Buying Chairs Turns into a Trip to Indy
When I moved into my last house, I bought a travertine mosaic table with wrought iron legs to use as my kitchen table. I had an open floor plan and I wanted a table that didn’t look like a kitchen table, and this table was perfect. It was pushed up against a wall so I purchased 2 brown leather parsons chairs for seating.
Photo Credit: Marlo Myers
When it was time to move, I wanted to keep the table but since I would need 4 chairs, I sold the leather chairs on craigslist and started shopping for new chairs.
Four leather chairs wasn’t the look I wanted in the new dining room, but I just couldn’t find anything I liked. At least anything that was less than $200 per chair.
For 6 months, my card chairs sat around the table while I waited to find the right chairs without breaking the bank.
A couple of weeks ago, I stopped into Tuesday Morning to look for new dishes (another quest I’ve been on since I moved) and stumbled into the perfect chairs.
Literally perfect.
The brown fabric wasn’t microfiber…I hate how microfiber leaves suede-like patterns from your butt.
The java stain color on the wood is the same color as most of my other furniture.
The back legs even have a curve that flows well with the wrought iron legs.
I just love them.
And they were only $80 each. I was in shock…even the chairs at stores like Garden Ridge, Gordman’s and Target are usually over $100 each. And chairs at stores like Pier One, World Market or furniture stores are over $200.
There was just one problem.
They only had 2.
No other St. Louis store had even a single chair. I bought the 2, went home and went online in search of 2 more. I found the chairs on several sites…but they were discontinued by the manufacturer. From what I could tell, the chairs originally sold for at least $200 through online stores until they were discontinued and the remaining stock was sold to Tuesday Morning.
With the help of my Mom, we determined that the nearest store to St. Louis with 2 chairs was in a suburb of Indianapolis. According to Google, it’s a 4 hour drive (I did it in 3 1/2). Even better, the chairs were marked down more than the ones I had already bought…they were only $40 each!
So I know that a lot of people would think I’m crazy to drive 4 hours away to buy 2 chairs. But Tuesday Morning doesn’t ship items and there were the PERFECT chairs. And, if I had bought some other chairs at a local store, I probably would have ended up spending over $200 per chair. After tax, I would be spending close to $1000 for a set of 4.
Plus, I love any excuse to go out of town. Anywhere.
This set ended up costing me $255 plus $75 in gas. The hotel and entertainment isn’t getting factored into my cost because I could have turned around and done this in a single day like when I bought my current car by driving to Des Moines (that’s another story that I will share sometime).
So, I called my friend Caroline to see if she would go with me, then called my Mom to see if my dog could stay at her house. One more call to hold the chairs and I was ready to jump in the car the next morning.
We left at 6:30 AM on Sunday and got there a few minutes before the store opened at 11:00 AM.
Mission accomplished!
The chairs fit easily into my backseat, and Caroline and I headed to downtown Indianapolis to see the sites.
Back home one day later, the chairs look perfect.
Oops…I forgot to pull the price tag off before I took this picture.
As soon as the finishing touches go onto the kitchen…the trim needs to be finished up and the backsplash tile is ready to go up…then I’m all ready to have my first dinner party.
Have you every taken a road trip to buy anything?
