As most of you know, Mike and I found out that the cost of shipping our furniture to Chicago was too high so we sold everything and showed up with our mattress, our clothes, and our kitchen items. That means we've spent hours upon hours surfing every furniture website out there looking for the right pieces to furnish our new apartment. We know that this is an apartment and someday we will own a home again so we want to find middle-of-the-road furniture. We chose two rooms to make nicer and spend a bit more on (the master and the living room) and two rooms where we are going to save a little bit (the dining room and the guest room/den) but in both categories we are still looking for pretty middle-of-the-road furniture. It's been tough not having much furniture, it means that it hinders the unpacking process (I can't unpack clothes when I don't have a dresser here to unpack into) and my husband does not like clutter or messes.
One of the very first items we purchased was a new bed. We knew we were keeping our mattress and that having a comfortable, settled place to sleep would do wonders so we searched high and low for a bed that we both loved. We settled on the Mod Upholstered Bed from West Elm - the price point is pretty middle of the road and we liked the style, it fit the overall feel we were going for. We had seen the bed in the store, Mike liked it, and while my tastes are always more girly I thought this was a nice option.
I'll save you all of the details but it's been a bit of a nightmare since then. We scheduled delivery for the afternoon of 4/30, the day we moved into our apartment. I asked for an afternoon delivery window since we were moving in that day. We received a call the afternoon before delivery to let us know our delivery time window was 10:30-12:30...not exactly afternoon. We left early from Springfield to get into town in time to meet the delivery man. We asked for a 30 minute call ahead to make sure we were already in town. At 10:10 on 4/30 I received a call that the delivery man was already at our front door. We begged him to stay 20-30 minutes which is when we would arrive at the apartment. This started the chaos of being overly stressed and frustrated, desperately trying to drive the final miles as quickly as possible. When we arrived we were told the delivery guy had left at least 20 minutes earlier. We were upset and frustrated but West Elm forces you to use a delivery service so we blamed the delivery company way more than West Elm at that point. West Elm was kind and offered us a $100 gift card to make up for the confusion. Delivery was rescheduled for 9:30-11:30 on Saturday. The guys showed up at 8:15 AM and assembled the bed. They were okay, not great. They finished up and we were happy to have that saga over. Or so we thought.
We enjoyed sleeping in our new bed and were happy with how the room was coming together. We decided to paint the wall behind the bed because I'm crazy and my husband is the sweetest ever. We pulled the bed out a few inches so he could get behind the bed to paint the wall. Woohoo! I loved the color (no give aways - pictures coming after the room in finished) and we were ready to pull the bed the few inches back into place so we could hop into bed for the night. As we started moving the bed we heard a crack and the bed went down. Yep, one of the legs broke off of the frame. We wanted to cry. I eventually did cry (a long, hard cry with my mom...thanks mom). West Elm offered us a full refund of every last penny spent on the bed or a replacement bed. There was no way we wanted a replacement if a leg could break off that easily so we've opted for the full refund. I'm thankful for that.
We are sorely suffering from decision fatigue (try picking out a new bed, sheets, duvet, night stand, dining table, dining chairs, bar cart, couch, chair, coffee table, end table, china hutch, and dresser then let me know how your decision making abilities are doing...pile of mush will be the answer). So, I chose one store that I know has good quality furniture and great styles (Room & Board), we went there, found a new bed, and bought it. It will be here on Thursday (hurray!)...but, West Elm's delivery service won't be here to get the broken bed before then. So, we took apart the bed.
We were amazed at the shotty quality of the bed. The slats were "screwed in" but the screws they used weren't long enough and a majority of the slats were either already detached from the frame or pulled up with extreme ease. It's been a beast to take apart but my husband is amazing and figured it out. At least we can sleep on our mattress (on the floor) tonight as opposed to the air mattress we had to sleep on last night. Our new bed will be here in two days and then hopefully most of this will be behind us. I can assure you that we will not be buying any more furniture from West Elm. West Elm has great design aesthetic but they really lack in the quality of the product. We will gladly pay a bit more to have a piece that we can confidently lay down on. Neither of us is even close to 200 lbs. so one would think a bed would last a long time. Oh well.
We're still here and we still love each other. Some day we will look back and laugh but for now we are just glad that there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel. It's a perfect story to represent how the things that we thought would be easy can end up being very difficult. But, the good news is that the reverse can hold true, too - things we expected to be difficult can sometimes turn out to be a cake walk. We appreciate your prayers and all the texts that we've received. Keep them coming, they help remind us that while we may be alone in the city we have friends and community who are cheering us on, even if it's from afar.
That's terrible! It's hard to believe a newly bought bed would break off so easily, but I guess everything has its weak point. Anyway, I do hope the newer bed will prove to be more reliable than the previous one. Thanks for sharing that, Samantha! All the best!
ReplyDeleteBradford Mckenzie @ Heber Appliance