Life’s Complete

As I was walking down the street on Friday evening, I was feeling that my life wasn’t complete. Then, as I looked up, I saw the answer: a furniture store. I realized that I never actually owned any bedroom furniture (other than a bed); instead I’ve been building out my closets with drawers and shelves. One problem: I did not want to pay many thousands for typical Pottery Barn pieces, and did not want the fake wood stuff that comes from Ikea. At that moment, my Memorial Day weekend project was born.

Early Saturday morning, I got in my car and headed for the Lincoln Tunnel...



...crossed Midtown-Manhattan, and then on to the Queens Midtown Tunnel...



...and finally, down the Long Island Expressway...



I eventually arrived at a furniture manufacturing warehouse in Queens. I found a couple of beautiful solid-pine pieces for just a couple hundred dollars each. I could only fit one in my little car, so I went back through the LIE and 2 tunnels, dropped it off, and repeated the trip for the other one. I think they were just made in the past week, because they smelled like freshly sawed wood. I spent the whole weekend sanding, realigning the drawers (they were pretty rough), staining several layers of colors to bring out the wood grains, and finally varnishing them. I’m happy, and think my life is now complete.



For about $500 (including tolls) and a weekend’s worth of work, I am now the proud owner of bedroom furniture. I could have gotten practically the same two pieces (but not as nicely finished!) at Pottery Barn for $1600. I saved more than $1000. The following two images are from potterybarn.com (they're currently each $799):