New Additions

We finally got our new furniture! We bought it back in November and it finally arrived on Saturday.

We got this small lamp-sized round table to go with the groovy polka dotted chairs and sparkly pillows. I'm not sure is that's where it will stay or not; I've found what I really need there is a footstool since my feet don't touch the floor.

And we got my new desk for the office. (I've been working off a drop-leaf table my mom gave me for my apartment in Sacramento. It is now holding the printer.)

And we got our king bed and mattress. I had my doubts about this bed, but I think it looks great. (We've been sleeping on a queen mattress that we had on the floor. Now that one is upstairs on its bed frame as a guest bed—just in time for mom's visit!) The lighting isn't very good for pictures in our room, but here it is. Along with the bed-in-a-bag set we got to fit it. (I figured out after taking the pictures that the comforter should have been rotated so that the stripes go side-to-side.)

They called the bed Mount Vernon because it's supposed to be a (mostly) historically accurate reproduction of George Washington's bed and the detail work is taken from his original drawings for the Purple Heart medal. All very interesting, but not the reason we bought it.

A lot of the furniture out here is either really, really ornate (like Baroque ornate), or really, really plain (but still costs as much as the ornate stuff). This bed sort of struck a balance between the two and I liked the curved lines of the sleigh bed and the fact that it has a lower foot board than most of the sleigh beds we'd seen. And we also liked the options we had to choose from for stains and finishes.

Here's a close up of the detail work on the bed frame.

And lastly, the dining room table and chairs. This was the item that held up delivery of our order. All of the others were in stock, but the table and chairs were custom made in Pennsylvania by an Amish family that makes furniture. We had been looking at a lot of dining room tables and had seen a couple we sort of liked, but with this one we got to choose almost everything, and it was the same price as the as-is tables we had been looking at. So we figured, if it's going to cost the same amount on money, why not go with this set—it's made in the US (many of the others weren't), supports artisan furniture making, and we can get something we know we will like.

I was a little unsure about the legs, but I liked the gentle curves that weren't overly done up with decoration and I think it works well with the slightly curved table top. I chose the pedestal type base because those tables are supposed to store the table leaves when not is use, but apparently this one doesn't, so you're seeing it here with both leaves in the table because we don't have a way to protect them for storage yet.

These chairs are amazingly comfortable! I thought the saleslady was crazy when she said a wooden chair was comfortable, but I sat in one of these chairs for about 90 minutes while sifting through catalogs at the furniture store and wasn't at all fidgity. Scoob had picked out a different (upholstered) dining table chair, but I told him these would be easier to reupholster if we ever wanted to change the way they look.

I'm really happy with what we got, and as I've told Scoob, this furniture will last us a lifetime. Actually, what I told him was more like—this is heirloom-quality furniture so we'd better get busy so we have someone to pass it down to!