Those of you who follow me on FB and IG are probably already aware that we’ve had quite the unfortunate series of event in my effort to acquire 2 matching white bookcases! I mean how hard should that be? Budget always comes into play, so any decorating task at my house seems to be more difficult than if I had a money tree in my backyard.
The only requirements for these bookcases: less than 35 inches wide, about a foot deep, sturdy, white and 2 that match! I wanted them to be a little bit more decorative than a standard bookcase, but I found out in the end that “beggers can’t be choosers!” The bookcases need to possibly house 2 printers, a Silhouette Cameo, a sewing machine, books (of course), and various decorative, yet useful office supply storage items.
After searching various sites for a few days, I ordered 2 matching white bookcases from Target that I really liked. I anxiously awaited their arrival. The day they were to be delivered, they never arrived at the yellow cottage. I was meeting friends for a girls’ night or something, and on a whim, I stopped at the rental house to check the mail. I had dropped JB off at a birthday party in that neighborhood and was nearby. As I was getting ready to pull out of the driveway, a large delivery truck showed up with these 2 bookcases. I texted MAJ W and told him they were there. I figured we could go pick them up the next morning.
When I arrived home from going out, he had one of the bookcases completely put together at the yellow cottage! He’s a good husband. However, he discovered that the 2nd box was missing 2 pieces and the whole bag of nuts and bolts! Uh Oh! I called Target Customer Service immediately and was told to call back the next day. I called back, very hopeful that they would just ship us the missing pieces. No such luck! They didn’t have these parts and this white bookcase was no longer available or out of stock or something. I couldn’t even order another whole bookcase. As a matter of fact, yesterday I checked and the white version of the bookcase is still not available. It was so perfect, but not meant to be. Poo!
We took the complete bookcase back to Target as part of date night! We are the most romantic people ever and possibly pretty close to redneck, too. Arranging pick up for the other bookcase became a procrastination project. I actually just taped it up this morning because they were supposed to be sending a freight company to come get it off my porch this afternoon. Ha!
A rep from the shipping company called me Saturday morning while I was in WV at my family’s annual reunion to arrange the pick up. This bookcase has been taking up space in the garage for over 3 weeks now! I thought we were all set to have the box picked up today until I received an email Monday that I needed to call them. You know when I called them?? This morning at about 10 am!
It turns out I live in a rural area. Laugh with me now! I do have deer friends and I did watch them bail hay in the field beside my house this week, but I don’t live in the sticks. Apparently the 2 lane road beside the neighborhood is only accessible by a small freight truck. Whatever…It’s too bad that I remembered at 7:30 this morning that I needed to tape up the box and somehow drag it from the garage around to the front porch before I left to get my hair cut at 8:30!
Our garage is behind the house so I had to somehow figure out how to get this 70 pound, awkwardly long box from the garage, down the driveway and onto the front porch – all by myself! The McGyver in me decided I needed something with wheels that I could put under one end of the box to could push the box fairly easily around the house! In comes a $5 skateboard. It did its job, but I was sure glad no one came jogging along the path while I was wrangling the box and the skateboard. Just the crazy yellow house lady doing what she does!
Rewind 2 weeks to ordering and receiving the 2nd set of matching bookcases that I ordered from Amazon, somewhat desperately. MAJ W and I had gone out to lunch. We were supposed to meet his coworkers from his job here for a little farewell, but they were all locked down on the Arsenal due to some sort of a ‘possible shooter’ situation. When we came home from what turned into our own little lunch date, there were 2 boxes on the back porch – 2 different shaped boxes! Something was off! Impressive, though, that the FedEx guy drove his truck to the back of our house, through the gated driveway and put the boxes on the back porch. Yes, we have live in a gated community and have an electronic gate on our driveway. Quite over the top!
We carried the boxes inside and MAJ W immediately started opening the boxes to put the bookcases together because he’s a glutton for punishment or maybe he just wanted this never ending torture exercise to be over. After he opened the boxes, he came upstairs with an instruction manual and asked what I had ordered! We had received one white bookcase and one white bookcase headboard. Face palm!! After a conversation with this company’s customer service rep, we were instructed to just keep or donate the headboard and they would re-ship another bookcase. The super friendly lady in El Paso was quite helpful!
We immediately loaded up the headboard and took it to the Care Center just to have one less thing laying around our house with which to deal. He put the two bookcases together in record time. They aren’t near the quality of the first Target bookcase. Whomp. Whomp. One of them has a big dent in the top of it, but at this point I was just ready to done with this fiasco. Our solution to cover the dent required a trip to Lowe’s for a piece of trim and white paint!
Thankfully they are all assembled and in place. I’m not 100% in love with their current styling, but I can keep tweaking as we go along. They are doing their job – giving books and office supplies a home that isn’t on the floor or in a cardboard box – and they match!
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