Furniture update

We are making progress slowly on the house front. As a reminder to all those who may not be up to date, we are living in a "house" in west London. To read the rental advert description, it has two "spacious" reception rooms, and 4 bedrooms (mind you, one bedroom is about the size of my walk-in closet in the Hachie). It does have 2 bathrooms, little storage by US standards (but a ton of storage by UK standards), and a converted attic-loft guest bedroom.

To coin a British term, it sounds "massive" doesn't it? Ah...no, not really. Think 1200 square feet. With that said, we are conquering a few home projects each weekend. I will spare you you the details, but they range from hanging a few pictures to organizing a closet here or there. The boxes are all empty, thankfully.

Now, to the continuing saga of the furniture. We have decided to sell some of the German antiques that are too big for the house in a local auction. At least that is the plan...if they will take them. We are trying to set an appointment for Friday to get those items moved, including a dining table, 6 chairs, and a German desk.

We'd better sell them because we have already ordered the new "old" dining table and 6 leather chairs for arrival in mid April (yes, Mike, it was the ones we saw with you during your last visit). It has this cool collapsable dining table extension/expansion that allows the table to fit into "smaller" rooms...or in our case one of the two "spacious reception rooms".

The success of that shopping experience was a bit marred by the fact that we we located a FAB-U-LOUS antique oak chest (circa 1900s) in our new favorite antique shop just moments away from the house. We'd thought we'd hit pay dirt as the chest/wardobe breaks down into three 3 parts to assist in getting it up those pesky narrow staircases in London houses. "How narrow", you ask? About 29 inches from side to side up the staircase. The real issue, though, is the staircase turn on the first floor landing. When we spied the oak wardrobe, we just knew we'd found a solution for the bedroom (a.k.a can't fit the Chinese armoire up the stairs).

We've already considered whether we could hoist it up one floor and bring in through the window. Sadly, no can do...windows are too small.

We have measured it every which way and still do not see a way to get it around the first staircase turn. The guys at the antique store say, "Sure, let's give it a try. We have moved things in tighter corners". So, we have taken a chance on the wardrobe and pinned our hopes on the antique moving crew ... that they indeed have a little more know-how in these matters than the Budman and I.

Come Saturday morning, we can give you the final results. YES - the chest has made it safely into the first floor master bedroom or NO - we can expect a refund in full from the antique shop as the wardrobe will be returned post haste.

TBD.