CB2@GEORGETOWN

CB2 in DC is now open!

I recently picked up my own CB2 peekaboo tables... still deciding where to put them!

All images, cb2. Final image, my own.

FOR SPRING: THE BUMBLEBEE

Yellow is summer sweet; black is a bit of a sting. The striped contrast of the bumblebee is a spring sign of both, and it's equal parts softness and daring when designing a room.

As it happens, I'm not designing anything right now, seeing as how I'm still moving/lacking most of my furniture. I'm also not decorating with black and yellow, but for some reason, I have rather a lot of it laying around. So I piled it all in one place (hoping against hope that it would resemble a couch). And then I went in search of other, better-composed palettes.

A pile of similarly colored items in my apartment.

Other people's piles...

Wearstler, Apartment Therapy, Canadian House and Home, Jenna Lyons, Wearstler.

PATTERNS IN PARADISE

Tobi Fairley, Traditional Home, May 2011

(MODERATELY) HAPPY (COUCH) ENDINGS

Thank you bloggy friends for all the great words of support and advice on what became The Couch Hunt From H-E-Double Hockey Sticks. I'm long delinquent in responding. Why? Because I have spent all of my waking hours on the Couch Hunt. And they have to be waking hours, because I do not have a couch on which to comfortably repose.

To summarize where we last left off, a couch I had ordered did not fit (or would not be fit, sans eager movers) into my home. Z Gallerie, purveyors of said couch, informed me of four things:

1) I could choose an exchange on their website.

2) I could have a full refund.

3) I could have a newer model of the couch that included removable feet, if I were willing to wait 8 weeks.

4) I could take the time I needed to make up my mind.

I considered an exchange for this lovely green couch - alas, also too large (or not!
Who knows if the dimensions are right!)

Funnily, not ONE of those things turned out to be true! The day after Mission: Couch Delivery failed, I left on a trip. During the time I was gone, I spoke with Z Gallerie several times, looked at various other couch options with them via phone, and was told to wait until I got back from my trip to make such a "big decision."  

As it turned out, I didn't have that much of a big decision to make - Z Gallerie had made it for me. I decided I probably wanted a refund, and when I called the consultant I was working with to discuss it, she put me on hold. And came back with new information. 

You know when your blood rushes really fast? And it sounds really loud in your ears? And you hear people say things to you like: You will not be getting a refund. You will not be getting an exchange. The couch is not available, new or old, with removable feet. And if you "refuse" the couch, it will be returned for a 50% restocking fee + delivery. Or, we can just send it to your building and leave it in the lobby for you to decide what to do with. 

You know that feeling? When I could speak again, I requested to direct that speech toward a supervisor, with whom I then began the Viscous Cycle of Admitting Denial Conversation. Yes, all of those things I was told were not true. But the other things I was just told were true. Yes, they took full responsibility for them. No, they would not take any ACTUAL responsibility for them. I was finally offered a 30% restocking fee + delivery fee... 

Alas, company culpability. In vain I pleaded my case - that the measurements they gave me for the couch were wrong and that this record-setting dispersal of misinformation included the other previously mentioned falsehoods. Nothing swayed them, not even the startling news that the couch - my couch - the couch that I apparently owned in a very irrevocable way - was now in parts unknown. 

WHAT?!?!?

Apparently, if you leave a couch sitting around a delivery company's warehouse for a week, they get really bored, and decide to send it back where it came from, and they don't necessarily feel the need to divulge that whim to, say, the person who owns the couch, or (and this is a crazy idea), the company who manufactured it. It was gone. 

But Patience, she is still a virtue. For 47 minutes, I stuck to my guns, puny guns, seeing as they had my money, and somewhere, my couch, but stick I did. We resolved the situation thusly: 

Me:  "What does your computer say is the height of the couch?"

Z Gallerie  "32 inches."

Me:  "Go to your website. What does the web page say is the height of the couch?"

Z Gallerie:  "31 inches."

And so herein lies the lesson:  your word against their word will get you nowhere. Their computer against their other computer will get you everywhere. Or, at least, a refund. 

For the record:

And now, the Couch Quest continues...

Sources: Cartoon; Giant sofa; green sofa and Pauline sofa and dimensions; scream.

THE GREAT SOFA DISASTER

HGTV's addictive properties:  I watch, even when it drives me crazy. Like when, yet AGAIN, another homeowner orders a piece of furniture that won't fit through the front door and the whole thing turns into the home decor version of a scary surgery nightmare:  The saws! The hammers! The spurting cushion foam!

And then I did it too. Rewind to last Friday, now a reminder that the Ides of March don't confine themselves to Romans. I'd ordered a beautiful new couch - The Couch - from Z Gallerie, for which I'd been waiting months, since it was being custom upholstered in a grey velvet fabric. In case I hadn't mentioned it (which I haven't), I just moved to D.C. and I'm furnishing my new apartment, which is really fun, and also really annoying, because you do things like sit on your living room floor for weeks waiting for a couch to come.

And then it only comes as far as the lobby. 

The Couch (wrong color). Love the tuxedo style and nailhead detail.

