100 Pound Footrest

This is an oldie but goodie--back before Christmas, we had an interesting experience ordering a coffee table for the living room. After hunting for a while and finding things we liked at much-to-expensive stores like Pottery Barn, we came across something we really liked from Overstock.com*. Unlike some things on Overstock that aren't traceable back to an actual product, this one even had its own website:Elia Coffee Table by C F Oakton.

It showed up very promptly at our door and shipping was less than $3. It weighed 92 pounds!!

I got home first and told D it had arrived. I managed to lug it inside (also with the help of a totally awesome UPS guy who happened to show up to deliver a much tinier package and gave me a hand crossing the threshold). I tried to unwrap the many layers and eventually gave up until D came home to help.

We loved it! It was a lot heavier than our last table, because of all the drawers (a negative, since we like to move it out of the way regularly to play on the Wii) but it really fit our living room.

The drawers were exactly what I wanted--a place to hide remotes and other ugly clutter.

But there was a small problem--even though the thing was packed like sardines in a can, it somehow got damaged. Nothing major, but some nicked wood on the corner and a slice in the veneer.

D contacted Overstock for the heck of it and they offered him a 15% refund. We agreed to it. Then out of the blue, they decided to ship us another table. We didn't really want it because it didn't seem worth the effort. But it arrived right around Christmas and D's family helped us get it unpacked (much harder this time because we had to keep the packaging in tact to repack the damaged table). It was quite an ordeal (and mostly I just watched and took photos, as always).

All that, only to discover that the second table was actually more damaged than the first!! So we alerted Overstock and they came back to take away the second table, which we managed to repackage in some sloppy fashion. In the end, we got our 15% refund because we decided not to try again with a third table.

In all, we ended up with one nice, heavy table and a good impression of Overstock's customer service. The products may be a little lousy, but they seem to stand by them if you're unsatisfied.

*By the way, have you noticed that we've branched out from Ikea lately? I am proud of us.