Avoiding Buyer's Remorse

A couple of weeks ago we loaded up the 4Runner and set out on the 2 hour trek to IKEA in Roundrock. We were getting a sink cabinet for our bathroom remodel (details upcoming) and a new dresser for Ivory's room. Note to future parents: Don't buy a small child's dresser/chest of drawers when your babies are born because as soon as your babies are toddlers, you'll need to upgrade to a larger one to contain their stuff. Then you'll find yourself making the all-too-common Duplicate Purchase, which equals money down the drain. If you go ahead and buy an adult-sized dresser (in terms of storage space, not height, necessarily) when you're stocking your nursery, you can use the top as a diaper-changing area while you've got a teeny tike (if it's the longish-shortish kind) and use any large drawers for diaper or other baby paraphernalia storage, AND you'll avoid the duplicate-purchase-cash-suck that inevitably comes with buying certain specialized kids' items.  So, we were on our way to Roundrock to make a Duplicate Purchase.

Here is the small child's dresser we bought about two years ago:

The white plastic squares adhered to the left side are remnants of childproofing (why I wanted to keep the child out of her own dresser is beyond me. I think it had something to do with preventing a topple, but I'm afraid it also had a lot to do with not wanting to find her clothes strewn about her room after I'd had my head turned, which I now know is a completely futile struggle).  It's about 4 feet tall and about 2 1/2 feet wide and the drawers are about 4 inches deep. Well, more like 12 inches, but still, pretty shallow.

About a month ago we realized we wanted something bigger so we began looking around at antique shops. I found a really cool chest of drawers, but at $350 it was too expensive, especially since it needed to be refinished. I didn't go to any thrift stores. Honestly, I hear stories and read blogs about people finding great stuff at thrift stores, but when i go, the furniture section invariably looks like the set of Empty Nest. And since I'm rarely in the market for a mauve dresser with gold metallic trim, I seem always to come up short. Maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places...

Anyway, since I didn't find anything locally, I had planned to get a Hemnes dresser from IKEA.

I have one in the espresso finish in my bedroom and I've been really pleased with the quality and the storage space. When I walked up to the dresser in IKEA, though, I got a "this isn't quite right" feeling. The dresser is a bit too tall and the corners are really sharp. I should have known this going in because I have one, but I didn't take the time to look at it critically until I was about to spend $ for another one. I kinda hate not loving something I've gone to the store specifically for because it means that something I've considered "done" is still pending. I especially dislike having this feeling at IKEA because getting there and shopping there are both such hugely exhausting productions (damn those all-wheel-drive carts!!!), but if there's anything I've learned about shopping, especially shopping for our home, I really have to have a "this is completely the right thing" feeling before I purchase or I'll almost always end up regretting it and selling it for half of what I paid at a yard sale two years later when I'm finally able to admit it was a mistake. So, I made peace with the idea that the dresser search was still on and continued toward the bathroom section. Fortunately for my to-do list and my sanity, I didn't take 10 steps before I saw it: the Nyvoll dresser. I was immediately hit with the "this is completely the right thing" feeling. I just had to check the price. It was $299, not cheap at all but the same price as the Hemnes so not any more than we had already planned to spend. It was shorter and much more interesting and Mike and Ivory loved it too. Also, the drawer fronts can easily be wiped clean after Ivory colors on it. Also, Mike would like me to add that it has "futuristic self-closing drawers" which it does.  Score! Consider it "done."
Of course it took about a week before we got it out of the box and then about 2 hours to put it together (I hate putting together drawers!) but the final result was worth it. Behold, the grown-up dresser for the toddler's room:

So for me, the moral of the story is Don't Buy ANYTHING You Don't Completely Love Because You'll Regret It and Waiting for the Right Thing is SO MUCH More Rewarding Than Going with the Almost Right Thing. Most of the time you won't find the thing that you want less than 10 steps from the thing you thought you wanted or the thing you were convincing yourself would work, but it's still worth it to wait. (Krystal and Julie: These principles apply to men, too.)

Love,

Katherine