picky | River's world…..

Since I’m not on board with any of the hideous fabrics associated with the living room set my husband chose, shopping continues.

I stepped it up a notch last week and took him to an Ethan Allen showroom. And aside from the fact it was the smallest store we’d been to, they only had one hard backed sofa.

Which was too low, too square and too soft for my Goldilocks spouse.

Factor in most of their couches were over $5,000 a piece, even the simple ones like this, and it was a hard pass.

Next up was the store where I started my search with my girlfriend a few months ago. They had two sets I thought might work.

But Mr, Picky vetoed this one because of the T shaped couch cushions.

Really?

At this point I thought he was just being obstinate on purpose and didn’t want new furniture. But when I brought him to set #2….

Hard backed, rolled full arms, not too deep, available with firm cushions.

Could it be?

A long discussion was had with the (very patient) salesman about features and quality…

These arms were an eighth of an inch different in size… noticeable to no one on earth except my husband who worked quality control in the Marine Corps.

But despite the glaring anomaly, the husband agreed that this set might work. They even had the pattern he’d picked out at a previous store, seen on the back of the chair above.

I vetoed that as it was probably too light for our white walls and rather liked this one.

When I asked if I could bring a few swatches home, I was told yes… for a price. For a deposit of $50 each I came home with 5. The $263 to be refunded to my card when I returned them.

Geesh.

Lord Dudley seemed partial to this one.

But as I suspected…. it’s too light and bright for our all white walls not to mention my husband’s feet on an ottoman.

I need more contrast of color and though I really didn’t want blue….

This one might work.

😊

The weather is getting warmer and that means the barn porch furniture needs to migrate from the man cave to its outdoor home.

Which is going to leave a big hole in the room. Solution? Two manly leather club chairs and a table. Unfortunately this meant prolonged shopping excursions with the husband. And trust me… when it comes to picky, women have nothing on my other half. When we need new furniture, I usually do the scouting and narrow it down to 3 choices. Anything more than that overloads his senses. So imagine my ~~unmitigated horror~~ surprise when he suggested we make a day of it.

Yes, that’s close.

Off we went down to Portland. First stop was Jordan’s furniture which is a truly massive multi level store. They had a nice selection of leather but nothing pleased the husband.

This was the first chair we saw and I thought it was perfect.

The husband liked it, but wanted to keep looking.

This chair? Too saggy.

This chair? Too deep.

This chair? Too small. Store after store after store and he didn’t like anything.

Now don’t get me wrong, it’s a big purchase and I want him to be happy but after visiting 8 stores over the course of 6 hours, Goldilocks still wasn’t satisfied.

The first chair had my vote and I lobbied hard. Nice grade of leather, perfect size, good color, and firm cushions. Husband wanted another look, so back to Jordan’s we went. He gave it a second test drive and agreed it was the best we’d found. I thought we were done and gave silent thanks to all the Gods I don’t believe in. Shiva, you rock!

I positively swooned when the husband had a salesman print out an estimate thinking the ordeal was over…. but when my spouse found out their warehouse was in NH and there would be a $150 charge to deliver the chairs to Maine? He said we would drive to NH the following day. Five hours on the road, in his old 8 foot bed Ford pickup just to save $150. It will probably cost us that in gas.