Lighten' Up

We’ve been working on redecorating our bedroom the past week or two. I am using the royal “We”. Jon did the work. I mostly shopped. New carpet, paint, and furniture. It came together nicely although the first window treatment didn’t meet with the husband’s approval. “Too bland”, he said. Get something with more color. He was right. I bought something different ready-made and it just fits. The last thing to get was matching lamps for the bedside tables. Our old bed had a pier with overhead lighting built in.
I bought matching lamps and returned them. The right look but not tall enough. I placed different lamps of ours on the tables and decided 30 inches was the right height.

I looked at every home store, discount store and furniture store in town for lamps. They were all too shiny, too bumpy, too big, too small, too tall, too short, too frilly, too spindley, too dark, too light, too low wattage, or too expensive. I tried eBay and got in a bidding war which I lost in the final two seconds. I almost cried. Low price for a pair of lamps I priced at online stores for $179. each. They went for $48 because my mouse wandered when I clicked and I didn’t get in the final bid. Why didn’t I bid more aggressively? They were perfect. Back to wading through the eBay site of over 6000 lamps. Back to looking at every store imaginable online only to get depressed I had let that bargain slip through my fingers.

Wednesday was the day we would go to the Mall of America and shop. If you can’t find it there, God help you.

And then He helped me.

I walk early in the morning with a friend. I was going to drive to her house but Andy had parked his car behind mine in the driveway and I waited for him to get up. Should only have to wait a half an hour. Might as well go for a bike ride. I headed out planning to loop in a circle through the neighborhood and around the pond. Instead of going left to go that way, I turned right at the corner. Second house in and around the corner I spotted two matching lamps on the curb. ( It is garbage day and people put their stuff on the curb.) Take it if you like it. I grabbed them. Two 3- way, 30” ginger jar lamps in a taupe ceramic that matches my colors. Great lamps. Perfect price. Free. They even had light bulbs that worked. It made my day. True story.