The Saga of Finding A Dresser

Can someone tell me what ever happened to the idea of actual dresser drawers? I'm talking dressers made of some kind of non-toothpick-strength wood and with real drawers to hold real and adult-sized clothing. 

For the past 4 or 5 months, I have been trying to find a bedroom dresser. I'm not looking for anything fancy or special. I just want a basic dresser - made for adults - to hold my clothing - not for my TV, not for my "media" and not just for socks and gloves and other things that kindergartners keep in their cubbies.

$109 and made in China

Finding a halfway decent dresser drawer is becoming headache-inducing.

The first sites I checked were, of course, Amazon and Walmart. Then I moved on to Wayfair and Overstock. My first search query was basic and done with a China-blocking app on: "bedroom dresser $200 or less" and the results indicated that I was going to have a bit of a problem.

Most of the results that came back were items made for the nursery or an entryway. Almost all of them had fabric drawers because, apparently, that's a thing now and not just for dorm rooms or travel-trailer storage. I'm not kidding. Sometimes, the product page won't even call these things dressers and label them as "organizers" - which is legit if I'm looking for something to keep my financial papers in... When I added dimensions to be taller than doorknob height, things only got a tad better. 

$119 (on sale for $101)

I literally sat down for at least a quarter of an hour, just trying to figure out the perfect search terms. "Wooden, bedroom drawers, no fabric, adult, $200 or less" is what I came up with. The results were worse than for the basic search. "Wood" these days can be used to describe anything from particle board, engineered, laminate, bamboo, and alloy. What? Do the online sites not understand the term "wood"?

One time, I did find a decent-looking item. It was on Amazon. The price was very decent (originally $295 but on sale for $175) and with over 8000 customer ratings. The problem is that the ratings were wonky - 57% 5-star ratings and 11%  1-star ratings. If that wasn't bad enough, some of the reviews were of the "get what you pay for" type. Of course, you usually do get what you pay for but, in reviews, that phrase is not promising especially when some of the photos showed broken parts and cosmetic damage. Oh, and, most of the first reviews I read indicated that people bought the dresser for a child's room or the nursery. ~sigh~

So, okay. Maybe I was shooting for too low of a price. I upped the maximum price limit to $250.  I know that's not a lot but I'm not furnishing a stately home. I'm only looking for something to store some clothing. If it's not ugly and won't fall over if I lean against it, that would be great. 

After searching for at least 2 weeks, I grew sick of seeing even more "cube" or fabric "drawers". I don't think it should be legal to use the term "fabric" for any type of dresser drawer. "Fabric" should be for under drawers, if you know what I mean.  At least the word "cube" lets me immediately know to skip the item. And the photos... So sneaky! I'd see something that, in the product photos, looked like wood only for customer photos to show webbing or plastic painted to give the appearance of wood.

Then, one day, the heavens opened, golden light shone down and angels sang. My brother (who often buys pallets of goods for resale) got a couple of boxes of furniture in a load. And, boy, I was so happy when 2 of the boxes contained dressers! And of course, because my entire family is wonderful like this, my brother gave me one of the boxes. Yes!

My brother had just had surgery to remove a GIST so he had to have someone else bring the heavy box to me and I would have to do the assembly. I was ready for it and had a neighbor as a helper.  I unpacked everything and she went and tossed the box and all the styrofoam and plastic out in time to catch the garbage truck. (This was a big box and took up a lot of room that I do not have.)

So now I had a free dresser (and not the cheap kind either) and an assembly helper. This is when you'd think I was home free, right? I was not.

In our excitement, my neighbor and I started doing the assembly before we realized we were missing something. Quite a few somethings... Somethings as in most of the pieces needed. That's when we looked at the instructions and saw that the dresser was a 1-of-2 box situation. We think that the box we threw out was Box 1. 

I will skip over the rest to say that my brother then had someone bring me the other box. His friend had to go look for it in the garage. That box turned out to be Box 2 but... it was Box 2 of an entirely different dresser.  The first dresser was a beautiful white-washed ash-blonde chest model made in Thailand. The second was a dove gray double dresser made in Brazil. I loved the chest model but the double dresser wasn't shabby either.

I gotta find the other box!

Now I had not only stressed myself out, but I also had created (or found) a problem for my brother. He was going to have to contact his pallet supplier to straighten things out because the missing boxes were not on his pallet. Somewhere, someone else was missing boxes. (I know. I'm still confused!)

Today, I still do not have a dresser. However, I do have parts to one fully unboxed dresser and another partially unboxed dresser stacked at the foot of my bed. Everything that would normally go in and on top of a dresser is in stacks around the rest of the room. It's a nightmare trying to maneuver around.

I don't even know if I still want a dresser. I'm thinking of making random stacks of stuff a design trend...

If you were to visit me right now, you would see a decently cute (but crowded) kitchen, a beautiful budget living room, and a nicely organized bathroom. At that point, you would think that I had done an amazing job creating a pleasant living space on the tightest budget in the world. But you might wonder what was behind the mysterious closed door - which is 1 of only 2 interior doors. No one but myself is allowed to open that door. Behind that door is the bedroom that I am hiding. 

Anyway, once I regain my strength and the will to care, I will deal with the dresser/bedroom situation. My brother is still recuperating from surgery and dealing with moving his daughter out of his and into her own house. I can't be mad that it will take him a while to figure out how to get me my free dresser.

Pray for me. And stage a protest against dressers with cubes and fabric drawers.

Peace

--Free