Just like the Roman generals of that other fateful March, I had to evaluate my strategy - what went wrong? It turned out to be a classic battlefield maneuver:  I was taken by surprise. You see, I did all the reasonable things one does when preparing for a couch. I measured the elevator. I measured the door. I checked these measurements against the couch measurements. What I forgot to check, it turns out, was Z Gallerie. Because the couch I got vs. the measurements I got, were... different. 

The delivery guys, whose helpfulness was directly inverse to the number of stair flights between the lobby and my apartment, began highlighting the failings of The Couch, beginning with the fact that the feet were not removable. It turned out the feet should have been removable, in fact. For some reason, I'd been sent the old design... unlike the happy customer earlier that day, to whom, they assured me, they had easily been able to deliver the couch by popping off 5 inches of feet. The dispatcher that I spoke with on the phone had other ideas about the issue - "It's all your problem," was his thoughtful analysis.

I was so desperate to get it in the door, I began hallucinating.

So I stood out on the stoop and waved goodbye to my beautiful grey velvet couch as the deliverymen callously tossed the (now-unwrapped) cushions directly onto the dirty floor of the truck bed and drove away. (P.S. the truck was actually sporting Williams-Sonoma logos, as the delivery company works for them, as well as PotteryBarn and Z Gallerie.)

So, bloggerland, here are the options for bringing seating happiness to my humble home. Please log your vote in the comments!

Option One:  Full refund. Walk away, or rather sit away, with no couch. 

And start the hunt all over again. A tall order. Or a short one, if you're going by inches.

(I liked this Crate and Barrel sofa - for $500 more.)

Option Two:  Z Gallerie mans up and sends me what I should have gotten to start with:  a new couch. With removable feet. The catch? They refuse to promise it any sooner than 2 to 3 months from now, a bit surprising since I was unwittingly helping them get rid of old stock. Basically, I will have spent half a year waiting on ONE COUCH. What are they doing - still growing the trees for the frame? 

(The Couch. Again.)

Option Three:  Choose another Z Gallerie couch in a stock finish I can "live with."

(Couch in Pearl... velvet? Microfiber? Description doesn't say.)

What do you think?

Image credits:  car/couch, bent sofa, z gallerie sofas, z gallerie.

CHINA RED... CHIPPENDALE

SHOPPING OPTIONS

Red Fretwork Tables, Horchow

Fretwork Table Lamp, Horchow

Ralph Lauren Red Pagoda China (Cookie Jar, Five-piece Setting, Salt & Pepper)

Chippendale Fretwork Settee, James and Jeffrey Antiques, First Dibs

Noble Excellence Red Fretwork Bedding, Dillards

Harris Rubin Red Bookcase, Dennis Miller Associates

Fretwork Pattern Candle Sleeves, Kaarskoker

Red Fretwork File Box, Neiman Marcus

Chinese Fretwork Lantern, Vaughan

And you can always wear it... Judith Leiber pagoda bag and Redux Charles Chang-Lima One-Shoulder Chiffon Ruffle gown, Neiman Marcus

Product images, companies as attributed.

Fretwork ceiling/Fretwork chair/Miles Redd living room, Elle Decor/John Loecke tablescape (via Peak of Chic)/ Woodson and Rummerfield red trim room (via Peak of Chic)/ Pagoda wallpaper room via CocoCozy/

CAVEAT EMPTOR

I have confessed a lot of addictions on this blog... pillow addictions... lamp addictions... but my latest and greatest obsession is One King's Lane. The prices! The brand names! The buy-it-or-else excitement! The prices! The selections are on-trend and quality, and the marketing geniuses at OKL recently launched an even more thrilling twist on the designer fire sale:  vintage, antique, or gently used pieces chosen by "tastemakers" - a.k.a. Famous Names. This makes for some of the most interesting screen shopping of all, but lately, I've been hesitating to click "buy." It's easy to compare values, on, say, Ralph Lauren Home lamps or Mansour rugs, but antique or vintage items are one of a kind, and I've haggled with enough sellers over the years to know that value is in the eyes of the beholder. Sometimes, the prices on OKL seem quite good. At other times, they're whimsical, if not downright arbitrary. But without the ability to lay hands and eyes on the product, or compare it to anything else, who knows? Well, now I do.

A few years ago, I fell head over for a pair of ceramic parrots offered by Anthropologie. They were priced somewhere between $60 and $90 - more than I wanted to spend, and after a little web stalking, I managed to catch them on sale for $30. Victory! They've been prized ever since.

"Front" view

"Back" view

So imagine my surprise when I found the exact same pair on One King's Lane this weekend, for $275 (listed with an even higher "original" cost of $550 retail). They're absolutely identical to my own, but with a hefty price tag - an increase of around three times their original selling value. That seemed more than a little steep.

"Front" view of the parrots.

A little more investigation on the world wide web revealed that these aren't even off the market - you can buy them brand new over at Shop/10/25. Cost? $120, less than half the price of the "gently used" - not antique or vintage - pair at OKL.

"Back" view of the parrots.

So there you are. If you are so enamored with a Tastemaker item that value is secondary, by all means click away. But caveat emptor - there are no guarantees that what you get is worth the price.

All images, companies as attributed.