The Tale of the Two Green Dressers

When we built our house, we designed everything as carefully as we could. (Well, as carefully as I could in about four weeks--no kidding. My personal mantra is "if I can't decide in ten seconds, it's not worth thinking about." Rarely does this come back to bite me, but when it does, the bite removes flesh down to the bone. Anyway . . . ) We added a bumped-out window in our "dining-room-that-we-use-as-a-library" (see it here) to make a window seat.  From inside the library, this was great.  From the patio side, it left a weird little cubby, exactly 51" across.  What to do with that?

We live in AZ, as you may have heard, and unless you're allergic to water, most homes have pools.  When we first got here in 1995, I thought everyone was so rich.  Nope.  Just freakin' hot in the summer.  Our pool is just on the other side of our patio, so I decided that the best use of this little cubby space would be closed shelves for pool towels and goggles and sunscreen (not that we really use the sunscreen all that much--kinda lazy to be sure, but mostly we're all kinda olive-skinned).  I looked in catalogs, online, at Home Depot, nothing would fit my 51".  So I expanded my search to Craigslist.  Ah, Craigslist, how I love you!  I found the small armoire after looking for a week or so, and it came with a bonus dresser!

When I went to pick them up, they were pecan-brown (see the shot of the inside?), and in fantastic shape.  I almost felt guilty taking them from the family for  . . . wait for it . . .  $40.  You heard me!  I couldn't wait to get them home and play!
I took them apart (and found a slightly embarrassing clipping from Cosmo left by the previous owner--'nuff said), sanded them both down pretty well, then I primed with a grey spray primer, resanded, and sponge-rolled them with the gorgeous green.  The knobs on the doors of the armoire are new, but all the rest of the drawer pulls are original. (I even have the two missing pieces in a drawer in the kitchen, waiting for me to find time to reattach them . . .  oh yeah.  That won't happen!)
The armoire fits perfectly on the patio.  And since this is AZ and it's in a completely shady and completely dry spot, it has shown little to no wear being outside for the last almost three years.  I LOVE it!  It holds all the towels splendidly, and a few citronella candles, broken goggles, a can of pool fence paint, even the spare pool lock key.
The question was (especially in Brad's mind) where would the spare dresser go?  I have it in my family room, and it is the handiest spot to hold all the little kid toys like blocks and Star Wars guys and baby rattles.

When the last two pieces of family room furniture come (hopefully this week), I'll show a picture of the whole room--finished and ready for the wedding.

Speaking of wedding, I better go mail all the invites that we sealed and stamped for Family Home Evening last night.

Tootles! I'm off to the post office with 502 envelopes. Who's counting?