spent taking decorating advice from the experts.
I bought new family room furniture last week. This, after looking for months in any number of retail outlets and on line. You name it, I saw it. I mentioned that I watch HGTV, right? So, I should know all about color and scale and yada yada. So, why is it then that I now have an elephant and his little brother in the room?
I wanted leather mostly because I’ve developed a bad dust mite allergy and my allergist suggested that the next time I get furniture to go leather. I, of course, heard that as: You need to buy new furniture. You can see where I’m coming from.
Anyway, I made a to-scale rendering of the room on paper. I measured furniture in stores, made templates that I moved around on the paper to help me decide on my outside limits and my ideal limits for size. Yes, I recognize that it was anal. I figure, hey, I’m going to live with this stuff for a long time and I want it to be right. So, I finally find the perfect new leather pieces – a sofa and a loveseat. I’m excited. I buy them.
Today, they were delivered. Color – great! Texture – great! Comfort level – fantastic X 10! Scale – how did I go wrong??? It looked so perfect in the showroom and on my template. In my actual room, however, the two pieces look like over stuffed Dumbos. I don’t get it. Oh, it’s not horrible. It's kind of like looking in the mirror at my own rear view and thinking, "I didn't know my butt was that big." But the truth is, it is big. In fact, I think this furniture makes my butt look even bigger and that fries me too :o(
All right, it’ll work, but it feels more like a near miss than a bull’s eye and I'm not in love like I wanted to be. I’m thinking that now, the only thing to do is by a newer bigger house to go with it. So far, DH is not on board with that idea.
I did, however, have one shopping success. And of course, it was by accident which makes a mockery of my careful planning. I wanted a chair for my office. Just a little side chair that would look nice with the loveseat. First chair I saw, I liked and bought on sale, no less, and wow. It’s perfect.
Buddy and Sly think so too as you can see by this photo. Guess that should be a lesson to me. Next time I make a major new furniture buy (which will be oh - twenty years from now), screw the careful, painstaking planning and just buy the first thing that looks good.
So, how about you? Ever make a bad choice you have to live with? Car? Furniture? Husband? Lipstick? And what do you do when that happens? I mean, it’s not like I can shove these two elephants in my trunk and ask for my money back. It wasn’t their fault I was blind….
