Furniture Stores Make Me Feel Like a Rat In A Maze

Just as I started this post, the part in Old School where "Frank the Tank" gets mocked for having a "big day" planned with his wife to visit Home Depot and Bed, Bath and Beyond, came on. Andrew and I just locked eyes and grinned, because we've been discussing future trips to both stores all weekend.  In fact, we ran a lot of errands on Saturday that had us visiting similar home-oriented stores.

After meeting a coworker of Andrew's to pick up a file in Milton, we decided to take a look at some of the nearby furniture stores in Avon.

First on our list, Jordan's Furniture (it's hard to make out the Jordan's sign all the way to the right, I'm going to blame Andrew since he was the one that took this picture!):

Andrew made a beeline for the leather chairs when we walked in - he looks ready for his duties as man of the house:

We spent some time looking through rugs - it was amazing how different ones they had (and how expensive they are):

Andrew had way too much fun with flipping the rugs quickly on the massive hanger system:

We found a sofa in my signature color, but this green was even a little too bright for me!

Located conveniently next door was Ikea, which was a zoo in terms of parking and how many people were crammed in it:

We weren't really interested in their furniture but I always like seeing the wide variety of patterns they have for comforters and Andrew was interested in some of their storage systems for use in a basement:

Just to give you a clue how crowded it was in the store (which literally had to be hundreds of people considering how massive the entire building is), there was a long line of people waiting to get into the cafeteria. I guess people really love their Swedish meatballs! Andrew quickly scrapped his plans to grab a coffee:

Getting out of Ikea was even more of a hassle - we couldn't not figure out how to exit, which sounds stupid, but literally, they plan the store like a maze where you have to wind your way through a whole floor before you can leave. Determined to avoid doing that, we figured out taking the elevator down was the quickest way, and even that was confusing since none of the buttons were labeled to clearly identify a floor (the couple in the elevator with us were also mystified by the choices). We left the building thankful for the parking lot's "fresh air", glad to shake off the feeling of claustrophobia!

Last stop in the oh-so charming Avon/Brockton area was a Walmart to stock up on TONS of cleaning supplies, for things like hardwood floors and stainless steel appliances.  I'm not going to post any pictures from Walmart, because I figure every American has been in one at least once in their life. However, I did want to share something interesting we spotted at checkout - Strawberry jam and peanut butter M&M's! What will they think of next?

While picturing how to decorate rooms and trying out furniture was fun, it was suprisingly draining. I was feeling distinctly cranky at the end of the day, and I had to bribe Andrew with the promise of pad thai from New Rod Dee's for an early dinner to keep him going!