The Chair That Turned Into An Oven

Sometimes, the universe works in mysterious ways.

It became clear after the Christmas haul that our plan to one day turn our dog/mud/storage room into a playroom for Jackson and any future bambinos was quickly moving up on the priority list.  So much so that we began the conversion the weekend of New Year's. 

Project Playroom is a series of posts in it's own right so I'll skip the details for now, but suffice it to say we suddenly have MUCH more space in the downstairs family room (aka: man room) now that Jackson's toys have a room of their own.  Of course, our immediate response to this new found space:

"Let's go to Nebraska Furniture Mart!"

It wasn't completely impulsive.  We've been dreaming of additional seating in the basement for some time.  An opportunity just hadn't presented itself until now.  We wasted no time and headed into Kansas City that very weekend.

For what might be the first time in our marriage, Drew & I left Nebraska Furniture Mart empty handed.  And not for a lack of effort.  It's a tough room to furnish.  Currently, the furniture is all brown leather.  We love it.  The problem is, as opposed to a matching set, each piece (sofa, recliner and ottoman) was purchased years apart from one another and are at various stages of wear.  In other words, we are rocking 3 different shades of brown leather in the room.

I am of the school of thought that the room needs color.  And fabric.  Drew would be happy if everything we owned (but at the least the items in his "man room") was leather.  I'll spare you the details, but needless to say we didn't agree on a chair (despite me finding one I loved) and left the store empty handed.  To be fair, Drew did say that he is not opposed to a fabric/colorful chair in the room.  We just have yet to find the right one.

So I pouted the rest of the weekend, but eventually came to terms with the fact that the chair I wanted probably isn't a perfect fit either and something better will come along.

Thank goodness we didn't buy a chair.

Last night, while cooking meatloaf for dinner, I noticed a strange glow coming from the oven.  One very small section of the heating coil was bright red.  I kept an eye on it for a minute thinking perhaps it was just burning off some spilled food.  It then shot white sparks.  I immediately turned the oven off and waited for Drew to come home.  Fire scares me.  About 30 minutes later, with my husband (and a fire extinguisher) within reach, I turned it on again.  No sparks, but after nearly 15 minutes it was barely above 250 degrees.  The damn thing is toast.

Seven days after our failed trip to Nebraska Furniture Mart, we loaded up in the truck and headed back.  This time we were successful.  We are now the proud owners of a new range that will be delivered on Thursday.

Funny how things work out.  In the end, it was a good thing we didn't purchase furniture for the basement.  It certainly would have made the $700 we dished out for an appliance much tougher to swallow.  While I can think of much more exciting things to spend $700 on, I think we'll enjoy having a new oven.  We've definitely been complaining about the unmatching and unevenly cooking old one more and more lately.

As for the chair, well it will just have to wait.  But at least now we'll have plenty of time to find one that we both think is perfect.

So there you have it.  The unlikely story of a chair that turned into an oven.