Sunday, October 07, 2007

Eureka!!!

Or Topeka!!! if you're Tigger. We are now the proud owners of a five-piece dinette. It's the perfect size, the perfect color, the perfect style and more than the perfect price.

The wood pieces in our family room and kitchen area are Mission style in a warm honey oak. It seems like most of the small tables we found in the right color were more of a farm style with turned legs and I didn't think that would work well with the simple style of the Mission furniture.

Here's a synopsis of our search for the elusive dinette set:

Table at local furniture store - Right size. Decent price ($350.00). Good style. Color questionable. (Two toned with a warm oak top and antique white legs. Also the chairs were antique white arrowback chairs. Cute set, but not what I had in mind for this area.)

Table at Snyder's Furniture in Lancaster - Right size. Right style. Pretty good color. Un-good price ($1,850.00) 'nuff said.

Internet Searches:

Sears - Right size. Right style. Color looked good. Decent price ($275.00), but chairs weren't included. Couldn't even find the chairs on-line.

Ikea - Right size. Right style. Excellent price ($119.00). Totally wrong color. (Very light oak.)

Furniture XO - Right size. Right style. Seems to be right color. Price a little higher. ($590.00)

I must have browsed through ten or so internet sites looking for a simple little table. I tried Penny's, HomeDecorators, Boscov's, Target, Walmart, and a whole host of others to no avail. Until I checked K-Mart. There it was. The perfect size. The perfect style. The perfect color. The perfect price of $159.00. And they only wanted $115.00 to ship it to me. (Is it just me or does that seem like an outrageous sum to anyone else?)

After writing down the information I started calling the local K-Marts to see if they had it. And really, I wanted to actually see it and touch it and jiggle it before I bought it because it was K-Mart. Know what I mean?? I was informed that the stores don't necessarily have the same stock as on-line and the numbers I had were different than the in store products. But I might want to check the store in Exton.

So after a wild day of cleaning yesterday, the family loaded up into The Beast (Todd's truck) and headed to Exton - about a 30 minute drive or so. We started out by eating an early dinner at Cheeseburger in Paradise where Todd and I successfully grossed out our children by our sassy banter with slightly inappropriate undertones and "those" kinds of glances. Then we ran across the street to K-Mart and they had the table on the floor, but not in stock. At least we were able to see the table and it wasn't flimsy like we anticipated. I was also able to write down the box number they use for stocking so I could call the other K-Marts in the area and better determine if they had it or not.

After that we went to a nice outdoor shopping center and walked around before leaving to come home. Since we'd had an early dinner we decided to stop for ice cream on our way home. The kids got to choose where to stop and they picked Handel's - basically on the way home, though off the beaten path.

We ate our yummy ice cream and then headed for home again. Instead of getting back to the freeway the way we'd come, we went a different way. And passed a K-Mart. Todd flipped the truck around, he and I ran in and they had two stacks of boxes. AND instead of the $159.99 that was advertised, it was actually on sale for $127.99!

So now I can stop dreaming about dinette tables. The size is perfect. The style is perfect. The color is perfect. And the price was even more perfect than we at first thought.

And that's the story of the kitchen table adventure.

Labels: interior decorating

Mused by Jenster :: 2:39 PM :: 22 People musing:

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