During the two-and-a-half months we have been living in this rental house, there has been one particular loss from the fire that has affected me, and that was the loss of the recliner chair I used for sleeping. I vainly hoped that the propping up of myself with pillows would suffice for the duration of our stay here, but alas. After waking up every morning with “broken back syndrome” for the last few weeks, we knew there was no help for it. A new chair had to be purchased, and sooner rather than later.
To that end, I began late last week with an initial reconnaissance trip to The Big Tin Shed, a furniture warehouse here in Glendale that is truly a gigantic warehouse, with an enormous stock of every sort of furniture. It’s terrific fun going there just to browse, even if you’re not officially shopping, because they have so many odd and amusing pieces, such as this:
and this:
in addition to things you would actually WANT in your home. On that initial trip, I discovered not only a plethora of possibilities for bedroom furniture, and several sectional couches and a couch/loveseat combo that lit my fire — I also discovered that one of the reasons for their low prices on furniture is that they don’t waste one cent on air conditioning. The day we visited was only 108 outside, but inside, with no breeze, during monsoon, with humidity……… Let’s just say that between excursions to various departments, I made frequent stops to stand in front of the big fan they had running near the front of the store. However we were technically supposed to be scouting for recliners, so I had to restrain my enthusiasms and focus on the task at hand. I did in fact find a really excellent chair that was comfortable, very sturdy, just the right size, and not too expensive (though of course it wasn’t the cheapest thing in the store).
I came home with my information, and such pictures as I could manage in the dark with Geneva’s camera (which inexplicably refused to flash that day) and shared my news with Paul. However, we both agreed that one should not simply settle for the first thing one finds, but one should “shop around” before shelling out a few hundred dollars on this kind of purchase.
I had heard rave reviews about a discount furniture place over in the East Valley called The Dump, so we decided to get up early on Saturday morning, blow off shooting and karate, and take the family on an adventure to see this amazing place.
We had to stop by the house to hook up the trailer, and so of course we went inside to see the demolition progress. As you can see from the pics, all the walls, floors and ceilings are out. They have also pulled down the walls of the office addition on the back of the house and boarded up the house to keep out thieves (we’ve been hit twice now… both our ladders were stolen, and some contractor equipment was stolen as well). It’s a bit surreal to walk around the back of the house and see the door standing there but no walls… Also nice to see that they have put up the new siding along the most heavily burned side of the house, totally enclosing our bedroom. They’ll have to cut new windows down that side of the house eventually, but for now it is much more secure without them.
Then, having hooked up the trailer, we squashed our six sizable selves into the blue sedan (because it’s the only vehicle we have with a hitch, now that our old suburban is stationed permanently at the ranch as our water hauling truck) and proceeded on our way to the East Valley to see what we could see.
We arrived right at their 10am opening time, marveled at the marble tile on the walls as we approached the gleaming sliding glass doors and filed in with the other early-arrivers. The first thing that struck me was the up-scale warehouse ambiance, attractively arranged tableaux, subdued lighting, and squads of eager sales people. The further into the store we got, the more sales people we had to cordially greet. The prices were unremarkable except for their lack of discountedness. Certainly they were significantly higher – nearly double – the prices at our local furniture warehouse. I tried several recliners, but like Goldilocks, did not find one that was “just right” — and we ended up making our escape in under a half hour.
As we trudged disappointedly back to the car, it was very clear to us all that we had learned one valuable lesson through the experience. We are not East Valley material!! We do not like high pressure sales tactics. We do not like high prices that claim they are discounts. And we REALLY do not like having to drive 30 miles squashed into a small car pulling a trailer and getting 8 miles to the gallon only to find that the deals were much better where we started.
We are not shiny people! We are down to earth.
We are West Side.
So, back to the Big Tin Shed we went, and fortunately we did not need to take long there because I knew precisely what I wanted to buy. I did manage to get some pics of my dream couch/loveseat, and a recliner that was actually way too big even for me, and a simple black bedroom set that probably has too many pieces to fit in my bedroom, and some truly amazing rococo furniture that made us all laugh.
Finally back at home, after a few more errands, such as taking the girls to Verizon to replace their dead cell phone, and taking Jacob to Wal-mart to purchase a nerf water canon for which he had been saving, we got the chair unpacked from its box and settled into its new spot. And after two nights in it, I can say it was an excellent choice, and I am no longer waking up with broken back syndrome. Thanks be to God for restful, pain-free sleep!!
