Wah, Wah, Wah

Seems like all I do here lately is rant. Here's another. You've been warned. You still have time to leave.

I am very slow to make changes around the house. First of all I don't really like to spend large sums of money unless it's on travel or jewelry. When it comes to that, I can rationalize anything. Paul, not so much. He doesn't like to spend money on anything.

As for the house, I am never quite sure what I want and I also hate living under construction, no matter how minor. Not that we haven't done some major renovations over the nearly 25 years here. We finished the lower level years ago and it still looks great. We replaced the kitchen and one bath. The roof is new, as is the deck and we painted the outside a few years ago. Sounds like I'm writing an ad for one of my listings.

As a real estate agent I see lots of nice houses. You would think that would encourage me to keep my own house updated. Not really. First there's the money, secondly I don't trust my own decisions. When it comes to choosing paint, furniture, etc., I'm always second guessing myself. I like it now but will I still like it next week, next month, next year? Trust me, if it goes up, it'll be there for a while.

Recently we had all of our windows replaced which meant most of the woodwork throughout the house needed to be painted. We have/had a great guy who has done all the painting and papering in our house; all of it. Unfortunately for us, Gerry has left the business and gone into another. I figured this might be the time for me to learn to paint.

Gerry does a fabulous job, no one is better. So I decided to ask him for information about how to prep and paint the dark wood that is everywhere in this house built in the 1980's. Gerry gave me step-by-step detailed instructions right down to the number of sheets of the different grit sandpaper to buy. I told him he should be teaching this.

As I was going along, whenever I ran into a point where I wasn't sure how to do something, I kept asking myself WWGD? As in What Would Gerry Do? Paul got pretty tired of me replying...."Gerry said...." whenver he offered an opinion. I have been going along very slowly and it looks great.

Our living room furniture should have been replaced five years ago. I won't go into the details of its condition because it's too embarassing but it was bad enough that one day recently Paul came home to find it on the front lawn on it's way to the street. That was the only way I could be sure I would get out and buy new.

That's generally how I get started on projects. One afternoon Paul took a nap in the den and woke up to find the shower doors on the deck. Another time he heard me yelling for help and came in to find me struggling to keep a row of kitchen cabinets up. I thought I had all the screws out of the wall and ceiling. Nope, there was one I missed and I couldn't get to it and hold the cabinets up. So anyway he knew what it had in mind when he saw the furniture on the lawn. Now I have mentioned that I really don't care to shop, furniture shopping being my least favorite. But since they won't bring the samples here I have to go there.

After a bit of looking around we found a sofa, love seat and chair that we really like. I know, very imaginative seating. Anyway, we liked the fabric on the samples in the showroom which they had in the warehouse and could deliver in two days but nooooo I had to have a coordinating fabric on the chair.

After a little time looking at fabric samples, we settled on one. The chair would take 4-6 weeks which was okay because we have other things to do. All set! Just some more paint, area rug, lamps and tables to find later. I had such a feeling of accomplishment when we left that store. In the meantime, we did find a rug and painted the walls. About three weeks ago I got a call from the store. So sorry but that fabric is no longer available. Please come in and choose another.

I wasn't happy but there was another I liked so I went back and got that arranged. Another 4-6 weeks to wait. Okay, we still have some things we can do. I'll be patient.

You guessed it. The sales person called last night to tell me that she had made an error and that fabric was for pillows only and couldn't be made into a chair. I really don't understand that but I don't care about the why, I'm just pissed that I have to make another trip there, for the third time, and choose a fabric I didn't really want in the first place and wait another 4-6 weeks.

I told her I would probably cancel the whole order, and she said she understood. I won't but at the moment I was considering it. I did tell her that if we find a third fabric which will now be okay rather than what I really wanted, I would be looking for some 'consideration' on the pricing. Oh yes, I understand. Maybe we can give you a gift certification towards a future purchase. Are you kidding?! Like I'm ever going to buy anything there again? No, I said, you can take some money off this purchase. That remains to be seen, of course.

So now this afternoon we are planning another trip back and I have a feeling I'm not going to be as pleasant as I was the other TWO times I had to do this.

If you are still with me, I'm sorry about the wah, wah, wah. But I bet you've been there, done that. Ain't service and quality control just a real treat now?