Weekend (21 Mar) - A Good Night's Sleep

Weekend (21 Mar) - A Good Night's Sleep

The Mrs and I have been obsessed with the bedroom the past week and particularly this weekend (think what you want about that :P ), so you are about to be regaled with our bedroom set story, like it or not. There will be some Warcraft at the end, though, so skip down to that if you want. :-)

Our bedroom set was 18 years old and had seen the inside of moving vans six times. It was solid Pennsylvania wood, the wood stained to a very dark shine. The set included a poster bed with both headboard and footboard, a tall amoire, a night stand, and a long, two piece chest of drawers with a massive mirror. The set wore a fine tracery of scars with pride - evidence of years of sharing the bedroom with our cats. Otherwise, the set was in full working order. The mattress was only six years old but was showing evidence of the inevitable sagging that was starting to manifest in aching backs.

We wanted a change, and decided we wanted the bookcase headboard style this time, a wall unit with matching shelves on either side. We wanted to go with a lighter wood this time, too, as we were into painting mode and intended to paint in between moving furniture in and out.

The bookcase headboard style is out of fashion right now (at least it is here), and the local furniture stores did not have much in the way of selection. The one set we liked would have broken the bank, so we took another tack and looked online for used furniture. It took some time, but a beautiful, real wood set turned up on Craig's List. It sounded too good to be true. These wall units go for $2200 plus when new, and the lady was selling it for $200.

The seller lived about an hour from our house. The Mrs got a chance to go up there and check it out, and came back with a glowing report. It was in superb condition, in four easy to set up sections, including a very nice lighted mirror and even electrical outlets built in. The lady also had an amoire type dresser that matched the wall unit, and the Mrs couldn't help herself. She bought them both. The now $450 total cost was still a very good bargain.

We were further fortunate that the seller was in no rush to have us pick it up, and we told her we wanted a few days to sell our existing set. A week went buy with no bidders, though, and we adjusted the price and broke the set into components for individual sale. At last we got some interest, and arranged for a couple to come by and see it. They only lived two miles from us, and were only interested in our chest of drawers with the mirror. We'd originally offered the whole set for $475, but had reduced that, and were selling the chest/mirror for $150.

The couple came by. The lady of the house was a tiny oriental woman and the husband a former sailor, both in their late 50s, early 60s. The lady oohed and awed over the set while the husband, arms tightly crossed across his chest, stood like a stone in front of the chest/mirror. "This is what we're here to look at," he grumbled to his wife. But his wife wanted more, asking about the night stand. We talked some more. The husband, who fancied himself as someone who could restore furniture, even showed some interest when he saw the quality of wood construction. The bait was hooked. The husband was still wiggling on the line, but it was clear his Mrs would be making the final call. "How much for the whole set?" she asked. The husband paled. He looked at me. I opened my mouth. My wife said, "$300." I think my mouth was still open when my eyes locked onto the husband's. He looked like he was holding a lottery ticket, and was looking at me to confirm that he had the winning number. I sort of shrugged. The number was already out there, and could not be retrieved. I also knew who made the final call in my family, too. We sold the whole set, and threw in the mattress and boxspring.

Arrangements got a bit tangled as we manuevered to get everything in and out of the house. The couple could not pick up the furniture until the following Friday, and had only their van to use, so it would take several trips. The husband didn't look strong enough to handle such large furniture, but he had two sons. We hoped that would work. We had hired a local mover to get the furniture we had bought, and we had it picked up on Thursday night, with the mover agreeing to deliver it late Friday. Our hope was that our old furniture would be out by then. A new mattress and boxspring would be delivered on Saturday. We arrived at the seller's house on Thursday a little late, but the mover was already there and had all but two pieces already loaded. So I didn't get to see the assembled unit.

Friday morning the husband arrived at our house around 10:30am. He was alone. No sons. They were still asleep. He just wanted to take small stuff. So we loaded the night stand and stuffed the van with all of the drawers. He came back around noon, this time with one of his sons, and we started making progress. We had one delay, when the door to the back of his van jammed. But he knew what the problem was, and got it fixed. A tire went flat, as well, but not a problem, he said, it does that every week. It was too flat to drive with it, in my estimation, even just the two miles to his house, so I got out my air compressor and filled it for him. We were expecting an all day event, but by 3pm they had gotten their final load and were gone.

