Manufactured Goods makes me sad.
So, I've been hunting for a bookshelf lately. I probably could go with the cheapest thing I can find, but I'd hate to look at it, and therefore would find it a waste of my money. So I've been trying to find something I actually like. I thought I'd found something that would work well at The Container Store. They sell these galvanized cubes that look awesome, and I could be able to put together however I'm happy with. The trouble is, when I went and looked at these cubes in person, it became aparent that flat packing was more important to these people than stability and quality. Considering the original price for these things was $49 a cube, and 25% off only brought it down to $30-something a cube, and I still had to add the fasteners to attach the cubes to each other (only one per face, but $1.99 regular price!). Considering I was looking at 20 cubes for my configuration of choice, and needed a whole shit load of those fasteners, almost 30 I think it was (I left the paper behind at the store in disgust), the whole mess added up to just over $800 with tax, given we have 8.75% sales tax around here. Meh.
So now I'm back to the drawing board on the shelves. I'm seriously considering just building something, but I'm trying to decide what material I want. Right now I'm going back and forth between metal or lacquered wood. I'm pretty certain on the layout though, I want a stair step style. If I make it out of metal, I'll appropreate the useful bits of The Container Store's design, then improve the bits they failed at, and end up with modular metal cubes I can reshape as the mood and energy dictate. If I work with the lacquered wood, I'll just build a solid unit and I'll just have to consider the space I have to put this in, and how many levels and steps I want.
In a little less frustrating furniture notes, I have at least pretty much decided on the couch I want, but I do need to make a little closer inspection upon the quality of the unit. If there is anything wrong with the design, it's not as obvious as the issues with the cubes at The Container Store, so I think I'm okay. I'm probably also buying the matching chair, and new colored covers for it. You can see the couch (with the blue cover, that's the info page for the cover itself) here, and the chair with matching cover (also the cover info page with this one) here.
All that's left to do for the couches is to remove the piece of shit my brother left behind. I managed to get my dad interested in it by mentioning the solid frame on it, so I might be able to offload the mess upon him. That'll be good, as it'll be less fuss for me, and he should be able to fit the damn thing in the back of his xTerra. Wee. If he doesn't take it, I'm trying to decide between just leaving it on the curb and letting the neighborhood take it, or listing it on craig's list. We'll see if I have to make the choice or not.