De-feathering the Nest

So...we had intended the nest-feathering (i.e. home decorating) to commence in earnest with acquisition of aforementioned Pottery Barn "Adeline" rug. Regrettably, it did not.

We eagerly arrived at Pottery Barn on Friday night (as eager as possible after a hard week's work) and brought home our brand new rug, bound in seriously heavy duty plastic wrap (which looked rather bedraggled - but I figured, hey! it's a long trip from god knows where to here).

However, as we merrily unpackaged and began to un-roll our amazing new rug, we discovered, to our horror - two large rips in the rug!! The outer packaging had been pierced and the rug scored deeply.

Bloody hell! We were not impressed (particularly not David, who had done all the carrying of said 8ftx10ft rug). Damn.

The phone calls began. I notified PB immediately about the damaged rug (now it's 10 to 9 on Friday night), and they suggested I bring it back (on my nickle and time) and exchange it for a really new (this time) rug. I decided that wouldn't work for me, so I asked them to DELIVER me a brand new rug, like I was supposed to get the first time. This seemed clever as it would save David and I another long drive to the mall and a race to steal one of 6 PB special "pick-up only" parking stalls. Plus, for $1000, I ain't impressed sister, and someone better do something nice for me.

I was informed that at Pottery Barn Canada, we "do not have a special delivery service" (apparently all rich yuppies have a truck on hand for carting home poorly-crafted, over-priced furniture from Pottery Barn) and it would take 10 days for them to get their special hired deliverers to deliver for us. Then they recommended that I photograph the rug, send them the pics, and they would give me a "deep discount" ("like $100 for the rug", I asked," instead of $1000?"). Sounded like a great idea for about a second until I realized I couldn't email pictures until Monday (home computer won't connect to the internet) and I don't want a crappy old busted rug. So I told them to hold me a new rug, I would schlep this one back, and they could give me a discount for my troubles. They agreed to 10% off, or about $100.

Ugh. I left the rug un-rolled in the room on Friday night and discovered another serendipitous fact by Saturday afternoon - we hate the Adeline rug! Okay, it is positively gorgeous, just not the soft and comforting look I wanted for the room.

When we had the 3x5 size, it looked so much more lush and bright - on the small size, the border (dark green) took up a lot of space, while the interior colour (light green) took up very little space. However, on the large 8x10 rug, the interior space was suddenly really large (light green) with this narrow dark green border. The light green was just too washed out - almost like a faded sage green. The rug looked old, a faded version of the original. I was sorely disappointed but we were happy to discover our design flaw, and the fact that we get to do a "no questions asked" return AND get a discount because the rug we didn't even like was damaged!

So on Saturday I called PB again (another explanation to another manager) and we decided to return the rug in exchange for a different one, called "Graham".

But, to our dismay, darling Graham is out of stock for 3-6 weeks. So we are on back-order. We are waiting.

We can't really do much with the bedroom until it arrives. We took down the curtain rods to paint and aren't re-installing rods, etc. until we investigate window coverings (blinds or curtains) which won't be decided until the rug is on the floor and we see what will work best.

Meanwhile, we're sleeping in a spare room, which is small and cozy, while our real bedroom waits, bereft, with no rug, no window coverings, and a lot of things piled in it, including a damaged reject Adeline rug.

At least I'm looking forward to the new colour scheme - which reverts to my original plan- ivory/cream and BLUE! How soothing....eventually.