Making The House A Home

I have come to the sad conclusion that coffee tables are the furniture-world equivalent of printer ink. Seriously, if you somehow managed to liquefy every suitable coffee table I've looked at in the past ten days, and then put the slag in plastic jugs, I swear they'd be asking eighty bucks a gallon for that shiat. There is no damn reason they should be as expensive as they are. I've been shopping for one almost constantly since I got the new sectional last weekend, and I'm getting to the point where I just throw my hands up in exasperation and head over to the loading dock at the grocery store to steal some milk crates and wooden pallets, then set up a ghettofabulous contraption reminiscent of my days as a starving college student.

Nobody has ever accused me of being cheap, but damn, I just don't want to spend $300+ on a frickin coffee table. I'll never get one with a glass top, I don't like stone, and I refuse to get anything that has curved legs or a cherry finish. Ugly ugly ugly! Ideally, I'd like to get an all-wood lift-top model in the mission style, with a medium finish. Is that too much to ask? Seriously? I mean--I'd be willing to pay $250 for it, but $300 just seems like a psychological barrier for me.

I don't know why--maybe because I can get a full-on 6-piece dining room table for just fifty dollars more, which sounds like a bargain in my book. Or that when I consider all of the materials, labor, and craftsmanship that went into building my sectional, it only cost $900 or so before taxes and such. It seems to me that a few pieces of wood and six bucks worth of hardware and springs should absolutely not cost a third of what I paid for my goddam couch.

I'm sure that if I want one badly enough I'll eventually suck it up, quit bitching, and just pay for the damn thing, but it's still gonna piss me off.

In the meantime, I did a little more shopping today--this time I headed over to Bed Bath & Beyond. I finally found some decent hanging wire baskets for the kitchen, and I also got a big airtight canister for my coffee that would look nice on the counter. I also went browsing in the clearance section, and lucked into a nice looking nightstand that was on sale for $35 (down from it's original price of $80). I liked it so much that I almost bought two of them, but then I reconsidered--I really don't need two nightstands, and I'll probably just put another bookshelf or something over on the far side of the bed, anyways.



UPDATED

Wouldn't ya know it--after my righteous rant about not finding anything suitable for less than $300, I went on a Google Image Search for 'mission style lift top coffee table' so I could have a photo for the upper right-hand side of my post, like I normally do. It pointed me to a link at homedecorators.com, and they had exactly what I was looking for--for only $198. SCORE!!!

So I snapped that thing up and it's getting shipped out tomorrow. Hell yeah.



I feel much better now. And I'm looking forward to having something to set my feet rum drink on while I watch football. Wow--what an amazing find.

Mikey