OhMyWow.

Well, as I mentioned last Monday, the furniture for LO's room finally came in and was ready for pick up or delivery. Can you just imagine my excitement?! YAY!!!

We chose to pay a chunky fee to have the furniture delivered, and it arrived at our home this past Friday night. Again, YAY!!! I couldn't wait to see it but everything arrived in the original shipping boxes, so there was no chance I'd be able to check it all out until after hubs was able to unbox it for me, which he couldn't really do with nosey LO around. Fast-forward to Saturday afternoon... hubs snuck into the baby's room (where we've stashed LO's furniture) and unboxed everything. This is where things were no longer "YAY!!!"

The first box he opened was the arched mirror that goes with the double dresser. The mirror panel was completely separated from the frame. This was quite unexpected. Especially once we noticed the mirror had two large chips out of both bottom edges (almost as if they had tried to screw through the mirror). Whoa. And the lovely wooden frame had large chips out of the bottom, front and center, where they would be completely exposed and visible once the mirror was placed on the dresser.

Insert shock n' awe here.

The fun continued when we started to unbox the dresser and headboard/footboard panels. Imagine a lovely white headboard, for example. Now add some lovely white wooden trim pieces to it for added decor. Pretty, right? Well, not if you don't caulk the seams. Yes, people, that's right. Basically everywhere you have added trim on the headboard, footboard and dresser you have these ugly shadowy seams where one would expect white caulk to be so as to hide such madness.

TERRIBLE.

I could NOT believe what I was seeing. And the drawers for the dresser? They pulled out unevenly and it was clear the drawer stops would need to be adjusted.

This is NOT what one would expect for quality, American-made, expensive furniture. And on top of that, how long could one expect said furniture to last if it requires so much maintenance and repair straight out of the box?!

I was pretty livid. Hubs was pretty calm. He said he could fix the mirror, caulk the trim/seams, etc... That's all well and good, and I have no doubt he'd be able to successfully complete these repairs. But my issue is that THESE ARE REPAIRS! ON BRAND NEW, EXPENSIVE FURNITURE!!!

And let me just mention that every single piece of furniture was clearly stamped, "MADE IN CHINA." Imagine my surprise when I contacted the manufacturer directly via Facebook and was told--and I quote--"the cribs are sourced from Vietnam and the rest is sourced from China."

{{gasp!}}

Wow. One of the bigger selling points that helped make our decision to purchase this set was that it was quality, American-made furniture. Apparently notsomuch.

So we went back to the reseller where we purchased the furniture this morning. We spoke with them about the issues we discovered and, surprisingly, they were willing to allow us to return all of the pieces for a full refund. They would even pick it up for no charge. Lovely. I asked specifically about the American-made aspect and was told all of the parts are in fact from China--but it's assembled in at their headquarters in High Point, North Carolina.

'Cause that's the same.

UGH. So now I cannot believe over 2 months have gone by since I first selected and ordered LO's new furniture and I'm BACK TO SQUARE ONE.

Do we keep the existing furniture? Is it okay that we have to do so many repairs straight out of the box? What is the likelihood this "quality" furniture will last until LO heads off to college?

Or do we find something else completely? And if so, how long will it take to find something we love and how long will it take to get here?

Not cool. This sucks. Knowing we weren't sure what our plans would be, I left the furniture reseller this morning and headed over to Rooms to Go Kids to shop around for a Plan B. Luckily I found two potential replacements, but with a huge caveat we'd have to consider.

The first is the Nicolette White Full Bedroom Collection:

It's rather similar to the set we already purchased, with a few downsides. First, I hate the drawer pulls on the dresser. But usually if I don't like it, sure enough LO will just so happen to LOVE it! She's funny that way. Plus I could always change out drawer pulls. No big. Secondly, since it's a platform bed, it only has one height for the side rails. It's designed for use with a trundle to be purchased separately (which we don't want), so the bed sits high and should be used with a mattress only or a bunky board underneath. This would render her existing box spring useless.

The second option I was actually kind of surprised to be drawn to. It's not quite what I've been looking at this entire time, but it's different in a good way. It's the Emily White Full Bedroom Collection:

I never really considered a metal scroll headboard/footboard option, but I really love the look of this one! And I still get my white double dresser and mirror, but with enough metal scroll accent to make the pieces look cohesive. I'm really kind of torn here! The other added benefit of this set is that you will be able to see the effort that is going into the accent wall behind the headboard in her room much better. It will be white beadboard with white chair rail, which you won't see much of with a white panel headboard there, but you'd see it much more with this one! And because this set is so ridiculously inexpensive, I'd even opt for a little canopy to hang on the ceiling above the headboard for added girly-ness, similar to this one at PBK (except probably with purple tulle):

But the biggest downside to ordering from Rooms to Go Kids is that they essentially have a NO REFUND policy. If for whatever reason we order one of these sets and didn't like it, we could only return it for store credit; not for a refund of the purchase price. I don't like the finality of that!

My plan is to mull things over for a bit and see where I land. It's gonna be a busy week with work and some other things going on but hopefully "THE" answer will hit me upside the head and I'll know what to do. It just seems like such a big decision to select furniture your child will use until they (hopefully) head off to college! So much pressure! And my goodness am I learning how incredibly picky I am these days! I had no idea! Maybe I can blame the pregnancy on that one... or not.

So does anyone have the perfect solution for our little dilemma? I'm all ears! Opinions welcome!!!