Why I Love My Job

The last big jobs we had were for a local builder that needed new homes staged. In their communities there's always a model home that has the sales office in the garage. The model stays decorated for up to a year before it's sold. The first home we had about a week and a half to completely furnish and decorate 1400 square foot house from the ground up. They gave us a budget of $15,000 and set us free. Well, to choose everything. Then Catie (the builder employee in charge of us) would go look at our choices, make changes if necessary, and purchase everything. That meant for the days leading up to her being with us, Lisa and I would go to store after store choosing things, filling carts, and asking the managers if they would hold the merchandise for us until the 'money girl' could come buy it. Most stores were very willing to hold stuff for us for 1 day. We'd then go back through our store list (sometimes up to three locations of the same store) and pick everything up. Lisa has said countless times that part of the reason she hired me was based on the fact that I own an Expedition. The first day of shopping with Catie we filled four SUV's!

By the time we'd gotten to our second model for them Catie was one of us and spent some of the shopping days with us. We still did some stock piling and next day purchasing, but she went for a lot of it. I'm just there to give my opinion from time to time and haul stuff, they make the big decisions. Because of that, this happens a lot.

Sitting right on the floor in the middle of the aisle in Hobby Lobby picking which plates and chargers look the best together. I've taken pictures of Lisa on the floor in Bed, Bath, and Beyond feeling bath mats, lost in a ficus forest at Garden Ridge looking for the perfect one, and the floor in Ross unpacking plates. Now Catie is joining her. I'll just stay up out of the way and take pictures and giggle.

For the second home we were able to pull things from an older model that was badly decorated. Because of that we took a couch from there for the media room of the new house. That meant we had to buy a couch, chair and ottoman, coffee table, and a sofa table for the old model. I was in San Francisco when they did the furniture shopping so I had no idea what was going where. Catie and Lisa did one last day of shopping and left me at the house to start working. I was also there to tell the two furniture stores where everything went when they got there. One store said they'd be there from 9:48-11:48 and the other store never said.

At exactly 11:46 both showed up at the door.

I didn't know who had what so I gave both a quick tour of the house and went back to work. I saw the leather couch come in and watched it being put in place. It was really nice! I turned around to see a chair and ottoman coming in. The men put those down and I realized they were brown micro fiber. The couch was leather and the chair and ottoman micro fiber. I began to worry and as I turned around to question it I noticed two men coming in with a micro fiber couch. And right behind them?? The leather loveseat. Before I could answer their questions or place a call to Lisa I realized I had 2 coffee tables as well. Holy cow!!

Maybe I shouldn't have been left alone!

When I got Lisa on the phone she explained that to save money the furniture for the model we were fixing had been delivered to this house. The builder had some men that were going to come pick it up and get it out of our way. Only problem at that point? It was in the mess of what looked like a furniture store in the living room! And guess what I realized about a minute and a half before Lisa and Catie got back? We didn't have a kitchen table.

I'm surprised I still have my job.
Luckily both of them love me and saw the humor in it. The sales person that forgot to put the kitchen table on the order form?? They're still not very happy with him.