We cleaned up in the bedroom, getting things ready for the new furniture. We thought about painting while the room was all but empty, then decided to wait. The unit was in several sections, so it should be easy to move for painting. The mover arrived Friday evening right on time, and got to work moving in and setting up our new bedroom set. I got my first look at it all together, and it was very nice. The wall unit was about 15 feet long when completely assembled, larger than I expected, but still taking up less room than the combination of furniture we'd just sold.

The one problem, though, was the mirror centerpiece. It was not a stand alone piece as we were told, but six pieces that had to be supported by the rest of the unit. It was not easy to put together, and once assembled, we no longer had separate pieces that could be moved independently - it was all one 15 foot piece. We didn't like that so much. Painting had just gotten a bit more complicated. We had gotten an estimate of $155 for the move, but on Thursday that went up to $180 due to the number of pieces and the complexity of disassembly and re-assembly. Our price tag now stood at $630.

The second thing we didn't like was that the bed frame was too low, and rather flimsy at that. We stored stuff under the bed, and in a household that accommodated our four footed children, they needed room to be able to hide under the bed. On Saturday morning, when the mattresses were delivered and put in place, the lack of space under the bed was even more obvious. I called the mattress store and asked about bed frames. Yes, they had what we needed. And on Sunday we changed out the bed frame. Total price for the bedroom furniture was now $810.

The new mattress is great. It was the most expensive part of project at $1800, but we had already planned for that. The $610 difference between our "$200" furniture and real cost of $810 just goes to show what happens with projects like this. Not to mention our hope of $475 for our old furniture and the $300 reality. But had we bought the same set with dresser from the local furniture store, the price would have been triple that $810. It's still a bargain. So far. We celebrated with a couple of bottles of champagne, and I'm feeling the effects this morning.

So now our bedroom is complete. Well, maybe. The mirror centerpiece still concerns us. It may have to go. I don't know what that's gonna cost me.

After all the excitement in the bedroom, the rest of the post is probably going to seem boring. But here goes, anyway.

In the last post, it was Friday night and DER and Philly had just finished up two random dungeon runs, putting Philly at 78% of the way to level 78.

Then we settled into some late evening pvp, Philly staying and DER swapping out for Sin. We got into a Warsong Gulch match and then an Isle of Conquest (I think) match. We lost both, and the queue times were very long. Not a good night for pvp, at least in the 70s bracket.

DER still needed some badges in order to buy an heirloom bow for his new hunter, so Philly gave way to Wild, and DER returned. Wild, in moonkin spec, and DER, joined the heroic random dungeon queue. We did Nexus and Violet Hold, and a third that I can no longer remember. I do remember whispering to DER after a boss kill in the third dungeon, telling him I was done for the night. He reminded me that we'd only just killed the first boss, and had three more to go. I was that tired. Wild kept it together and we finished the third dungeon around 1:30am. Doing these dungeons is a lot more fun with DER. And he keeps me awake. :)

DER got the badges he needed for his bow. Wild got enough new badges to buy an extra +int trinket to help with his moonkin mana. Even that was a stretch buy, though, and Wild has no need of further triumph badges, other than using them to downgrade to badges he can use for more heirloom gear.

DER and Wild came very close in total DPS on the night. I let the recount addon run through all three dungeons. Wild averaged 2579 DPS and DER averaged 2429 DPS, close enough to be a virtual tie. DER's top DPS on a single boss fight was 3382 DPS against Omorokk in Nexus. Wild's top total of 3518 DPS came against Telestra, also in Nexus.

Philly went back into action the following day, getting in her dozen or so dailies and DINGING to level 78. With that Philly equipped six pieces of Frostsavage pvp gear, and got into her first Wintergrasp battle where she could take the weekly quests and start earning some serious honor points. The horde even won the match. Philly earned over 5k honor, her shard total jumped from 2 to 22, and she now has 20 WG marks for more honor or gear purchases. As of the end of the weekend Philly is 8% of the way to level 79. She also upgraded gear for pvp, pve healing, and pve shadow DPS. Life is looking pretty good to Philly.