Over the weekend Peter and I went furniture shopping to spend some of our wedding money and make our humble abode a little less hood. Specifically, we're looking for a new dining room table and chairs (I think our current one cost $199 at Zellers. My former roommate, who for anonymity's sake we'll call Melissa Kennedy, broke one of the chairs one time and it needed to be welded in seven places) and a bedroom set. Our bed has no headboard and we have two dressers and one nightstand, none of which are a set or even similar in wood tone. It feels like colonial New England/Ikea/forest cabin in here. It's like the Rainbow Valley of furniture. Needless to say new furniture is exciting for us as old married folk and all. The biggest thrill of our day is seeing what's in the mailbox and listening to the police news on the scanner.

So we found a dining room set and a bedroom set that we both love on the weekend. The bedroom set we liked best is from a large national chain but we found it at a discount store as well for a much better price. The guy working that day, Justin, who was wearing a rainbow plaid shirt I haven't quite forgotten, quoted us $2,000 for the entire set which is a pretty amazing deal. The set includes a queen canopy bed, dresser, chest of drawers, mirror, and two nightstands.

Side note: Are furniture salespeople the most stealth people on the planet? You're walking around the showroom and they're just THERE in front of you with deals, deals, deals! Like they dropped out of the rafters or something. It's very offputting, IMHO.

Tonight, we went to order the furniture. We went to get the bedroom set first. Rainbow Justin wasn't working and his coworkers said the best they could do was $2,500 taxes in. They said $2,000 wasn't even possible and that Somewhere Over the Rainbow Justin is "new to the job" and didn't know what he was talking about.

Naturally I was all "THAT'S FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS' DIFFERENCE!" and flounced around amongst the bedroom sets in a huuuuge huff and left the store with a satisfying snotty whoosh. As I whooshed, I wondered if we should have just taken the set for $2,500. It's still an amazing deal and still much less than what the chain is asking.

What would you guys do? Take the set for $2,500 or haggle and argue for the $2,000 we were initially quoted?

Things to consider:

-I hate bartering prices. I feel like riffraff doing it. I like when the price is posted on something and I don't have to act like a greasebag trying to get a deal.

-That being said...it IS five hundred bucks. That's a lot of shoes.

What would you do?

We settled on this: we're going to call back when this Justin character is working, see if he can indeed get us the set for $2k, and even if not, we'll probably end up taking it for $2,500 provided they include delivery and perhaps installation. Peter is handy and all but if someone else wants to put together a bedroom set while we lounge with umbrella drinks and watch them I know which option I'm choosing.

We ordered our dining room set too. I can't wait to be EXCITED to sit at the table! Nine times out of ten I eat my food on the couch because our table and chairs suck so bad. They're fug and I don't want to sit at them. With the new table and chairs (WITH LEATHERY CUSHIONED SEATS!) meals at the table will be a fresh new experience! Computer work will be done at the table! Socializing will be done at the table! The couch is yesterday's news.

Oh yeah. The dining room set is on a boat coming from God knows where, Zimbabwe or someplace so it won't be here until December 15 at the earliest, and there's no guarantee it'll be in before Christmas. Womp-womp. Boats are barbaric. Who ships stuff by boat? Are we Christopher Columbus?

BTW: You're going to get a sneak peak into mi casa soon. There is an extra exciting project coming up that I'm very pumped about. It involves videos, a little friendly banter and some adult beverages. Stay tuned for more details. You might want to acquaint yourself with these people in advance.