That's better ...

Thanks to those that made it all the way through my rant yesterday. I'm still pissed at the store, but I'm over wanting that table set.

Marty and his boyfriend, Alan, were set to go visit a few more places with me yesterday. They're both late sleepers, though, so it was late afternoon before we even left their house. But - on the plus side - while we waited for Alan to wake up (at noon) and get ready (by 2), Marty dragged out his cleaning supplies and we vacuumed and washed my van. So it's all sparkly. After Marty took a shower and we each had a sandwich, we finally left just after 3pm.

The first place we stopped was here. They had some super nice stuff and a really nice sales person - no stress, no force, nothing. Just a pleasant guy that said hi and later came back to tell us they had extended their Labor Day sale through the day. Part of the sale was that if you bought a 5 piece dining table set, you would get 2 additional chairs for free.

Score.

We did find 2 sets that I really liked, but I couldn't decide between them. Plus we had a few more stores to look at. I didn't want to buy something at the first store we walked into without knowing that was the best deal I'd get on a set I liked.

Turns out it was. The other stores we went to were exceedingly expensive (as in - $900 for the table and $250 per chair).

The challenge was that Patrick, who was at work, had the money. And he'd have to do some transferring at his bank, which you can't do after 5pm. So even though the store was open until 9pm, there wasn't a way I could actually buy the set yesterday.

The sales person, though, decided to take the heat from their general manager and agreed to still let us have the 2 extra chairs free - even though the sale was technically over yesterday and definitely over today.

It's $99 for delivery and assembly. But I have the choice of just picking the furniture up at their distribution center. He did recommend paying the $29 for assembly, though. As he put it - if we picked it all up in boxes and we discovered something was scratched or damaged once we got it home, we'd pretty much be sol. But if they assemble it and we look at it and discover something's wrong, they'd order us a replacement piece on the spot.

So I opted to skip delivery but pay for the assembly.

The sales associate put it all into the computer and told me what to do to make sure I get the deal when we come back in.

The store from yesterday could really take some lessons in customer service from this place.

They don't have the set on their web site. But here's another set that I really wanted, even though I don't like golden oak color. I think the darkness of the chairs and accents on the table made up for it. I dunno. But it's nice and I wanted it and the 2 free chairs wouldn't have been necessary as there's already 5 chairs included. It was just a bit out of our budget, though. Sadness.

Patrick had to go into work early today, but he's going to try to get out of there early so we can head to the furniture store. I sent him pictures of the 2 sets I was looking at (not the one linked above since it was out of our price range) and he told me that he liked them both and to just pick one. But last night he had some questions - such as, how are 6 chairs going to fit around it since it's a fairly square table? Good question. I did rearrange the chairs to see for myself and 6 chairs is a bit much, but shit ... it's 2 free chairs if we need them!

So we'll see. I'll let you know how it goes.

I still haven't heard from the other store's customer service yet, but I'm not surprised. No one likes responding to an e-mail that basically tells you your service and store sucked.