Baby Furniture

by BDaigle

We got baby furniture delivered last week. I was scared and with good reason. Since we moved into our new house in New Orleans back in September, we have purchased a lot of furniture and I have learned one lesson over and over and over and over and over and over.... you get the idea......and over again. The less expensive the furniture, the better the chance it needs assembly and the difficulty of the assembly increases with the decrease in purchase price.


This is our living room. The couch is the most expensive piece. It was purchased from a furniture store. It was delivered, put exactly where I wanted and the movers even placed the cushions. Perfect.

The chair and ottoman were purchased from a store that sold "home furnishings". We haggled to get it in the color we wanted and had to wait for it to come in to stock. I picked it up and brought it home and unpacked it. Assembly consisted of putting on the feet of the chair and ottoman. Not too bad and it was decently priced.

The coffee table was a gift I got for Melissa for Christmas the year before we got married. I bought it from World Market and it was an average price for a coffee table. It's all real wood and assembly was simple because it's a coffee table. I was very pleased with myself.





This is our entertainment center and it consists of 3 pieces. We bought it from Crate & Barrel and it was delivered via UPS. Crate & Barrel is not what I would call an inexpensive place to shop. It looks like it came from a furniture store but it required assembly. This took me about two hours to put together and only because I was being VERY careful not to scratch anything. Super simple assembly.




This is our dining room. The hutch in the back came from World Market and was bought in Lafayette right after we got married. It cost about average for that piece of furniture. I had to bring it home, but it came mostly assembled and was easy to put together.

The dining room table was a steal from a furniture store. It has a built-in leaf and expands to seat six. It took forever to come in but it was delivered and required no assembly. I call it the exception to the rule.



These are our dining room chairs. They did not come with the table. The chairs that came with the table were hideous. We chose not to purchase them. We did not find these dining room chairs until about a month and a half ago at World Market. They are cheap compared to anything you can find in a furniture store. They are difficult to put together and I'm fairly handy. I'm not Bob Vila, but I can handle an allen wrench. These things require glue and have to be leveled. They take about 45 minutes each. Do the math. I spent 4.5 hours over 2 days putting these beasts together. These things are prime examples of my rule, but they are not the best example.


Meet my barstools. I have four of these. They came from World Market. I searched for weeks online and in furniture stores for barstools and was amazed at how expensive they were. Then I found these at World Market and was stunned that they were exactly what I was looking for and that they were so cheap! This should have set off warning bells, but I was a victim of sticker price lust. These things are my dining room chairs times two. Do you know how hard it is to level a barstool? Then to add insult to my stupidity, the undersides of these things just simply Velcro on and off. Its like a slap in the face to fight this chair for an hour and then have the last step be to simply Velcro the final piece on. These bad boys take over an hour each to assemble. Their picture goes by the rule in the dictionary.

Now you might think this might be leading all up to a horror story about my baby furniture, but no. We bought the set at Babies R Us for a moderate price and had it delivered, but not unpacked nor assembled. For the record, Melissa was afraid that they delivery MAN would die in our home. Apparently, the delivery MAN (not delivery men), Alonzo, was pushing 60, had a beer belly the size of a keg, varicose veins in his legs, and a back brace. According to Melissa, he wheezed, hacked, coughed, and gagged the three pieces of baby furniture up to the nursery. I say it was money well spent on delivery and asked her why she didn't videotape it for America's Funniest Home Videos.

Here's the furniture that almost took a man's life.



This is the dresser. It required no assembly but I did have to unpack it and move it into position.


This is the chest of drawers. Again, no assembly required, but I did unbox it and wiggle it against the wall.




This is the crib. Later on it can be changed into a full size bed whenever needed with the addition of some rails. It did require assembly. It maybe took me 30 minutes to put together not counting the naggi...I mean...advice and counseling from Melissa.

The lesson is: Calm down your inner-Horecky when shopping for furniture and never trust deals on any piece meant to put your butt on.