Monday Morning Musings!

Monday Morning Musings!

Good morning, sweet friends!

Fall hasn’t officially arrived yet, but the air is getting cooler at night, school has started, and the leaves are just starting to turn.

Well for me that all means it’s time to finally say goodbye to summer (even though it’s 80 degrees today) and hello fall!

So with that said, I’ve been adding little touches of fall here and there and I even baked my first apple pie of the season last week!

I’ll be sharing more ‘all things fall’ in a few upcoming posts!

Now onto this week’s Monday Morning Musings!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been struggling with finding furniture to replace all of the pieces we left at our old home or sold.

I’ve always been a ‘hands-on’ kind of person when it comes to buying furniture for our home. It’s important to me to get up close and personal with each piece before I decide to take it home.

After all, good quality furniture that is made to last isn’t cheap! So it needs to be thoroughly examined and of course, check all the boxes on our wants and needs!

Recently we went on a shopping trip to all the local furniture stores in our area. Mind you that is a tri-state area that includes Minnesota (the state we live in) Wisconsin, and Iowa.

Sadly, we found the same issues at each and every store.

Low or limited inventory and a long wait time for any item they didn’t have in stock.

Never mind that what they did have was SUPER expensive!! Like 25- sometimes 50% more expensive than what we had budgeted for.

After spending a whole weekend not being able to find anything I loved or wanted to spend more than our budget on,  I decided maybe I needed to ‘tweak” my attitude about buying furniture.

Maybe, just maybe it was time to look outside the box. IE: Online.

Now don’t get me wrong. Ordering online isn’t a new concept for me. I’ve bought PLENTY of things online. Groceries, craft items, florals, decor, bedding, you name it, I’ve bought it with a click of a finger.

Socks, yes. Furniture…NO!

Change isn’t easy but a girl has to do what a girl has to do.

So I started small at first.

Stools for the kitchen counter.

Of course, I never in a million years imagined how many different options there would be available.

There were maybe four or five options at each brick and mortar store we had gone to but there, right before my eyes were literally hundreds, possibly thousands of counter stools in every color, style, and price imaginable.

It was truly overwhelming and I felt like my head was going to explode, but my little ‘buying’ fingers were ready to hit ‘add to cart, so I pushed through.

And as I perused each and every counter stool I asked the same questions I would if I were up close and personal. Only it wasn’t as easy as I thought to find the answers.

Sure the details section showed all the information I needed to determine if the stools would fit under our counter and what materials they were made of, but what about sturdiness? How would they hold up with sticky-fingered toddlers and a dog that likes to jump up and grab a snack from that toddler?

And what about comfort? Would they be hard as a rock? Or would they cushion your bum and make you feel as if you never wanted to get up?

Then I remembered the most important part of online shopping. Something I take very seriously and read VERY thoroughly.

Reviews! Yes, reviews! They were my single most favorite thing about online shopping (except for the actual purchase) because I always found them so helpful.

But, if you’ve ever bought ANYTHING online, you know, reviews can also be distracting, confusing, inaccurate, and yes, even FAKE!

So how did I FINALLY decide on these perfectly PERFECT, wonderfully comfortable, fantastically easy to clean stools?

Well, here’s this newbie online furniture shopper’s BEST tips!

• use the filters available on each website.

By using the filter option I was able to put in important factors I was looking for and lower the number of options by a TON! Simple things like dimension, color, style, and material helped me find the stools that would fit best for our home.

• filter the reviews by using terms that were important to me.

I used the filtering option for reviews (not all stores have this but Wayfair did) and was able to skip through those reviews like ‘shipping was slow, hard to put together, and the box was damaged. And instead paid attention to those who told me how the item functioned or looked. Things like-Quality, Comfort, Color, and Durability.

• limit the number of stores searched by verifying resources first.

Buying furniture online can be overwhelming, but returning furniture bought online can be a real hassle. I always checked return policies, customer service availability, and negative reviews referring to both. I also chose stores I’ve purchased items from in the past, as I am familiar with their customer service and how they handle returns.

• Go with your gut!

If it feels right, buy it!

In the end, I chose these stools because they were EXACTLY what I was looking for. And friends, this first-time furniture buying online shopper couldn’t be happier with her purchase! These stools are SUPER sturdy. Comfortable. Easy to Clean. And reasonably priced too! Only $190 for two stools! (P.S. At the time of writing this post the stools were on sale for $118.49 no affiliate connection just an FYI!)

So short story-long? I definitely think there is a place for online furniture buying. It’s easy, convenient, and yes, even enjoyable. But then again not all of my purchases turned out as well as these stools. More on that later.

I hope you enjoyed today’s Monday Morning Musings!

Have you bought furniture online recently? I’d love to hear your story!

Happy Monday!